Collapse and dismantlement: On form and dramaturgy in Liszt’s late symphonic poem From the Cradle to the Grave

Boenke, Patrick (2013) Collapse and dismantlement: On form and dramaturgy in Liszt’s late symphonic poem From the Cradle to the Grave. Studia Musicologica, 54 (4). pp. 431-442. ISSN 1788-6244

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Abstract

The symphonic poem From the Cradle to the Grave deserves a special status among Liszt’s symphonic works because he wrote it after a long break as part of his series of symphonic poems from his Weimar period. The composition was inspired by a drawing by the Hungarian painter Mihály Zichy. Many aspects of Liszt’s musical response to this drawing contrast with his older symphonic works. Liszt chooses a simple three-part structure, in which each movement is dedicated to one of the stages of life. The final movement functions as a thematic recapitulation and synthesis, which, however, is no longer staged as an emphatic breakthrough, as in earlier works, but rather as a process of dismantlement preceded by a dramatic collapse at the end of the second movement. The demonstrative break with the concept of a final apotheosis relates back not only to the source of inspiration for the work, but also to a transformation in the composer’s aesthetic viewpoint.

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