6 - The Verbunkos Idiom in the Music of the Future

Summary

To what extent did the verbunkos idiom inflect and possibly even transform non- Hungarian modernist works by Liszt? This chapter will largely grapple with this question. To answer it in a way that might also serve reception studies, we will focus only on works that were widely acknowledged as part of Zukunftsmusik (Music of the Future), the Neudeutsche Schule (New German School), or the progressive movement or party in Germany during Liszt's lifetime. In such works, we might expect to encounter the verbunkos idiom either in concrete or, more likely, in abstract form. In the latter case, both identification of the idiom and interpretation of its role may prove controversial. This is a risk worth taking, as I hope the reader will agree by the end of this chapter. If the presence of the verbunkos idiom is possible and indeed audible in such works, then this raises the greater issue of its broader impact on Liszt's style and compositional technique. I shall try to make such qualitative assessments for each of the works that I will examine in this chapter.

It might be useful to begin with some background on how the Music of the Future itself was nationalistically appropriated, as in many ways we still live with the consequences of an aesthetic appreciation of this music that left little room for the verbunkos idiom. We shall then examine a range of works that represent— though not exhaustively—different aspects of Liszt's Zukunftsmusik as well as the of the long 1850s: “La Notte” (an orchestral character piece), Missa solemnis (a sacred liturgical and concert work), Scherzo und Marsch (an innovative and virtuosic large-scale piano work), Totentanz (a programmatic piano concerto), and Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (a symphonic poem and large-scale programmatic piano work).

The Nationalization of Zukunftsmusik

When Liszt settled in Weimar in 1848, he was already a Zukunftsmusiker in all but name. Stylistic and aesthetic progressivism in Liszt's music and ideological outlook can be traced back to 1830s Paris without difficulty. Yet it is certainly true to say that his move to Weimar marked the beginning of an important and decisive phase in his modernism. It was the place where the concept of “Music of the Future,” initially a slanderous journalistic expression subsequently defiantly turned into a slogan of high praise, became an affirmative aesthetic.