Le chasseur maudit. Key and Content in Liszt's Music in C Minor

Merrick, Paul (2003) Le chasseur maudit. Key and Content in Liszt's Music in C Minor. Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 44 (3-4). pp. 321-335. ISSN 0039-3266

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Abstract

When Liszt revised his earlier set of twelve piano studies at Weimar, publishing them as the Études d'exécution transcendante, he added titles to ten of them. No. 8 was given the German title Wilde Jagd, which in French is Le chasseur maudit. Why did Liszt choose this title? Did it have to do with the key of C minor? Which of the many legends on this theme was he thinking of? Did he know the popular poem Der wilde Jäger by Gottfried Bürger (1747-94), from which César Franck took the programme of his symphonic poem? Does the music of Liszt's study contain (like Bürger's poem) the idea of “maudit” as well as the “chasseur”? Other works by Liszt in C minor are examined, taken from the keyboard, orchestral and vocal music, to see whether they reflect a common programmatic idea associated with the key. If they do, then Liszt's piano study would form part of a larger mosaic.

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