Liszt: Festklänge, symphonic poem No. 7, S101

Having made revolutionary changes, during the 1830s and 40s, in both piano performance and composition, Liszt was hardly less innovative in his relationship with the orchestra. He is generally credited with having created the genre of the symphonic poem, in which a narrative or extra-musical idea is depicted within a structural framework usually associated with an abstract symphonic movement. In 1974 and 1977 Sir Georg Solti recorded five of the composer’s Tone Poems as well as the Mephisto Waltz No. 1 with the London Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris. With fabled ‘Decca Sound’, these recordings have been much sought after by collectors. Recently reissued in the (limited) Liszt Edition, they are now made available generally as a 2CD set.

The coupling is a much-praised version of the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies, in orchestrations by both the composer as well as Doppler, by Iván Fischer, considered one of the most important conductors of our time. The interpretations were unforgettably described by Gramophone, on their first appearance, as ‘frisky as foals and as flavoursome as goulash’. Even though he grew up in a family in which German was spoken, and although he left Hungary at a young age, Liszt regarded himself as a Hungarian, and he took considerable pride in that fact. Nevertheless, Liszt and Hungary did not always understand each other. He promoted the idea that Hungary’s true national music was the music of the Gypsies, not realising that many of the melodies played by Gypsy bands were in fact composed (but not written down) by Hungarian landowners whose families did not appreciate Liszt’s misattributions – particularly because the Gypsies were not highly regarded in Hungary. This, however, does nothing to diminish the popularity of the Hungarian Rhapsodies, six of which were orchestrated in conjunction with Franz Doppler, a flute virtuoso and a composer in his own right who met Liszt in 1854 and began orchestrating several of his rhapsodies three years later.

Performed on original instruments from the time of their first performance, this is the fifth and final volume in the critically acclaimed series “Liszt: The Sound of Weimar” which was initiated by the NCA label to mark the 200th anniversary of the great Hungarian composer’s birth. This disc by the Vienna Academy Orchestra under its highly-regarded Austrian conductor Martin Haselböck features four symphonic poems “for large orchestra”: No. 5 ‘Prometheus’, No. 7 ‘Festklänge’, No. 10 ‘Hamlet, and No. 13 ‘Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe’ (‘From Cradle to Grave’).

The project ‘The Sound of Weimar’ includes all the orchestral works of Franz Liszt in the original orchestration of the live premieres in Weimar. Recorded at the Austrian Liszt Raiding Centre, they come from performances at seven concerts during 2011 and 2012 made by the Vienna Academy Orchestra under the direction of Martin Haselböck. The first of the five-disc series featured the Dante Symphony (60234), and was followed by a first disc of symphonic poems including Les Preludes, Orpheus, and the Berg-Symphonie (60246). The third volume (60250) included three more symphonic poems, Hunnenschlacht, Hungaria, and Mazzepa. Tasso - Lamento e trionfo, Le Triomphe funèbre du Tasse, Héroïde funèbre, and Die Ideale were the works on Volume 4 (60254), also released this summer.

The Austrian conductor Martin Haselböck is the musical director of Musica Angelica in Santa Monica, California. He is the founder and also musical director of the Vienna Academy Orchestra, and with this ensmeble he has established a year-round cycle of concerts for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in the Great Hall of the Vienna Musikverein.

In addition Haselböck is a professor at the University of Vienna, where he teaches organ. “Compelling… Haselböck’s liberated textures open up new listening horizons that all lovers of this fine but still underrated music should investigate. I anticipate more revelations further along the way.” - Rob Cowan in Gramophone on ‘The Sound of Weimar Vol. 3

This 5-CD set comprises a series of live recordings made by the Orchester Wiener Akademie and its conductor Martin Haselböck of orchestral music by Franz Liszt. They were released to mark the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. It features all of the Symphonic Poems, the Dante Symphony and the beautiful Évocation à la Chapelle Sixtine. These critically-acclaimed performances from 2011 and 2012 are unique in that the orchestra performs on the original instruments or copies of the original instruments that were used at concerts conducted by the composer himself.

For “The Sound of Weimar” project, Liszt expert Martin Haselböck deployed the orchestra Wiener Akademie in exactly the size adopted for the original performances given by the Weimar Hofkapelle, and for the recordings made use of instruments that had either been played in concerts conducted by Franz Liszt himself or were faithful copies of such instruments. When the early CDs of the series appeared they were immediately described in such terms as “definitive recording”, “exemplary editions”, “a resounding success” or “a tonal phenomenon”. In addition to the symphonic poems this special edition also includes the Dante symphony, a work that was also composed at Weimar, and Évocation à la Chapelle Sixtine. Volumes 1 to 4 of the series won the International Franz Liszt Record Grand Prix in 2011 and 2012, and the series has received outstanding reviews in specialist magazines around the world.