When Franz Liszt described his life as an odyssey largely female audiences and gave rise to the beneficiaries of his largesse. He supported them Liszt’s entire adult life was characterised by a of love, he meant it in the widest possible sense. term “Lisztomania”. Many made a beeline for financially and also by presenting his own piano tension between the erotic and the religious. Neurotic, self-obsessed, and intense, his life was the glamorous green-eyed composer’s dressing- transcriptions or reminiscences of their most And his religious works, which are often simpler, a canvas where almost anything was possible. room after the concert was over and some were characteristic melodies, usually from songs and less showy and perhaps more heartfelt than some He was not the sort of romantic who loitered entertained in his hotel room. However, of the opera. Frühlingsnacht and Ständchen are just of his more well-known concert pieces, are also and sighed, but a man of great energy, immense many courtesans and countesses with whom he two examples of a vast number of such pieces, under-exposed. Alleluja and Sancta Dorothea curiosity, and a very low boredom threshold. was linked, two stand out. which formed a major part of his compositional are just two of the many gems he wrote under Whatever he did or felt was usually done with output and were a regular feature of his concert Carolyne’s watchful eye. And after the failure passionate intensity and conviction. Three The first was Marie d’Agoult, a married aristo- programmes. of his marriage plans, he took minor orders and particular loves characterise his life, running crat who became both muse and mistress to the became an abbé. through it like continuous obsessive threads - young virtuoso. She was also the mother of his However, while his pianistic virtuosity went women, religion and music. three children: Blandine, Daniel and Cosima. from strength to strength, as a composer the In old-age Liszt’s compositional style became Marie is a fascinating figure - an intelligent young Liszt was something of a dilettante. And increasingly epigrammatic. The great show- Hailed as a new Mozart when only six years old, and touching letter-writer and diarist, as well while the genesis of many of his compositions man now saw the world as a darker place and Liszt was a child prodigy in more ways than one. as a thoughtful critic. She ran away from her took place under the gaze of Marie d’Agoult, the works of his final years, such asAt Richard By the time he was eleven he was supporting husband and family to join the 24-year old their completion was assured by the muse of Wagner’s Grave point to the 20th century in his family from his earnings as a pianist and composer in Switzerland. The four years they Liszt’s middle age: the cigar-smoking Polish their bold explorations of the limits of tonality composer. He was barely a teenager when his spent travelling there and in Italy, sometimes intellectual, Princess Carolyne Wittgenstein. and their pithy, austere expression. opera Don Sanche was premiered in Paris to with companions like Chopin and George Sand, Carolyne is a much misunderstood and under- considerable acclaim. However, by then his were perhaps the happiest of her life and they appreciated figure. She persuaded Liszt to give The music in Odyssey of Love is not in chronologi- interest in glamorous aristocratic ladies was also provided Liszt with the raw material for many up his career as a virtuoso and settle in Weimar cal order. It was chosen to reflect the mood of the well-formed, as was a strong sense of religious of his most celebrated piano pieces, such as the to devote himself to composition, becoming letters and thus enhance the narrative. purpose that frequently conflicted with his Petrarch Sonnet No. 104 from the Italian volume midwife to the prolific quantity of music he erotic impulses. So, at the age of seventeen, a of his Années de Pélerinage or Years of Pilgrimage. wrote there. He found it almost impossible to disastrous relationship with his pupil Caroline Marie tasted the bohemian life with him and compose without her and he dedicated many of © 2014 Lucy Parham de St. Criq precipitated a religious crisis that loved it. But the idyll was not to last and eventu- his finest pieces to her. The story of their failure caused him temporarily to train as a priest. ally she tired of his needy ego. to marry is a sad and compelling one of which is told in the second half of the programme. Liszt loved women and women were drawn Though Liszt could be neurotically self- Chasse-neige is one of the many works he wrote to him. They flocked to his concerts, where obsessed, he was also immensely generous and at this time. An expressively monolithic piece, it his ecstatic performances (he was the first supportive of other musical