Liszt's Artgstic Songs: An Introduction

As a prominent representative of the Western Romanist musicians in the 19th century, Liszt is a Hungarian pianist, composer, conductor and social activist. Hisgreatness lies in his creation of advanced Romanist program music--symphonicpoems by integrating his in-depth philosophical thoughts, solid literary foundation and his innovative composing principles. However, what is equally valuable and significant is his creation of lieder. Through a detailed analysis of Liszt's lieder, this thesis aims to explore their artistic values, appreciate their creative charms, and provide references for their performance.Divided into four chapters, this thesis expounds Liszt's creation of lieder. The first chapter introduces Liszt's lieder and their historical significance in the 19th century Western Romanist lieder as well as their position in his own musical composition. The second chapter gives a brief description of Liszt's lieder. To analyses the styles and characteristics of his lieder, this chapter focuses on his choices of the poems, different genres and expressive methods of his lieder. The third chapter makes a case study of three lieder and reveals artistic values of Liszt' lieder. He breaks through the stereotyped structure of composing "classical" lieder and alters the structural forms with the change of poetic language. He breaks up the "conventional" harmony by applying motif motives of symphonic music to writing lieder and employs half tones and varying tones in large quantities to enrich and expand the color and structure of harmony and thus he becomes "a pioneer " of the 20th century music. Liszt abandons stressed and unstressed "mechanical and dull" rhythms and advocates using "tiny stanzas" with complicated rhythms in order to explore the poets' "inner thoughts" in his stylistic, smooth and "reading" singing melodies. The forth chapter is devoted to my personal experience in teaching and performing Liszt's lieder.