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The Limits of Tonality in the Late Music of Franz Liszt

1990; Duke University; Volume: 34; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/843836

1941-7497

James M. Baker,

Diversity and Impact of Dance

The music composed by Franz Liszt in the last years of his life has been the object of continual wonder and fascination, as well as a great deal of misunderstanding. Because of their concentrated experimentation, these short, austere compositions -mostly keyboard or sacred choral works-have always attracted scholars. Yet these pieces, so vastly different in style and expression from Liszt's earlier works, have been viewed more generally as the troubled, often morbid introspections of a once-great intellect past its prime-music that is not entirely successful and that does not exhibit the inspiration, beauty, and craft of Liszt's finest works. Recently, however, such pianists as Alfred Brendel and Maurizio Pollini have demonstrated that this music, if performed with passion and conviction, does have considerable appeal. We have only recently begun to understand the larger context and significance of the innovations in Liszt's later music and the depth and breadth of experimentation in his work as a whole. It is odd that his late pieces, considered by many to verge on atonality, have often been treated as aberrations without predecessor or successor, when in fact Liszt made a transition from conventional tonality toward atonality over a period of years. Indeed, if not the first atonalist, he was