Many of Liszt’s early virtuosic works for piano are limited by a rigidified conception of thematic substance: the sonorous and harmonic impressionism in introductions and bridge passages does not disguise the finite and static treatment of themes. This problem found effective solution during the 1850s. With reference in particular to the first book of the Années de Pélérinage, it is shown how Liszt, even before Wagner, succeeded in making »his whole art [...] an art of transition« by systematic exploration of symmetrical, cyclic (octatonic, hexatonic) tonal spaces. The opening up of space within the thematic substance makes the forms of musical time themselves fluid and infinitely makes the forms of musical time themselves fluid and infinitely expandable, a potentiality exploited to the full by Wagner in Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal, and hinted at in the famously enigmatic line from the latter »Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit«. The introduction of »tonal space« as a compositional means can be logically related to an increase in the use of octatonic and hexatonic pitch collections as substitutes for diatonic tonality, a process that occurred around the turn from the 19th to the 20th century and that can be set against modernist historiographical narratives of the »dissolution of tonality« as apologia for the dodecaphonic method. Tonal space is further interpreted here as an expressive and not merely technical resource, carrying particular cultural connotations such as landscape, poetic transcendence, and magic. The importance of such meanings suggests the need to take a more interpretative and less »material« view of music history itself.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:87072 |
| Date | 12 September 2023 |
| Creators | Pritchard, Matthew |
| Contributors | Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst |
| Publisher | PFAU-Verlag |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | German |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:bookPart, info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 7, urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa2-854170, qucosa:85417 |
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