Liszt - Variations on a Theme of Bach, S180 (Poom Prommachart)

Liszt's last 25 years were tragic—they oversaw his thwarted marriage to Princess von Sayn-Wittgenstein, the widespread rejection of his music, his historic quarrel with Richard Wagner, various health-related tribulations of old age, his growing estrangement from his younger daughter, Cosima, and the death of his elder daughter, Blandine; because of the many setbacks he endured, both public and private, Liszt's embattled character succumbed to a series of depressions, culminating in 1877 in a desire, several times repeated, to commit suicide—an act of despair from which only his devout Catholicism saved him (his correspondence with Olga von Meyendorff tells it all: "... I am extremely tired of living; but as I believe that God's Fifth Commandment "thou shalt not kill" also applies to suicide, I go on existing....").
The aforementioned death of his elder daughter brought him severe anguish, and thus Liszt brought forth his Variations on Bach's "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen" (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing); the work is best understood as a symptom of the grieving process, and like so much else of Liszt's output this music is really autobiographical. Liszt found in the first movement of Bach's cantata a wonderful vehicle for his grief, and he composed his own variations on its ground bass.
Brief analysis:
00:00—Introduction (Improvisatory; based on chromatic descent)
00:59—Var. 1-8 (Polyphonic; explicitly contrapuntal)
02:39—Var. 9-19 (Register expands)
04:51—Var. 20-24, 25 (Register expands; more pianistic style)
05:38—Var. 26-33 (More chromatic; middle register)
06:23—Var. 34-35 (Unison octaves;
register expands again)
06:34—Var. 36-39 (Rhetorical style;
register expanded)
07:20—Var. 40-43 (Diminished harmony;
maximum register expansion)
08:17—Var 44-45 (Whole-tone harmony, descent to bass register; motive fragmented)
lunga pausa
09:12—Var. 46-47 (Recitative; motive used to accompany)
10:47—Var. 48 (Motive fragmented; very chromatic harmony)
11:54—Transition (Based on chromatic descent; strong tonal direction: diminished harmony leads to V pedal: register expands)
13:17—Recitative (Interruption of harmonic motion towards cadence, Tristanesque enhancements)
13:56—Chorale (Strong cadence into F major; middle register, gradually expanding outwards)
15:49—Coda
To take an overall view, the work begins with highly unstable chromatic harmony, very short-term harmonic goals and a rapid rate of change, all conveyed through a detailed contrapuntal foreground (Variations 1-8)—also apparent here is Liszt's technique
of dovetailing: this technique, borrowed from J. S. Bach,
appears throughout the variations as a means of
disguising the underlying regularity of the motive, but is
particularly evident here. Bach's dovetailing is most often
achieved by continuing the suspensions into the cadence
point: i.e. the voice-leading of one part carries over across
the division into the next variation; Liszt uses the same
technique here, carefully varying the extent of overlap. Then, through Variations 9 to 38 there is a gradual expansion of vision: register is expanded in both directions; the sense of greater space is enhanced by a concomitant expansion of the rhythmic dimension as quavers give way to quaver triplets, semiquavers, then demisemiquavers; harmonic change is less frequent; and the detailed contrapuntal surface gives way to more broadly sketched scales and arpeggios. Alongside this expansion, is the gradual substitution of diminished for chromatic harmony, which culminates in the tonal chaos of Variation 48; the re-emergence of tonal sense after this breakdown is all the more striking: here for the first time in the work there is a strong sense of long-range directed harmony that is working towards a distinct goal. When that goal is finally glimpsed—at the first perfect cadence into F major in the chorale—it seems that it is absolutely right and fitting; this is no mere token gesture to the source of the
motive, for Liszt uses the chorale to provide a focal point
for the variations as the chorale becomes the climax of the
work, the goal towards which the variations are directed; finally, the ending's statement of "Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan" ("What God does, that is well done"), shows a tremendous possession of heroic spirit, and is an unmistakable reference to the personal loss that he himself suffered, and his acceptance of it.

Видео Liszt - Variations on a Theme of Bach, S180 (Poom Prommachart) канала Andrei Cristian Anghel