236. Lineage

The Concert - Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Works for solo piano by Liszt performed by Gleb Ivanov on April 11, 2010 and work by Faure performed by Michael Brown, Chad Hoopes, Matthew Lipman, and Colin Carr on November 22, 2015

• Liszt: Schubert Songs (trans Liszt): Gute Nacht
• Liszt: Schubert Songs (trans Liszt): Ave Maria
• Fauré: Quartet No. 2 in G Minor for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 45

As a listener to this podcast, you’ve probably realized by now the importance of lineage in classical music. The links between past and future, teacher and student have a tremendous impact. On this podcast, we’ll explore two composers who occupy interesting places in classical music lineage: Franz Liszt and Gabriel Fauré.

Fauré’s music was quite adventurous, even scandalous, during his lifetime. Fauré ascended to head of the Paris conservatory where he modernized the curriculum, exerting an enormous influence on the emerging composers and musicians who studied there. We’ll hear Fauré’s Second Quartet for piano, violin, viola, and cello, his opus 45 – a piece written earlier in his career, before he began working at the conservatory. It is a passionate work, with ardent melodies and creative harmonies.

Before the Fauré quartet—which makes up the bulk of the podcast—we have two brief but interesting transcriptions by Franz Liszt of songs by Schubert. Liszt was a prolific transcriber, often creating piano-only settings of operas and orchestral works. In the case of the Schubert songs, however, Liszt scaled up—adding pianistic embellishments to Schubert’s rather simple lieder. The resulting compositions are, at times, more like fantasties than transcriptions—expanding on Schubert’s songs, rather than just recreating them for solo piano.