TP2039091

(1811-1886) BEN BEN SCHOEMAN SCHOEMAN FRANZ LISZT

Après une Lecture du Dante:

19:04 1 Vallée d’Obermann Fantasia quasi Sonata (Années de Pèlerinage, Second year, Italy, S.161) 15:18 Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este 2 (Années de Pèlerinage, Endler Hall, First year, Switzerland, S.160) 9:23 Sonata in B minor, S.178 LISZT 3 Recorded at: (Années de Pèlerinage,: 77:05 Third year, S.163) Total Luis Magalhães 33:18 on DecemberBen Schoeman18 - 21, 2010 (piano)Gerhard Roux 4 Stellenbosch University Artists: Gerhard Roux Produced by: W. Heuer Musikhaus

Tim Lengfeld Balance engineer: Glitz-design Studio 1B Piano tuner: Justin Versfeld, Leon van Zyl Edited and Mixed Masteredby: by:

Graphic Design:Photography: 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist for Music Assistants:

Bösendorfer 280 concert piano

BBenen Schoeman.inddSchoeman.indd SpreadSpread 1 ofof 6 - Pages(12,Pages(12, 1)1) 111/03/281/03/28 12:2912:29 Switzerland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom. Born into a musical family, Ben Schoeman studied the piano from a young age under the guidance of Joseph LISZT Stanford in . After winning all the national music competitions in South Africa he moved to Italy, where he studied with Michel Dalberto, Louis Lortie and Boris Petrushansky at the Accademia His performance Pianistica ‘Incontri col Maestro’ in Imola. of Brahms’ Second There he obtained a Master Concert Piano Concerto with Diploma together with a MMus Degree the Cape Philharmonic in Performing Arts (cum laude) from the Orchestra was described as University of Pretoria. He currently lives “powerful…with enormous musical in London, where he is pursuing doctoral insight and pianistic command” studies at the Guildhall School of Music (). and Drama and London City University Ben Schoeman has a lively international under the supervision of Ronan O’Hora performing career. He has played in and Christopher Wiley. prestigious concert halls such as the In 2008 he received the Laureate Award from Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall the University of Pretoria Alumni Association in London, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the for his achievements as well as his contribution Gulbenkian Auditorium in Lisbon and the to music in South Africa. Salon Music and Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest. He UNISA recently launched his DVD-recording of has performed in solo- and chamber music concertos by Mozart and Tchaikovsky. recitals at various international festivals in This debut solo album under the TwoPianists the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Italy, label is sponsored by Standard Bank.

BBenen Schoeman.inddSchoeman.indd SpreadSpread 2 ofof 6 - Pages(2,Pages(2, 11)11) 111/03/281/03/28 12:3012:30 Ben Schoeman is regarded as one of South During the mid-nineteenth century, the century. The fi gures behind this avant-garde Africa’s foremost pianists. He has won major development of Western art music came envisioned a new music that was part of prizes, including the coveted gold medal and to be shaped by two opposing but equally human experience, as an art amongst the fi rst prize in the Royal Over-Seas League infl uential schools of thought. On the arts. Music was seen as the unifying art par Music Competition in London (2009) and one hand, the tradition of Beethoven was excellence, not only bringing the various art the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for continued, with stress laid on the idea forms together, as in Wagner’s music-dramas Music (2011). In 2008 he became the fi rst of music as an end unto itself, an art where theatre, prose, music and visual art South African to win the fi rst grand prize in transcending the time-bound limitations of were combined, but also in bringing into art the 11th UNISA Vodacom International Piano day-to-day existence. This came to be seen as a refl ection of the sufferings and joys of the Competition in Pretoria. the more artistically conservative viewpoint, human spirit. A regular performer on the main stages of where musical pieces were seen in abstract his home country, Ben has played a wide terms and independent of those who created After a lecture by critic Karl Franz Brendel at range of concertos with the , them: ‘form moving through time’, as Eduard an 1859 gathering of composers and critics in KwaZulu-Natal and Cape Philharmonic Hanslick so famously put it. Traditional formal Leipzig, this avant-garde movement became Orchestras. His recent nationwide genres, such as the symphony, the concerto, known as the New German School. Despite tour received rave reviews and he and the solo sonata and other chamber works, the name, the inspirational fathers of the was praised for his “dazzling were given precedence in the repertoire. This New German School were a cosmopolitan virtuosity” (Pretoria News) ‘art for art’s sake’ standpoint was perhaps bunch: the French Berlioz, the German as well as his “magical embodied most aptly by the thematic Wagner, and the Hungarian Liszt. Also, music-making” cohesiveness and formal intricacies whether they really constituted a unifi ed (Classic Feel of the non-programmatic music school of thought is a bit of a moot point. Magazine). of Johannes Brahms. On the However, in the eyes of critics and historians, other hand, a new and it is a general unifying ethos that renders this daring avant-garde collection of composers a ‘school’. This ethos movement arose manifested itself in the fundamental nature of around the the music that was composed. With Wagner, middle we saw the creation of music dramas, grand of the mythological narratives set to music. Berlioz,