talents. Schubert, is one of the great tone poems in piano literature, pianist to present recitals without the music) Schumann, Chopin, Berlioz and Wagner “a sublime and steady fall of snow which gradu- caused fainting and hysteria among his were just some of many composers who were ally buries landscape and people.” Page 1 Page 2 Juliet Stevenson is one of the most respected actors of her genera- Leading British actor Henry Goodman is a two-time winner of tion. Having studied at RADA, she started her stage career with the the Olivier Best Actor Award, winner of the Critics’ Circle and Royal Shakespeare Company. Her television career took off when TMA awards, multiple award nominee for Evening Standard, she appeared in the popular TV serialization of Catherine Cookson’s Critics Circle, WhatsonStage and TMA awards. He received a novels, The Mallens. Juliet later made her name in films playing Nina best actor award in 2012 for The Rise and Fall of Arturo Ui at opposite Alan Rickman in Truly, Madly, Deeply, a performance the Chichester Festival Theatre and in the West End (Duchess that won her the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actress. Theatre 2013). Other accolades include the Laurence Olivier Best Actress Award for Death and the Maiden and a BAFTA nomination for The Politician’s He starred in Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy (Arthur Winslow) at Wife. Juliet was awarded a CBE in 1999. Most recently she has been the Old Vic and as Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister at Chichester nominated for the Evening Standard Best Actress Award and for an Festival Theatre and in the West End. Olivier Award for her performance in Duet for One (West End). Other major West End, Broadway, RSC and Royal National Her film appearances include Being Julia; Mona Lisa Smile; Nicholas Sven Arnstein Theatre roles include: Duet for One (Dr Feldman/Almeida and Nickleby; Food For Love; Bend It Like Beckham; Emma; The Trial; Vaudeville), Richard III (RSC), Angels in America (Roy Cohn), Truly Madly Deeply; Ladder of Swords; Drowning By Numbers; Diana. photo Ben Ealovega photo Shylock (RNT), Fiddler on Roof (Tevye/Crucible, Sheffield & Savoy), City of Angels (Buddy/ Prince of Wales), Feelgood Her television includes: White Heat; The Hour; Dustbin Baby; Place of Execution; Lewis; Miss Marple; (Garrick), Theatre of Angels(Buddy/Prince of Wales), Assassins (Guiteau/Donmar), The Holy Rosenbergs Hear The Silence; The Pact; The Snow Queen; Cider With Rosie; Stone, Scissors, Paper; The Politician’s (David/RNT), Chicago (Billy Flynn/West End), Art (Marc/Wyndhams), Broken Glass (RNT), Guys Wife; A Doll’s House; Out of Love; Stanley; Life Story; Antigone; Freud; Bazaar and Rummage; Oedipus at and Dolls (Nathan Detroit/RNT). Henry Goodman has also appeared on Broadway in title roles in Colonus; The Village; Atlantis. Tartuffe, The Producers and Art (Serge). Her numerous theatre appearances include the following. For the RSC: Beckett Shorts; Les Liaisons He also appears regularly on BBC Radio and is a Sony Award winner. He was heard in Book of the Dangereuses; As You Like It; Troilus and Cressida; Measure For Measure; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Week Mitterand and Ivanhoe series, The Radetsky March (Joseph Roth) as Leopold Bloom on Bloomsday Money; Henry IV parts I & II; Hippolytus; Antony and Cleopatra; The Churchill Play; The Taming of the Radio, Priestley’s Angel Pavement (Golspie) and Henry James’ The Ambassadors (Lambert). Shrew; The Tempest. Other theatre: Duet for One (Almeida/ West End); Alice Trilogy; The Country; The Heretic; Other Worlds (Royal Court); The Seagull; Private Lives; Hedda Gabler; Yerma (National His TV appearances include Penny Dreadful (Adrian/ TV Sky Atlantic), Nixon (Henry Kissinger), The Theatre); eW Happy Few (West End); The Caucasian Chalk Circle (National Theatre and tour); The Making of Coronation Street (Sky Arts), New Tricks & Challenger (BBC Four), Alan Turing (Channel 4 Duchess of Malfi(Greenwich Theatre/West End); Death and the Maiden (Royal Court); On The Verge Docudrama), Midsommer Murders and New Tricks. (Sadler’s Wells); Happy Days (Young Vic). Page 3 Page 4 Acknowledged as one of Britain’s finest pianists, She came to public attention as the Piano Lucy Parham applies her sensitivity and imagi- Winner of the 1984 BBC Young Musician of nation not only to concertos and recitals, but also the Year. Since her Royal Festival Hall concerto to portraits in words and music of such compos- debut at age 16, she has played throughout the ers as Schumann, Chopin, Liszt and Debussy. UK as concerto soloist with most of the major Her life-long passion for the music of Schumann British orchestras and is a frequent recitalist at inspired the original concept of the words and the Wigmore Hall.