"The world persisted to the end in calling Liszt the greatest pianist, in order to avoid the trouble of considering his claims as one of the most remarkable of composers," declared Camille Saint-Saens. As an orchestral composer, Liszt was a complete original. He may not single-handedly have invented either symphonic poem or programmatic symphony - Mozart and Beethoven, Berlioz and Mendelssohn, all got there before him - but he alone influenced their modern form. His Faust and Dante Symphonies, and the twelve symphonic poems dedicated to his companion the Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, dating from his years as director of music for the Weimar Court, were to cast a major influence throughout the orchestral sphere of late romanticism. From Dvorak, Smetana, Tchaikovsky and Franck to Richard Strauss, Respighi and Sibelius via Debussy and Schoenberg, few escaped Liszt’s charismatic influence, or wanted to. It was through the symphonic poem medium that Liszt opened and closed his orchestral account.
Taking the form of a slow sonata movement, without development, Orpheus (1853-54) was the fourth in order of publication. Conceived as an introduction to Gluck's Orfeo et Euridice, conducted by Liszt in February 1854, its inspiration was said to have been an Etruscan vase on display in the Louvre and described by Liszt as showing "the first poet and musician, clothed in a starry rose, playing his lyre and taming the wildness of beast and man. Orpheus is poetic musical tale, with enigmatic final sequence of chords, rising gradually, like a transparent vapor, cloaked in mysterious harmony, eerily reminiscent to the ending of the B minor Piano Sonata.”
Orpheus inhabits whole new musical world, setting a very distinctive challenge for an arranger. But Saint-Saëns’ is much more than a mere transcription. A master of the subtle craft of instrumentation, he manages to preserve the essence of the work, with its evocative, colorful and atmospheric sound world, while reducing the score to just the trio of instruments. Originally written for large orchestra and a real tour de force, in this reverent arrangement it loses none of its quiet brilliance, despite the reduction.
© Jonathan Blumhofer