Liszt’s Ballades
While speaking of Liszt’s original compositions, we must not omit his two ballades, which, though musically a little disappointing, are works of considerable magnitude and marked individuality, and possess no small degree of descriptive interest. They are in the same general form and vein as the Chopin ballades, and were evidently suggested by them, though they cannot be compared with them either for beauty or for strength.
First Ballade
The first, in B minor, is decidedly the more vigorous of the two, and the more difficult. It is based upon the pathetically tragic story of the Prisoner of Chillon, so ably told in Byron’s poem, which the player should read with care, so as to familiarize himself thoroughly with its incidents and moods. The poem tells of that nameless captive chained for life to a pillar in a rock-hewn dungeon beneath the castle of Chillon, on Lake Leman, below the surface of the lake, so that he listens day and night to the dull thunder or mournful murmur of the changeful waves above his head, as his only indication of the shifting moods of Nature in the living world, her passing smiles and storms, her slowly circling seasons as they come and go.
“A double dungeon, wall and wave
Have made—and like a living grave.
Below the surface of the lake
The dark vault lies, wherein we lay:
We heard its ripple night and day,
Sounding o’er our heads it knocked,
And then the very rock hath rocked,
And I have felt it shake unshocked:
Because I could have smiled to see
The death that would have set me free.”
Years drag themselves out to eternities. One by one his few companions die of cold and hunger, leaving him alone in that living tomb, with his endless, changeless, unutterable misery.
“I had no thought, no feeling—none.
Among the stones I stood a stone.
It was not night, it was not day,
For all was blank and bleak and gray:
A sea of stagnant idleness,
Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless.”
His only gleam of comfort were the occasional visits of an azure-winged bird that came now and then and perched on the window ledge outside his dungeon bars, a fair and gentle companion symbolizing for him all the beauty and tenderness and sweetness in the life he has lost; and on which he comes to concentrate the love and interest of his famished heart.
“A lovely bird with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,
And seemed to say them all to me!
I never saw the like before,
I ne’er shall see its likeness more:
It seemed, like me, to want a mate,
But was not half so desolate;
And it was come to love me, when
None lived to love me so again.”
The opening movement of the ballade, representing the thunder of the waves reverberating through the gloom of that cavern-like cell, and the later lyric, which might be called the bird theme, suggesting his tender communing with his little friend, are the best movements in the work. The details of the story are not carried out, but its outlines, and especially its moods, are clearly given.
Second Ballade
The second ballade, in D flat major, is more melodious and attractive, but less strong. It is dedicated to Liszt’s life-long friend and powerful patron, the Duke of Weimar, and, out of compliment to him, treats of an episode in the Duke’s family history, back in the days of the second Crusade.
A young and gallant chief of the house of Weimar stands in the rosy light of early dawn, on the highest turret of his castle, with his newly wedded bride, taking a long farewell of her and of their fair domain, for at sunrise he leads his knights and men-at-arms to the crusade, and the return is years distant and uncertain. Their mood is full of sadness and yet of a strong, religious exultation and trust. His mission is a grand and glorious one. Heaven will surely guide and protect its faithful knights, and his lady bids him Godspeed, though with tearful eyes. From the castle court below, sounds of gathering troops and martial preparation rise to their ears, at first faintly, then with growing din and clamor, till a burst of trumpets greets the rising sun; the gates are flung open and, hastily descending, he takes his place at the head of his forces and they march away to the strains of inspiriting military music. The lady still stands alone on her turret, waving her greetings—stands there, as he sees her last, flooded with the glory of the morning, an embodiment of love and hope and promise—a vision to haunt his waking dreams in far-away Palestine, to cheer his lonely camp-fire vigils and lead him to victory on the field of action.
As she still stands dreamily watching the last gleam of the spear-points, the last flutter of the receding banners, the sanguine fancy of youth leaps the intervening years, and she thinks she hears the strains of the martial music at the head of the returning army coming in triumph back from a successful campaign.
The successive moments in the story above sketched are given with realistic distinctness in the music, and can be followed without difficulty.