Archivio di Aprile 2014

The young pupil of Liszt, Olga Janina, was the cause of several scandals (murder attempt on Liszt in 1871, publication of her Souvenirs d’une Cosaque from 1874 to 1878) that contributed to darken the reputation of the musician in the last part of his life. Therefore almost all the biographers of Liszt have been very caustic with her, both from a human point of view and artistic.
The time had come to undertake a serious biographical research, that is to say, free from hagiographic bias and based on the examination of reliable documentary sources. This research has led to the correction of most of the many errors, commonplaces and hasty judgments that have been uttered about Olga until today. It has also shed light on the artistic and adventurous life that Olga led after the death of Liszt, a life hitherto unknown but which lasted until the eve of World War I.

Around 1870, Stefano Gobatti had a period of great popularity, when his first opera I Goti, prémièred in Bologna in December 1873, met with such enthusiastic success that it was recorded by historians as one of the most resounding successes of the whole history of serious opera. Gobatti was awarded the Bolognese honorary citizenship when he was only 21, but after I Goti had been staged successfully in the most important Italian theatres, his following operas, Luce (1875) and Cordelia (1881) were less successful, while his last work Massias was never staged. Gobatti spent the final period of his life as a guest at the Osservanza Convent in Bologna. He is buried at the Certosa of Bologna.
The Archive of the Liszt Institute Foundation of Bologna keep a small handwritten sheet of paper with a fragment of the “In queste sale splendide” duet between Amalasunta and Gualtiero, from the second scene of the second act of Stefano Gobatti’s I Goti. The manuscript, one of the oldest in the whole collection of the Liszt Institute, is one of a packet purchased at an auction with other materials. The musical fragment consists of four bars, pen-written on a hand-drawn up stave: they are arranged for the piano and bear some slight rhythmic changes and the accompaniment in halved values in comparison with the original one.

Key words: Stefano Gobatti, I Goti, a nineteenth century opera.

In the present article are presented the results of my research during my doctoral studies in the Department of Music Science and Art at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki completed in 2010, on the six piano transcriptions of  Franz Liszt’s Dante Symphony for orchestra and female choir. In the first part, for the first time in the bibliography, all the information is summarized concerning the six transcriptions arranged by Franz Liszt (two pianos), Theophil Forchhammer, August Stradal and Carl Tausig (solo piano), Arthur Hahn (four hands), and János Végh (2 pianos eight hands). The second part summarizes the unknown parts of the lives and work of all the above transcribers and their relationship with Franz Liszt.

Key Words: Liszt’s Dante Symphony, Theophil Forchhammer, Arthur Hahn, August Stradal, Carl Tausig, János Végh.

The Missa Solennis is a milestone in Liszt’s œuvre, the composer himself regarded it as one of his favorite and most important compositions throughout his lifetime. While Liszt was entitled to feel himself as the spiritual successor of Beethoven in the genres of sonata and symphony, in his Missa Solennis he followed the tradition of Beethoven’s grand mass, that is of the Missa Solemnis.
Liszt sent his mass as a present to Pope Pius IX in 1859, just after the publication of the score in the hope that his composition could be performed also in St. Peters Basilica. In St Peter’s Basilica however it was not allowed to perform orchestral masses. For the planned Vatican performance Salvatore Meluzzi, the maestro of the Cappella Giulia the choir of the Basilica, was requested to transcribe an organ version of the mass with accompaniment of cello and contrabass, according to demands of the place. Liszt and Meluzzi were personally acquainted in autumn 1861 in Rome, and Liszt entertained Meluzzi several times in his home as his guest. They performed at the same concert of church music in Rome, and met at the meetings of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia to decide the programs of concerts and jubilees of church music. Meluzzi had an important role also in creating the Italian reform of church music, according to which the organ was the only instrument allowed for accompaniment of the voices during the liturgy, and sometimes it could be followed by some string instruments.
Comparing Liszt’s original score with Meluzzi’s transcription we face two different traditions, two aesthetical aims: on the one hand the tradition of the Baroque and Classical feast mass with tableaus of orchestral colours, on the other the style of church music with very pure, simple accompaniment according to the reform ideas. The study highlights the musical differences between the original score and the organ transcription of the mass against the background of these two traditions, and tries to find the role of the transcription in the music literature.

Key words: Franz Liszt, Salvatore Meluzzi, sacred music, Liszt’s Graner Messe.

This essay presents some unpublished letters (1863-1877) of Liszt to the composer Giovanni Pacini and his Roman student Maria Giuli, niece of Pacini, and letters of the same Giuli in which she speaks of Liszt. At the instance of Liszt (and thanks to the intervention of Giuli), Pacini sent to the Hungarian composer the score of his Sinfonia Dante, composed and performed in Florence during the celebrations of Dante’s sixth centenary (1865). One can easily suppose that Liszt’s interest stemmed from having himself composed only a few years earlier Eine Symphonie zu Dantes Divina Commedia, which was performed in Rome just a few months after the exchange of letters with Pacini. Other documents give information about Giuli and her relationship with the Accademia Nazionale di S. Cecilia. All these documents are kept in the Biblioteca nazionale centrale in Rome, in the “Fondo Giovanni Pacini” of the Museo civico in Pescia, and in the Archivio storico of the Accademia nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where Giuli was admitted in 1862.

Key words: Franz Liszt, Giovanni Pacini, Maria Giuli, Dante Symphony.

The paper is divided into two parts: Introduction and transcription of 29 unpublished documents held in the Richard-Wagner-Archiv in Bayreuth. In the Introduction the author expounds briefly the subject of each document, classifying them in categories, so that the reader can easily find the document he is interested in.

All the documents refer to Liszt’s biography, with news on different moments of his life. The most interesting are the four letters to Countess Marie Moukhanoff–Kalergis, written during the period of Cosima’s divorce from Hans von Bülow and her ensuing union with Wagner.

The edition of the documents is enriched by many footnotes which help in contextualising the related facts.

Key Words: Franz Liszt’s unpublished documents, Richard-Wagner-Archiv, Bayreuth.