Liszt conducted his own work possible, and whenever possible and he made no exception of this concert. The popularity of the two pieces was already well established; the score to Les Preludes had been published earlier in the same year as this, though it is likely that the pieces had not been heard in St. Gallen before as this is the first recorded visit of Liszt to the town since writing the pieces (Walker, sec. 6).
The final piece, Beethoven's Third "Heroic" Symphony, had been composed in 1803-4 in honor of Napoleon, which made the choice somewhat ironic given tat the confederacy of cnatons that makes up Switzerland chaffed heavily under the republic enforced by the conquering emperor ("Eroica"). Still, it provided a rousing finale to the program, and no doubt sentiments had cooled somewhat since the re-establishment of the confederacy and wider European neutrality.
No additional advertisements or reviews were located regarding this concert, so additional information pertaining to the specific reception of these performances is unavailable. All of the necessary details regarding the performance before it happened are located on the program,...
Les Preludes and Hamlet represent the pianist's symphonic poem. (Gmoser 72) Liszt also left his mark on operatic paraphrases for solo piano. Compared to the other composers, who were writing flashy introductions, Liszt's paraphrases and fantasies on operas were a "bolt of lightening against the flicker of a candle. He threw themes together in a contrapuntal melange; he changed harmonies; he exploited to the utmost every technical resource of his
" This he maintained was the highest honor he could claim. " (Seroff, 1956, 113) Some of the melodies that Claude Achille Debussy created for example the C'est l'Extase' -- based on the ninths and series of common chords has continuous modulations which are embedded with a lot of changing tones and may have been symbolic of a breeze and the sounds of small voices. Like wise the use of rhythmic
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