Franz Liszt Anticipated 20th-Century Musical Trends and His Symphonic Poem Prometheus (1855) Is a Prime Example of This

Lukas Kamenski

Introduction

To modern-day average listeners, Franz Liszt is primarily known as mid-19th century piano virtuoso that came close in his fame and (female) followership to modern-day rockstars. However, what many people don't know is that in the second half of his life Liszt primarily focused on his symphonic compositions and contributed significantly to the development of the high Romantic musical language. 

Liszt's Prometheus is a symphonic poem written from 1850 to 1855. It was initially the overture to a cantata and eight choral pieces set to the poems of Johann Gottfried Herder’s Prometheus Unbound. In his symphonic poem, Liszt depicts the struggle of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus who is a titan to deceive the god Zeus and bring the invention of fire to the humans. For this, Prometheus is sentenced to be chained to a mountain with his liver being eaten once daily by an eagle and then the liver be regrown overnight. He is finally freed by the hero Heracles.

Tonal language

The symphonic poem Prometheus consists of one movement and features an introduction with striking quartal harmony that represents Prometheus’ ascent. It is then followed by a fast string passage with highly chromatic harmony, depicting Zeus’ wrath. After a slow lament there is an agitated passage showing the pitiless and seemingly endless suffering of Prometheus. However, Prometheus’ spirits seem to come back after a time which is beautifully shown by the theme starting from 5:00. The piece ends with an uplifting passage showing Prometheus final triumph.

Prometheus is revolutionary because it features some harmonic concepts that were unheard at the time and they represent something extramusical (in this case the struggle of Prometheus). Throughout the piece, Liszt uses for his time very unconventional harmonies starting with the introduction in rising fourths in the brass and then goes on with non-diatonic harmonic progressions often in major and minor thirds or tritones. In addition, Liszt doesn’t use the conventional sonata allegro form, which puts him even further away from conservatives’ musical ideals in the "War of the Romantics", a furiously battled controversy about the future of the symphony.

Musical Repercussions

One has to consider that by 1850 the conventional sonata allegro form was more than 100 years old and something new was already overdue. This was achieved by masters such as Wagner, Berlioz and especially Liszt in the instrumental genre, who from my point of view also created the basis of modern film and TV compositional techniques with their plethora of extramusical allusion/depictions.

Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner were really geniuses and many of the composers of following generations, including film music composers, owe incredibly much to them.

PS. If you want another example of Liszt's compositional foresight, check out one of his other symphonic poems, such as Les Preludes. It features extensive passages of mediant harmony.

Franz Liszt Anticipated 20th-Century Musical Trends.