BBenen Schoeman.inddSchoeman.indd SpreadSpread 3 ofof 6 - Pages(10,Pages(10, 3)3) 111/03/281/03/28 12:3012:30 with his Symphonie Fantastique and Harold the most thematically unifi ed, formalistic works piece even more impressive is that the the piece’. After being en Italie, introduced to music the idea of to ever have been composed by a Romantic majority of the material for the entire work subjected to the scrutiny the program symphony, a multi-movement pen: the B minor Piano Sonata. is derived from only fi ve core thematic of Peter Raabe, musical interpretation of literature or The three suites of piano pieces rallied elements, which Liszt was able to masterfully better known for his role at LISZT autobiography. And with Liszt, we fi nd a beneath the banner Années de Pèlerinage, transform and weave into a piece of epic the head of the National Socialist plethora of programmatic pieces, not only or ‘Years of Pilgrimage’, were Liszt’s musical proportions. If there ever was an example of Reichsmusikkammer than his for piano but also for orchestra, such as the homage to his wanderings across Europe Liszt’s ‘thematic metamorphosis’ technique, musicological acumen, the unsubstantiated thirteen orchestral tone poems. These latter between 1835 and 1839. The fi rst of these this is it. idea that the Sonata portrays the Faust works included Les Préludes and Orpheus, suites, depicting aspects of his travels in As a result of this incredible feat of musical legend was born. Speculation in program with Liszt’s aim being to establish a corpus Switzerland, was composed between 1848 planning, the Piano Sonata has easily notes and in popular biographical sketches of single movement orchestral pieces viewed and 1854, with publication in following in become one of the most analysed of Liszt’s have also resulted in the ever-predictable as serious artworks in their own right. 1855. The original source of much of the works, if not one of the most analysed works autobiographical program being thrust on material for this fi rst set of pieces was an in the entire Romantic canon. The result the Sonata, as well as a plethora of religious *** earlier work, Album d’un voyageur, written of this frenzied analysis has at times been interpretations. But no comment on the between 1835 and 1836 (published 1842). quizzical. Today, we understand more than program speaks more loudly than Liszt’s The centrality of Franz Liszt (1811-1886) The other two volumes of Pilgrimage suites ever about the way human brains pick apart silence on the matter. Perhaps it is best then to the New German School is undeniable. (published 1858 and 1883 respectively) were complex auditory patterns such as music. that we simply accept the mighty B minor Furthermore, the eminence of Liszt’s pupils, inspired by Liszt’s visits to Italy. This period It is certain that very few details of the Sonata not as something to be explained such as Carl Tausig and Hans von Bülow, of extensive travel was not just the result architectural master-plan of such a large-scale against the backdrop of Liszt’s life, but rather have served to make his role as a leading of a yearning for cultural exploration. Liszt work can be discerned by the listener without as another part of the paradoxical puzzle representative of the avant-garde all the also used this time to promote his career prior theoretical analysis. Nonetheless, that is musical Romanticism. And, regardless more apparent. Yet in his output, Liszt, like as a pianist, which later would explode into critics continue to pick apart the Sonata’s of our attempts to categorise the Sonata, to so many other Romanticists, is a composer one of the most remarkable in the history constituent parts, explaining obscure and frame it in terms of the New German School of paradoxes. On this disc, for instance, we of Western music. Furthermore, eloping with questionable relationships in ways that are or formalism or speculative narratives, it fi nd not only programmatic pieces we would his lover, the Countess Marie d’Agoult, was largely irrelevant to the listener’s experience. will remain a unique masterwork of the expect from a prominent fi gure in New German the initial catalyst for Liszt’s departure from In addition, in this, the least programmatic nineteenth century in its own right. School, such as the three featured selections Paris. The Countess was unhappily married of Liszt’s works, there has been a desperate Barry Ross from his Années de Pèlerinage, but also one of to Count Charles d’Agoult, with whom she search for an explanation of the ‘story behind

