Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 05/01/1977, uploaded on 10/19/2014

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

...The penultimate piece of the suite, Le Mal du Pays (Homesickness), like the earlier Pastorale, lacks a literary reference. It begins with a doleful E minor melody twice statement in a lonely monophonic manner. Following the announcement of this melody is a quasi-fantasia section, which with various rhythms and melodic figurations alternates almost entirely between tonic and dominant harmonies. After coming to a half close in E minor and a lengthy pause of poignant silence, a new melody, just as melancholy as the previous, emerges in G-sharp minor. A brief moment of tenderness in the major mode, however, begins the melody’s second half, but soon after returns to the minor in which it ends. Liszt then repeats the early introduction and fantasia, now transposed in G minor. Following the pattern already established, the earlier G-sharp minor section now reappears in the key of B minor. The theme of this section, however, besides being somewhat varied, is also greatly expanded in an agitato section of severe loneliness and longing. Liszt ultimately reaches a warm restatement of the melody in E major. However, the closing measures returns to the minor mode. A last statement of the monophonic tune of the opening, now presented in the bass beneath alternating tonic and augmented sixth harmonies ends the piece with painful resignation.      Joseph DuBose

Recorded in May of 1977