Fidelia - Liszt - Années de Pelerinage, S.160: I. Suisse, No. 1 Chapelle de Guillaume Tell

On-campus recital 23 May 2025. The last but not the least; a victorious ending to my Junior Recital series. ~ Inspired by his journeys through European landscapes, as well as the autobiographical subjectivity in the narrative poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: A Romaunt” by Lord Byron, Liszt composed what would become his largest set of character pieces; illustrative, lyrical, and picturesque pieces, which emotions and texture evoked that of a specific atmosphere or scene, bringing forth the epitome of 19th century Romanticism. Literally meaning “Years of Pilgrimage”, or in other words, a spiritual journey, it consists of three sets (or volumes, if you may) of pieces composed through different periods of his life. The first set, “Suisse” or “Swiss”, was Liszt’s reflections of his stay in Switzerland with lover Countess Marie d’Agoult. As he aimed to capture the dazzling Swiss natural landscapes, he would even fit some of the pieces with epigraphs from the third canto from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, as the poem itself describes the Byronic hero and his journeys through Europe, seeking pleasure and beautiful sceneries (a common melancholic expression of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras); the third canto itself describing the beauty of Switzerland. “Chapelle de Guillaume Tell” or “William Tell’s Chapel”, is inspired by the legend of real-life Catholic chapel, tells the tale of “Tellensprung” in which the Swiss legendary folk-hero, William Tell, leapt and escaped from a boat during a storm to evade capture, which led him fight and succeed in starting a revolution against the tyrannical Habsburg rule in the 14th century. This heroic legend then, brings Liszt to write a grand, majestic piece, beginning with a noble hymn of C Major, which is followed by an agitated storm and struggle and somewhat evoking of the Swiss horn, exploding with a climax of such strength, grandeur, bravado; not long before finally, the air is filled with the horns’ grand proclamation of victory. As this recital comes to an end, Liszt closes the piece with a quote from the poet Schiller: “all for one-one for all.” ~ #classicalmusic #piano #liszt #cover #songcovers #performance #classical #music #franzliszt