Années de pèlerinage

Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) (S.160, S.161, S.163) is a set of three suites by Franz Liszt for solo piano. Liszt's complete musical style is evident in this masterwork, which ranges from virtuosic fireworks to sincerely moving emotional statements. His musical maturity can be seen evolving through his experience and travel. The third volume is especially notable as an example of his later style. It was composed well after the first two volumes and displays less showy virtuosity and more harmonic experimentation.

The title Années de pèlerinage refers to Goethe’s famous novel of self-realization, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. Liszt clearly places the work in line with the Romantic literature of his time, prefacing most pieces with a literary passage from writers such as Schiller, Byron or Senancour, and, in an introduction to the entire work, writing, "Having recently travelled to many new countries, through different settings and places consecrated by history and poetry; having felt that the phenomena of nature and their attendant sights did not pass before my eyes as pointless images but stirred deep emotions in my soul, and that between us a vague but immediate relationship had established itself, an undefined but real rapport, an inexplicable but undeniable communication, I have tried to portray in music a few of my strongest sensations and most lively impressions."^[1]

The suites

Première année: Suisse

The title translates to "First Year: Switzerland." It was published in 1855. Composed between 1848 and 1854, most of the first volume (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9) are revisions of his earlier cycle Album d'un voyageur, which was composed between 1835 and 1836 and published in 1842.^[2] No. 7 (Églogue) was published separately, and No. 5 (Orage) was included as part of the definitive version of the cycle.^[3]

1. Chapelle de Guillaume Tell (William Tell's Chapel) - Liszt's caption: "All for one - one for all."
2. Au lac de Wallenstadt (At Lake Wallenstadt) - Liszt's caption is from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Canto 3 LXVIII - CV): "Thy contrasted lake / With the wild world I dwell in is a thing / Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake / Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring."
3. Pastorale -
4. Au bord d'une source (Beside a Spring) - Liszt's caption is from Schiller: “In the whispering coolness begins young nature’s play.”
5. Orage (Storm) - Liszt's caption is from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Canto 3 LXVIII - CV): “But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal? / Are ye like those within the human breast? / Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?”
6. Vallée d'Obermann (Obermann's Valley) - The captions include one from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ("Could I embody and unbosom now / That which is most within me,--could I wreak / My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw / Soul--heart--mind--passions--feelings--strong or weak-- / All that I would have sought, and all I seek, / Bear, know, feel--and yet breathe--into one word, / And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; / But as it is, I live and die unheard, / With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.") and two from Senancour's Obermann, which include the crucial questions, “What do I want? Who am I? What do I ask of nature?"
7. Eglogue (Eclogue) - Liszt's caption is from 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Canto 3 LXVIII): "The morn is up again, the dewy morn, / With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, / Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, / And living as if earth contained no tomb!"
8. Le mal du pays (Homesickness) -
9. Les cloches de Genève: Nocturne (The Bells of Geneva: Nocturne) - Liszt's caption is from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: “I live not in myself, but I become / Portion of that around me”

Deuxième année: Italie

Title translates as "Second Year: Italy." Published 1858 (Schott); composed 1837–1849; nos. 4–6 are revisions of Tre sonetti del Petrarca (Three sonnets of Petrarch) composed ca. 1839–1846 and published 1846.

1. Sposalizio (Marriage of the Virgin, a painting by Raphael))
2. Il penseroso (The Thinker, a statue by Michelangelo)
3. Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa (Canzonetta of Salvator Rosa)
4. Sonetto 47 del Petrarca (Petrarch's Sonnet 47)
5. Sonetto 104 del Petrarca (Petrarch's Sonnet 104)
6. Sonetto 123 del Petrarca (Petrarch's Sonnet 123)
7. Après une lecture de Dante: Fantasia Quasi Sonata (After Reading Dante: Fantasia Quasi Sonata)

• Venezia e Napoli (Venice and Naples (supplement to the Second Year)); Published 1861; composed 1859, partially as a revision of an earlier set with the same name Composed ca. 1840)

1. Gondoliera (Gondolier's Song (based on the song "La biondina in gondoletta" Giovanni Battista Peruchini))
2. Canzone (Canzone (based on the gondolier's song "Nessun maggior dolore" from Rossini's Otello))
3. Tarantella (Tarantella (using themes by Guillaume-Louis Cottrau, 1797–1847))

Troisième année

Title translates as "Third Year." Published 1883; nos 1–4 and 7 composed in 1877; no 5, 1872; no 6, 1867.

