Annees Bk. 3

Les Jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este
It is obvious, when listening to a piece like this that the impressionist masters owe a great deal to the workings of Liszt and his ability to paint a picture of water with music. This also serves as a great example of extreme virtuosity used for the purposes of coloristic effect rather than showing off. The absence of any bass support is interesting, seeing as how Franz Liszt requires the use of his treble voice to create the “shimmering”. The means that the left hand is mostly required to supply the melodic content while the right hand provides the scene. I believe that in this way the compositional technique is similar to the literal picture. When one see’s water during the daytime they are not concerned with what is underneath, they are limited only to the sight of the light and ripples on the top. As Liszt descends throughout the piece one gets the impression that he is immersing himself spiritually into the depths of the water, not necessarily literally, but more like he is internalizing the idea to an extreme and envisioning himself as a medium for the communication of water as an art form.
Aux Cypres de la Villa d’E #1
The tonality is very intriguing at the start of this piece. The key, as well as the first right hand chord, suggest that we are in B-flat major. The presence of the F-sharp in the bass creates a tonality suggesting that we are in F-sharp major. The voicing suggests that we are in a dark and ominous key that one would associate with being in minor. It appears that Franz Liszt was far removing himself from conventional voice leading with this work. The harmonies serve no functional use, as to say they do not follow a classically inspired progression. The purpose here is to exploit overtones with the natural timbres of the piano to create something uniquely visionary. We see at the tranquillo section that our bass line is continuing to supply the lower half of a sixth, representing its own voice rather than a supporting accompaniment. At the coda we receive a prime example of Liszt’s orchestration abilities at the piano. The rolled chords in the treble voice over top of the supporting and thick bass texture sounds like an obvious precursor to the symphonic works of Wagner and Strauss (notably the coda to the Flying Dutchman overture).