Description
Liszt had an odd relationship with Spanish music. The two Spanish-inflected works he wrote before this one, the S. 252 El Contrabandista Rondo (1836) and the S. 253 Grand Concert Fantasy (1845), put in strong applications for being the dullest music he ever wrote as an adult. The Rhapsodie Espagnole, on the other hand, is a bona fide masterpiece, reflecting how much better Liszt had become at marshalling his material by 1858.
In a word, it’s about economy. The Rhapsodie Espagnole is tightly structured, comprising a passacaglia on La folia followed by a presentation of the Jota aragonesa, and then another set of variations on a third theme that cyclically recalls earlier material. The variations themselves are extremely concise – most last only around 15 seconds – and span a much wider range of moods than anything Liszt produced in his earlier Spanish work. Liszt’s choice of the La Folia theme here as his opener is inspired; its brooding, dramatic character perfectly sets off the playful jota and the lyrical third theme.
On a note-by-note basis, the writing here is a case study in how less gets you more. The introduction fits easily under the fingers, yet pulsates with drama – a big F# minor 7th chord slaps across the keyboard, and the bass intones the La folia rhythm. The harmony blunders into Bb before we get huge impressionistic sprays that anticipate Les Jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este (written 19 years later, in 1877). In his earlier work Liszt often felt compelled to bury melodic material in reams of technically dazzling but aurally dull figuration; here themes are presented more directly, and in the virtuoso variations of T3 textures are generally lithe and toccata-like, giving the closing pages a quality of play entirely absent in the heavy-handedness of the S. 252-3. Just compare the S. 253’s laboured passages in sixths to the much more easily managed thirds here, or the former’s repeated-RH-chord-over-LH-octaves closing variation to much more harmonically interesting, texturally clean final presentation of the La folia in this work.
00:00 – Cohen
13:36 – Szidon
26:55 – Hough
These three recordings demonstrate surprisingly varied if equally effective approaches to the work. Arnaldo Cohen plays in the grand manner, full of drama and colour. You get this right from the opening, where the dynamic immediately drops after the big opening chord to piano. It’s there in Cohen’s choice of articulation (a largely pedal-free, overdotted Var. 6 in the passacaglia), the sudden broadening when we reach Var. 10, and in the tapered, gestural approach to the RH line at m.242 (6:49).
Szidon – my favourite most days of the week – is the most unorthodox, and also the most textured. The opening chord is played secco both to provide a more powerful landing on the subsequent chord, and to mimic the articulation of the La folia (a short first note). In the passacaglia Szidon opts for a slower pulse and rations tempo changes carefully, so you hear this section growing in big paragraphs towards huge climaxes (the gigantic masses of sound at 17:05 and 18:43). The first few variations are underdotted and held back to shape these long buildups. Where Szidon deploys rubato, he does not skimp – see the plaintive intensity at m.46 (16:27), the freedom of T3, or the shortened LH long notes at mm.366/8. There are nice textural touches too, such as the brisk, pedal-free Jota at m.166 (19:47), which actually manages to sound dancelike.
Hough is one of the very few pianists today who can play like he’s improvising (without sounding precious or mannered). He uses silences to great effect – the free ending to the phrase at m.54, the sudden, taut quaver rest at m.58, or the almost-completed-halted melody at mm.180 and 389. The control of articulation is exquisite – his staccato chords at m.74 have a kind of sticky bounce to them no-one else manages, and there is a lot of old-school charm in the playing (big left-before-right at m.263, extended RH arpeggios at mm.257 and 261, LH Islamey octaves at m.635).