1. Angélus! Prière aux anges gardiens (Angelus! Prayer to the Guardian angels (dedicated to Daniela von Bulow, Liszt's grand-daughter, first daughter of Hans von Bülow and Cosima Liszt and wife of art historian Henry Thode.)) It was written for both melodeon, piano, or an instrument that combines both, for Liszt wrote "piano-melodium" on his manuscript.^[4]
2. Aux cyprès de la Villa d'Este I: Thrénodie (To the Cypresses of the Villa d'Este I: Threnody)
3. Aux cyprès de la Villa d'Este II: Thrénodie (To the Cypresses of the Villa d'Este II: Threnody) The Villa d'Este in these two threnodies were describing a park in a Tivoli near Rome. It is famous for its beautiful cypresses and fountains.
4. Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este (The Fountains of the Villa d'Este)
5. Sunt lacrymae rerum/En mode hongrois (There are Tears for Things/In the Hungarian Mode (dedicated to Hans von Bülow))
6. Marche funèbre (Funeral March) (In memory of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico)
7. Sursum corda (Lift Up Your Hearts)

Recordings

There have been numerous recordings made of the suites, in both complete and incomplete form.

Year	Pianist	Section	Label and number
1928	Claudio Arrau	1ere année: Suisse
1928	Claudio Arrau	3e année: Italie
1937	Claudio Arrau	2e année: Italie
1947	Vladimir Horowitz	Au bord d'une source - 1ere année	RCA
1947	Dinu Lipatti	Sonetto 104 del Petrarca - 2e année	EMI CZS 767163 2
????	Bela Bartok	Sursum Corda - 3e année
1950s	Wilhelm Kempff	complete, with Deux Légendes	Decca
1951	Vladimir Horowitz	Sonetto 104 del Petrarca - 2e année	RCA
1969	Claudio Arrau	1ere année: Suisse
1969	Claudio Arrau	2e année: Italie
1969	Claudio Arrau	3e année: Italie
1973	Jerome Rose	complete
1975	Vladimir Horowitz	Au bord d'une source - 1ere année	RCA Victor Red Seal 82876 50754 2
1977	Lazar Berman	complete	Deutsche Grammophon DGG 4372062
1982	Claudio Arrau	2e année: Italie
1983	Claudio Arrau	3e année: Italie
1984	Claudio Arrau	2e année: Italie
1986	Zoltán Kocsis	3e année: Italie	Philips Classics 462312-2
1986	Alfred Brendel	1ere année: Suisse	Philips Classics 462312-2
1986	Alfred Brendel	2e année: Suisse	Philips Classics 462312-2
1986[5]	Tamás Vásáry	2e année: Italie	BBC music Magazine
1989	Claudio Arrau	1ere année: Suisse
1989	Jeffrey Swann	complete	akademia
1998[6]	Roberto Poli	2e année: Italie	OnClassical
1991	Louis Lortie	2e année: Italie	Chandos
1995, 1996, 1990	Leslie Howard	complete	Hyperion Records
2001	Frederic Chiu	Italie, Venezia e Napoli	Harmonia Mundi
2001, 2003, 2005	Ksenia Nosikova	complete	Centaur Records, Inc.
2003	Aldo Ciccolini	complete	EMI Classics 5851772
2003	Yoram Ish-Hurwitz	2e année: Italie	Turtle Records
2004	Yoram Ish-Hurwitz	1ere année: Suisse	Turtle Records
2004	Yoram Ish-Hurwitz	3e année: Italie	Turtle Records
2005	Stephen Hough	1ere année: Suisse	Hyperion Records
2011	Alexander Krichel	2e année: Italie	telos music
2011	Steffen Fahl	complete	klassik-resampled[7]

Video

Alfred Brendel (Deutsche Grammophon) DVD

Score

Dover Publications has issued a complete edition in one bound volume. Also included is an appendix of related works including Lyon (from the first book of Album d'un voyageur), Apparitions, Tre sonetti del Petrarca, and the original version of Venezia e Napoli.

References

1. ^ Lucie Renaud, Lucie, translated by Peter Christensen, Notes for the Analekta album Années de pèlerinage - Suisse (Years of Pilgrimage - Switzerland), André Laplante, https://www.analekta.com/en/album/Liszt-Annees-De-Pelerinage-Suisse.591.html, accessed Sept. 8, 2010
2. ^ Années De Pèlerinage, Complete. Franz Liszt, J. Milstein. (ed.) (Dover Publications, 1987) ISBN 0486256278
3. ^ Lucie Renaud, Lucie, translated by Peter Christensen, Notes for the Analekta album Années de pèlerinage - Suisse (Years of Pilgrimage - Switzerland), André Laplante, https://www.analekta.com/en/album/Liszt-Annees-De-Pelerinage-Suisse.591.html, accessed Sept. 8, 2010
4. ^ "Années de pèlerinage" Ferenc Liszt, Edited by Imre Sulyok, Imre Mezo. (Shanghai Music Publishing House, 2007) ISBN 9787807510291
5. ^ published May 1997
6. ^ published 2008
7. ^ http://klassik.s-fahl.de

External links

• Première Année: Suisse, Deuxième Année: Italie, Deuxième Année, Supplement: Venezia e Napoli, Troisième Année: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project.
• klassik-resampled: Années de Pelerinage, complete recording