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There are few composers who can be credited with the creation of an entirely new musical form. While Johann Carl Gottfried Loewe was the first to use the term 'Tondichtung' (tone poem), referring to a piece he composed for solo piano, and César Franck wrote an orchestral piece based on the poetry of Victor Hugo (which was not published or even performed for years after its creation), Franz Liszt is considered the first to write a' Symphonische Dichtung' (symphonic poem), as he called it. Intended to move music away from abstract forms and toward a clear plot, if not a definitive narrative, the tone poem grew out of the concert overture, as a stand-alone piece of instrumental music with its own story, in the vein of Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony No. 6, or Mendelssohn's 'Hebrides Overture'. Liszt ultimately composed thirteen symphonic poems, but his third, 'Les Préludes', is the first to which he gave that name, at its premiere in February 1854, and is considered the most popular and influential of the set, given its work in thematic transformation, looking to the future beyond simple theme-and-variations development. The title is a reference to Alphonse de Lamartine's 'Nouvelles méditations poétiques', written in 1823, and the score was prefaced by a meditation written by Liszt's companion Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein: What else is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown Hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?—Love is the glowing dawn of all existence; but what is the fate where the first delights of happiness are not interrupted by some storm, the mortal blast of which dissipates its fine illusions, the fatal lightning of which consumes its altar; and where is the cruelly wounded soul which, on issuing from one of these tempests, does not endeavour to rest his recollection in the calm serenity of life in the fields? Nevertheless man hardly gives himself up for long to the enjoyment of the beneficent stillness which at first he has shared in Nature's bosom, and when “the trumpet sounds the alarm“, he hastens, to the dangerous post, whatever the war may be, which calls him to its ranks, in order at last to recover in the combat full consciousness of himself and entire possession of his energy. Score sourced through the International Music Score Library Project / Petrucci Music Library: This video is produced for educational purposes, for the benefit of amateurs, enthusiasts, and professional musicians alike. No claim of ownership is made over the component parts of this video.
