Hear the Spring (Assign5) - Yating

 Hear the Spring

I would like to share a programmatic music Au bord d'une source (French for ‘Beside a Spring’). This piece is the fourth piece of the first suite of Années de Pèlerinage (‘Years of Pilgrimage’), which is a collection of three suites for solo piano by Franz Liszt. Liszt is a Hungarian composer of the Romantic period. He wrote this piano piece while traveling in Switzerland with his lover Countess Marie d'Agoult between 1835 and 1839. As the title suggests, this piece is a depiction of the natural scene of a spring. Here, I combine my feelings and basic knowledge of music theory to analyze how the spring is presented by music and further explore how nature was conceptualized in 19 century.

 

(performer: André Laplante)

Hear the flow of water

(the beginning of the video)

At the beginning of the piece, the flow of the water is demonstrated by using various musical elements. The pitches are basically in the middle-upper range of the piano, and the left-hand notes are notated by staccatissimo, which shows the clearness and brightness of the spring. Meanwhile, with the allegretto tempo and the steady progression of sixteenth notes, the gentle flow of the water is well portrayed. Besides, the musical direction of dolce tranquillo keeps the overall volume relatively steady. This creates the gentle flow of the spring, rather than the strong and fast-pounding currents of a waterfall.

What's wonderful is that the dynamics of water flow is revealed by the combination of rhythmic patterns and pitch. The time signature is 12/8, a compound time signature consisting of four three-beat rhythmic patterns. The three-beat pattern always creates a sense of movement. At the same time, Liszt placed two high notes in the first and last beats of every three beats. In this way, the intervals between the appearance of high notes are not equal. Eventually, this imbalance produced momentum making the water flow.

Hear the spring

The water flow is not always the same. Liszt also painted the changes in the spring, making the whole picture more vivid and attractive.

(can be heard at 60 seconds of the video)

The changes in keys and dynamics contribute to the changes in water flow. The entire piece is in A flat major with only a brief shift to E major at bars 17 and 18. The tonality of these two bars is not as bright as before but a bit duller. Also, the dynamics requirement changes from a decrescendo to a continuous tranquillo. Under these changes, the water flow seems to have slowed down.

(can be heard at 02:10 of the video)

Moreover, the water flow becomes more intense through harmonic and melodic progressions. The pitch of the melody moves upwards in bars 38 to 41, and the crescendo technique is utilized. This makes the water flow more powerful and fast. Then, in bar 41, Liszt put diminished triads and minor sixth intervals in repeated sixteenth notes, deepening the color intensity and creating a sense of tension. The picture of water colliding and splashing is well demonstrated.

(can be heard at 02:48 of the video)

I also like bars 52 to 55, where the arpeggio skill is used in tranguillo volume. With the light sounds and bright chords, I see the water droplets shimmering in the sunlight.

Music and nature

I believe this piece exemplifies the way nature was conceptualized in the 19th century.

Firstly, nature is evoked by both musical and non-musical elements. Composers of the Romantic period tended to use both musical and non-musical elements to evoke stimuli (Harold 1961). Liszt used words with a clear meaning to name this music and quoted Schiller's poem as a caption: In anselnder Kühle Beginnen die Spiele Dez jungen Natur (In the whispering coolness begins young nature’s play). The use of literature enhances the embodiment of the environment, presenting a poetic and romantic atmosphere.

Secondly, the authenticity of nature is far above all. Most composers placed the importance of narrative content of music far beyond musical structure and were willing to use unconventional forms to express the true essence (Paul 1998 and StringOvation Team 2022). Liszt removed the complex traditional musical structure and used free variations to show the spring. In the meantime, harmonies are used to show the flowing of the water instead of constructing the musical structure.

Lastly, the portrait of nature contains the expression of emotions. In Geneva, the source of spring is a symbol of nature and is regarded as a refuge from disaster (Michele 2012). Perhaps in this music, the pure spring water is also used to express opposition to political forces.

 

Overall, Au bord d'une source shows a realistic natural environment rather than an artificial nature scene. It is also a true expression of Liszt's feelings for nature and his heart. Through various musical elements and techniques, Liszt shows the most authentic appearance of the spring.

References

Calella, Michele. ‘Musik und imaginative Geographie: Franz Liszts Années de pèlerinage und die kulturelle Konstruktion der Schweiz’. Die Musikforschung 65, no. 3 (2012): 211–30.

Merrick, Paul. ‘The Rôle of Tonality in the Swiss Book of Années de Pèlerinage’. Studia Musicologica. Academiae Scientiarum Hungarica 39, no. 2/4 (1998): 367–83.

Péter Bozó. ‘Liszt’s Plan for a German Année de Pèlerinage “Was Ist Des Deutschen Vaterland?”’ Studia Musicologica. Academiae Scientiarum Hungarica 47, no. 1 (2006): 19–38.

Team, StringOvation. ‘The Romantic Period of Music’. Accessed 9 November 2022. https://www.connollymusic.com/stringovation/the-romantic-period-of-music.

Truscott, Harold. ‘Form in Romantic Music’. Studies in Romanticism 1, no. 1 (1961): 29–39.