BBenen Schoeman.inddSchoeman.indd SpreadSpread 4 ofof 6 - Pages(4,Pages(4, 9)9) 111/03/281/03/28 12:3012:30 was employed by a German nobleman, and in which this work is held today, it was at had a child. Liszt began his affair with her that Liszt ever wrote, was completed in was once again in love with a wealthy member fi rst not very warmly received. Brahms, Anton in 1832 when he was 22 years old; she was 1849, seeing publication in 1856 as part of of the aristocracy. The legal wrangling involved Rubinstein, and Eduard Hanslick were not six years his senior. In 1834, the death of the second of the Pilgrimage suites. It takes in Princess Carolyne’s attempt to annul her enamoured by the Sonata when they fi rst Marie’s daughter brought her closer to Liszt. little imagination to realise that the work marriage into the Wittgenstein family caught heard it. In fact, it proved so diffi cult and She fell pregnant with their fi rst child in by Dante referred to in the title is none the attention of Tsar Nicholas I himself. At one unappealing to performers that it had to Paris the following year, and the certainty other than the famous Divine Comedy, with stage, her vast wealth was actually forfeited wait three years for a première. The Sonata of an ensuing scandal proved a major factor the pit of Hell terrifyingly captured in the along with her rights as a subject of the Tsar. was dedicated to Robert Schumann, in in the couple’s decision to move to Geneva. chromaticism of the fi rst theme. The second While the legalities continued, Liszt proceeded recognition of Schumann’s dedication to Liszt Their affair would ultimately result in two more chorale-like theme plainly represents the to have an affair with Agnes Street-Klindworth, of the Fantasy in C major, op. 17. The Sonata children (one of whom was Cosima, fi rst wife to ecstasy of eternal heavenly bliss. A formally a spy for the retired Napoleonic Congress is a tour de force of musical architecture. Hans von Bülow and later Richard Wagner). adventurous two-movement version of the of Vienna diplomat Klemens Wenzel von Essentially a four-movement work, it is work had previously been premièred in Vienna Metternich. Despite this affair, Liszt left Weimar played through without pause between the Awareness of both personal experiences as early as 1839, but it is the later Années de and followed Princess Carolyne to Rome movements, giving the superfi cial listener and the world of literature are well-known Pèlerinage version presented here that has around 1860, where she successfully petitioned a sense of a single long piece. Closer hallmarks of musical Romanticism. The found a place in the repertoire. The title ‘After the Pope for annulment of her marriage inspection, however, reveals a telescopic pieces comprising the three suites Années a Reading of Dante’ is actually an allusion to after a year and a half. The couple’s plan to formal plan – the four individual movements, de Pèlerinage are typical in this respect. yet another literary infl uence: it is also the marry was, however, again thwarted by legal when considered together, actually comprise From a literary angle, it is largely to Goethe title of a poem by Victor Hugo. problems; once again, potential ownership of one large overarching sonata form. In this that Liszt looked for inspiration, in particular the Princess Carolyne’s vast fortune was at respect, it is sometimes said that Schubert’s Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre More literary references can issue. In the end, the couple gave up hope Wanderer Fantasy may have provided the (‘Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship’). Goethe’s be found with Liszt’s Vallée and never married. precedent for this formal arrangement. If it novel is one of self-realisation: a Romantic d’Obermann, published in did, it was certainly a precedent and not an Bildungsroman. Further literary inspiration is 1855 as part the fi rst With hindsight, arguably the crowning exemplar: such a monumental architecture in evidence with Après une lecture du Dante: of the Pilgrimage achievement and success of the Weimar years had never been so seamlessly achieved in Fantasia Quasi Sonata, or ‘After a Reading of suites. was the mighty Piano Sonata in B minor, S. the history of Western music, and was not Dante: Fantasy quasi Sonata’, perhaps better 178, which was composed between 1852 and successfully achieved again until Schönberg’s known simply as the ‘Dante Sonata.’ This 1853 (published 1854). Despite the esteem First Chamber Symphony. What makes the work, one of the most technically challenging

