Chapter 22 - Improvisation

Summary

In the 1820s and 1830s, when Liszt’s virtuoso career was on the rise, improvisation (extemporization, fantasizing) was still part of the performing practice. Instrumental soloists of the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century performed their concert programmes, mostly consisting of their own compositions, more or less improvised, but they also had to be able to fantasize on a given theme in front of an audience. They were also expected to perform pieces of other composers, while adding embellishments and variants to them. German lexicographer Koch agreed with Rousseau’s 1767 view – even three and a half decades later – stating that we can learn the most about a musician’s taste if we look at their use of ornaments.¹ The fusion of composition and performance, the two aspects of improvisation, came from the European art music tradition itself, as even around 1800, it was understood that a piece of work would only be given its final form during its performance.² In his piano treatise published in 1828, Hummel, a celebrated virtuoso of the beginning of the century, frowned only upon the self-indulgence that was becoming a trend ‘in newer times’. He thought that the ‘overused, self-indulgent expansions’ (i.e., tempo rubato) featured in Allegros made their fundamental brillante character almost unrecognisable, while the ‘overembellishment’ of Adagios ruined the arch and grace of the original melody.³