Liszt and Erkel

Hungarian Music

Course 1 · Chapter 3 · Liszt, Erkel & the Romantic Nation

In the nineteenth century Hungary was part of the Habsburg Empire, and questions of language, culture and independence were fiercely argued. Music took part in the argument. This chapter looks at Franz (Ferenc) Liszt, the most famous Hungarian musician of the age and one who barely spoke Hungarian; at Brahms's popular Hungarian Dances; and at Ferenc Erkel, who wrote the first Hungarian national operas and the music of the national anthem. It asks what "Hungarian" meant in each case. Names and dates are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

Liszt

Origins

Born in 1811 in Raiding, then in the Kingdom of Hungary and now in Austria, to a German-speaking family (check). He left as a child to study in Vienna and Paris and built an international career as a pianist.

The virtuoso

In the 1830s and 1840s he toured Europe to enormous acclaim, so much so that the fervour was nicknamed "Lisztomania" (check the term and its use). He later turned to composing, teaching and conducting in Weimar and Rome.

Hungarian identity

He identified himself as Hungarian, gave benefit concerts for flood victims in Pest in 1838 and later helped to found the music academy in Budapest, which now bears his name (check). He wrote little in Hungarian.

The Hungarian Rhapsodies. Nineteen piano pieces, published between the 1840s and the 1880s, based on the verbunkos and csárdás style played by Roma bands, with slow and fast sections (check the number and dates; Chapter 2).
The sources. The tunes came from popular urban music, published songs and the playing of Roma musicians, not from peasant song collected in the field (check).
The book. In 1859 he published a book on the "Bohemians" and their music in Hungary, which credited Roma musicians with creating the Hungarian style and drew sharp criticism from Hungarian nationalists later (check the title and details).
Other works. Symphonic poems such as Hungaria, the Coronation Mass for Franz Joseph's crowning as King of Hungary in 1867, and many others (check).

Brahms and the Hungarian Dances

Item (check each)	Detail
The work	Twenty-one Hungarian Dances for piano four hands, published in two sets in 1869 and 1880, later arranged for orchestra.
The source	Brahms heard the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi in the 1850s and learned tunes from him, then arranged them (check).
The dispute	Brahms called them arrangements, not compositions, but Reményi accused him of taking tunes he had considered his own, and some tunes were in fact by Hungarian composers (check).
Effect	They were hugely popular in homes across Europe and fixed an image of "Hungarian music" for many listeners.

Erkel and the National Opera

A composer for the nation Ferenc Erkel (1810 to 1893) wrote the first Hungarian national operas, most famously Bánk bán and Hunyadi László, in the 1840s and 1850s, with plots from Hungarian history and some verbunkos-style music (check). In 1844 he won the competition to set Ferenc Kölcsey's poem "Himnusz" (Hymn), and his music is still the national anthem (check). He was also a conductor and a founder of the Philharmonic Society of Budapest and helped to shape the country's musical institutions.

Language. Writing opera in Hungarian was a political and cultural act at a time when German and Italian dominated stages (check).
Reform and revolution. His career overlapped the reform era and the 1848 revolution and war of independence against Habsburg rule, which was defeated in 1849 (check).
The compromise. The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 gave Hungary a large share of self-government, and the following decades saw a growth of Hungarian cultural institutions (check).

A British comparison Compare Elgar and the "national" voice in English music, or Smetana and Dvořák in the Czech lands, who also built a national tradition within a multi-national empire (check). The questions are the same: what counts as national, and who gets to decide.

Check the details Dates, numbers of works and the exact wording of Liszt's book are from general knowledge. Both Liszt and Brahms are often misdescribed as drawing on peasant folk music; check against musicological sources before quoting.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Explain in what sense Liszt was a Hungarian composer and in what sense he was not, giving two points for each.

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Exercise 2

Compare Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies and Brahms's Hungarian Dances: their sources, their purpose and how each shaped the image of Hungarian music.

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Exercise 3

Describe two ways in which Erkel's work was part of building a Hungarian national culture, and say how it differed from Liszt's approach.

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Quick Reference

Liszt: born 1811 in Raiding; Hungarian Rhapsodies; the 1859 book on Roma music (check)
Brahms: Hungarian Dances, 1869 and 1880, arranged from tunes (check)
Erkel: Bánk bán, the anthem tune of 1844 (check)
The context: Habsburg rule, 1848 and 1849, the 1867 Compromise (check)
The caution: "Hungarian style" in this period is mostly the urban Roma-band style