Années de pèlerinage. Première année: Suisse, S. 160 (1848-54)
(Years of Pilgrimage. First Year: Switzerland)
I. Chapelle de Guillaume Tell (The Chapel of William Tell) [0:07] II. Au lac de Wallenstadt (At Lake Wallenstadt) [6:17] III. Pastorale [9:19] IV. Au bord d’une source (Beside a Spring) [11:07] V. Orage (Storm) [15:08] VI. Vallée d’Obermann (Obermann’s Valley) [19:34] VII. Eglogue (Eclogue) [32:51] VIII. Le mal du pays (Homesickness) [36:44] IX. Les cloches de Genève: Nocturne (The Bells of Geneva: Nocturne) [42:48]
A suite for solo piano by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886), which is in part a revision of his earlier work “Album d’un voyageur”. The title “Années de pèlerinage” refers to the Bildungsroman “Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and there are numerous other literary allusions throughout the suite. Liszt wrote the following introduction to all three “Années de pèlerinage” suites:
“Having recently travelled to many new countries, through different settings and places consecrated by history and poetry; having felt that the phenomena of nature and their attendant sights did not pass before my eyes as pointless images but stirred deep emotions in my soul, and that between us a vague but immediate relationship had established itself, an undefined but real rapport, an inexplicable but undeniable communication, I have tried to portray in music a few of my strongest sensations and most lively impressions.”
Most movements are prefaced by captions:
I. Chapelle de Guillaume Tell – “All for one – one for all.”
II. Au lac de Wallenstadt – “Thy contrasted lake / With the wild world I dwell in is a thing / Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake / Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.” (Canto 3 LXVIII – CV of Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”)
IV. Au bord d’une source – “In the whispering coolness begins young nature’s play.” (from Schiller)
V. Orage – “But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal? / Are ye like those within the human breast? / Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?” (Canto 3 LXVIII – CV of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”)
VI. Vallée d’Obermann – “Could I embody and unbosom now / That which is most within me,–could I wreak / My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw / Soul–heart–mind–passions–feelings–strong or weak– / All that I would have sought, and all I seek, / Bear, know, feel–and yet breathe–into one word, / And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; / But as it is, I live and die unheard, / With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.” (from “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”); and “What do I want? Who am I? What do I ask of nature?” (from Senancour’s “Obermann”)
VII. Eglogue – “The morn is up again, the dewy morn, / With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, / Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, / And living as if earth contained no tomb!” (Canto 3 LXVIII of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”)
IX. Les cloches de Genève – “I live not in myself, but I become / Portion of that around me” (also from “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”)
Pianist: André Laplante