Liszt: Hunnenschlacht, symphonic poem No. 11, S105 (Battle of the Huns)

This is the third CD in a critically acclaimed series entitled ‘Liszt: The Sound of Weimar’ which NCA is releasing as part of the celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the great Hungarian composer’s birth. These recordings are by the Vienna Academy Orchestra with the esteemed Austrian conductor Martin Haselböck, and as with the previous two discs the music on volume 3 is performed on original instruments of the 19th Century. Liszt wrote 13 symphonic poems in all, and the three featured here, ‘Hunnenschlacht’, ‘Mazeppa’, and ‘Hungaria’, are listed as being numbers 11, 9, and 6 respectively.

The orchestral project ‘The Sound of Weimar’ will include all the orchestral works of Franz Liszt in the original orchestration of the live premieres in Weimar. The recordings are taking place at the Austrian Liszt Raiding Centre, and will all be made at performances in seven concerts during 2011 and 2012 by the Vienna Academy Orchestra under the direction of Martin Haselböck. The first two CDs in the series were the Dante Symphony (60234), which was released at the end of last year, and a disc featuring the Symphonic Poems ‘Les Preludes’, ‘Orpheus’, and the ‘Berg-Symphonie’ (60246), which was released last month.

The renowned Austrian conductor Martin Haselböck is the musical director of Musica Angelica in Santa Monica, California, and the musical director and founder of the Vienna Academy Orchestra. He is also a professor at the University of Vienna, where he teaches organ.

The recording here of Symphonie Fantastique was made during Ansermet’s last tour, in Japan, in 1968. It was a huge success and hundreds of Japanese queued up at the end of the concert in hope of getting the old master’s autograph. A witness recounts that thousands of copies of his recording of the Symphonie Fantastique were sold the day after the concert!

This is the fourth volume of the BBC Phiharmonic’s five-disc cycle of Liszt’s Symphonic Poems, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. This monumental survey continues to go from strength to strength through Noseda’s passionate conducting and innate Italian romanticism and has made possible a reappraisal of these unjustly neglected works. The Telegraph wrote, “…it is hard to imagine them ever sounding better than here. This is music-making full of rich colouring, refined shaping of melodic line and emotional power.”

Between 1848 and 1858 Liszt wrote twelve Symphonic Poems. He coined the term Symphonische Dichtung around 1853 to describe these musical works whose ideas were inspired by other art forms such as poetry or painting, or by characters and scenes. The works were particularly revolutionary for they are one-movement compositions, rather than the traditional four-movement form and pushed the boundaries of orchestration, form, harmony and structure.

In this fourth instalment, the BBC Philharmonic presents four key works in Liszt’s symphonic catalogue. Widely acknowledged as one of Liszt’s greatest works, Hamlet is rarely performed, yet widely acknowledged as one of Liszt’s greatest works, and chronologically the last of the symphonic poems to be composed. It was intended as an overture to Shakespeare’s play. Hungaria was composed following Liszt’s first return visit to Hungary in 1839 having moved from his homeland aged 11. He was welcomed with open arms as a great celebrity and artist by his compatriots Undoubtedly inspired by this visit, the post Vörösmarty wrote his patriotic ode ‘To Ferenc Liszt’ to which Liszt eventually responded with his episodic work, Hungaria. Die Ideale is a highly episodic work based on quotes from a poem by Friedrich Schiller and was first played in 1857 in Weimar, conducted by the composer. The final work, Battle of the Huns takes its inspiration from Kaulbach’s painting of Attila the Hun.

The final volume of this epic series is released in 2009 and will include the Dante Symphony.