BBenen Schoeman.inddSchoeman.indd SpreadSpread 5 ofof 6 - Pages(8,Pages(8, 5)5) 111/03/281/03/28 12:3012:30 ‘Obermann’s Valley’ was the title of a popular la Villa d’Este in 1839. It is to a different Liszt we turn French novel by Étienne Pivert de Senancour. (‘The Fountains of now, upon his decision to move to Weimar, This odd novel featured a collection of letters the Villa d’Este’) was some nine years later. In the interim, Liszt by a fi ctional character who, in spite of his composed in 1877, and was had embarked on a series of highly successful comfortable retirement in a valley in the Jura published as part of the third concert tours. These piano ‘recitals’ (it was Liszt Alps, is reduced to a melancholic state by and fi nal Pilgrimage suite, three who brought the term ‘recital’ into currency) pangs of loneliness. years before Liszt’s death. UNESCO cemented his reputation as one of the great Liszt’s reference to Senancour is World Heritage Site, the Villa d’Este is a pianists of the nineteenth century. Over cemented with the inclusion of two postcard example of the architectural genius this period, the Grand Duke of Weimar, Carl quotations from the book on the of the Italian Renaissance. Liszt was lucky Alexander, extended to Liszt several invitations title page of the score. He enough to be hosted at the Villa by Cardinal to join the Weimar Court. The Duke, who also added the following Gustav von Hohenlohe, who was himself a shared Liszt’s artistic aspirations, offered him lines of verse, from keen appreciator of European art and cultural the position of Kapellmeister, and eventually, Lord Byron’s history. Under the Cardinal’s ownership, the in 1848, Liszt accepted. Weimar attracted Liszt Childe Harold’s gardens, fountains, and buildings of the Villa due to its reputation as a seat of the arts, Pilgrimage: d’Este were restored after years of neglect by and the general quality of its musicianship. It Maria Beatrice, wife of Grand Duke Ferdinand was in Weimar that Liszt the performer began The of Habsburg. The Villa is today a place of to take a back seat to Liszt the composer. third great cultural history, and one of the jewels Ultimately, his time in Weimar would be of selection of Europe. We can only imagine what it would mixed success; he eventually left in 1859 for from the have been like to witness the cultured Cardinal Rome. Liszt was followed to Weimar by the Années de playing host to Franz Liszt in the gardens of second great love of his life, the Princess Pèlerinage suites this resplendent palace! Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. Princess to be featured on Carolyne had, by inheritance, control over vast this disc turns away from *** tracts of land in the Ukraine and a reported literature, and looks toward the 30,000 serfs. Another paradoxical moment beauty of Renaissance architecture Liszt’s affair with Marie d’Agoult had run its for egalitarian Romanticism: Liszt, with an for inspiration. Les jeux d’eaux à course by the end of the Years of Pilgrimage increasing awareness of Hungarian nationalism,

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