Monday night the 28th  November I enjoyed Bertrand Chamayou playing Années de pèlerinage by Franz Liszt´s´ Sometimes these Years of Pilgrimage sounded like a firework, it was a maraton, it was incredible.

Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) (S
. 160, S. 161, S

. 163) is a set of three suites by Franz Liszt for solo piano
. Liszt’s complete musical style is evident in this masterwork, which ranges from virtuosic fireworks to sincerely moving emotional statements.

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His musical maturity can be seen evolving through his experience and travel. The third volume is especially notable as an example of his later style. It was composed well after the first two volumes and displays less showy virtuosity and more harmonic experimentation.

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The title Années de pèlerinage refers to Goethe’s famous novel of self-realization, Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship. Liszt clearly places the work in line with the Romantic literature of his time, prefacing most pieces with a literary passage from writers such as Schiller, Byron or Senancour, and, in an introduction to the entire work, writing,:

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“Having recently travelled to many new countries, through different settings and places consecrated by history and poetry; having felt that the phenomena of nature and their attendant sights did not pass before my eyes as pointless images but stirred deep emotions in my soul, and that between us a vague but immediate relationship had established itself, an undefined but real rapport, an inexplicable but undeniable communication, I have tried to portray in music a few of my strongest sensations and most lively impressions.”

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Perhaps  Bertrand Chamayou sometimes played a bit too hard, but it can be the piano or the acustic or a combination. Bertrand Camayou is good. He did it wonderful. Honestly i was afraid how he could manage to play more than 2 and 1/2 hour nearly in one. It was amazing to enjoy how inspired he keept it going on
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Of course. It is not human to let one pianist play so long and demanding program. This is, for one person, worse than a Wagner opera. But seen from another side.

The Pelerinage would lose its majestic power if it is not being played during one concert. Still as it is three separate suites, they can easily work one by one. But like with Wagner, one long break could have been put in so the audience could get food, and not pressed like Monday night, with only two 15 minutes breaks
. Well it has to do with the capacity for the hall, as it had to start to prepare for next days symphony concert during the night. The piano was checked by a piano tuner in both the breaks.

Bertrand Chamayou in addition played two concerts at The Bordeaux Piano Festival November 26th with integral of Years of Pilgrimage.

The suites

First YearPremière: Switzerland

The title translates to “First Year: Switzerland.” It was published in 1855. Composed between 1848 and 1854, most of the first volume (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9) are revisions of his earlier cycle Album d’un voyageur, which was composed between 1835 and 1836 and published in 1842. No. 7 (Églogue) was published separately, and No. 5 (Orage) was included as part of the definitive version of the cycle.

1. Chapelle de Guillaume Tell (William Tell´s Chapel) – Liszt’s caption: “All for one – one for all.”
2. Au lac de Wallenstadt (At Lake Wallenstadt) – Liszt’s caption is from Byron´s Childe Harold´Pilgrimage (Canto 3 LXVIII – CV): “Thy contrasted lake / With the wild world I dwell in is a thing / Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake / Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.”
3. Pastorale –
4. Au bord d´une source (Beside a Spring) – Liszt’s caption is from Schiller: “In the whispering coolness begins young nature’s play.”
5. Orage (Storm) – Liszt’s caption is from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto 3 LXVIII – CV): “But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal? / Are ye like those within the human breast? / Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?”
6. Vallée d’Obermann (Obermann’s Valley) – The captions include one from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (“Could I embody and unbosom now / That which is most within me,–could I wreak / My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw / Soul–heart–mind–passions–feelings–strong or weak– / All that I would have sought, and all I seek, / Bear, know, feel–and yet breathe–into one word, / And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; / But as it is, I live and die unheard, / With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.”) and two from Senancour´s Obermann, which include the crucial questions, “What do I want? Who am I? What do I ask of nature?”
7. Eglogue (Eclogue) – Liszt’s caption is from ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto 3 LXVIII): “The morn is up again, the dewy morn, / With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, / Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, / And living as if earth contained no tomb!”
8. Le mal du pays (Homesickness) –
9. Les cloches de Genève: Nocturne (The Bells of Geneva: Nocturne) – Liszt’s caption is from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: “I live not in myself, but I become / Portion of that around me”

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Title translates as “Second Year: Italy.” Published 1858 (Schott); composed 1837–1849; nos. 4–6 are revisions of Tre sonetti del Petrarca (Three sonnets of Petrarch) composed ca. 1839–1846 and published 1846.

Second Year: Italy

1. Sposalizio (Marriage of the Virgin, a painting by Raphael))
2. Il penseroso (The Thinker, a statue by Michelangelo)
3. Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa (Canzonetta of Salvator Rosa)
4. Sonetto 47 del Petrarca (Petrarch´s Sonnet 47)
5. Sonetto 104 del Petrarca (Petrarch’s Sonnet 104)
6. Sonetto 123 del Petrarca (Petrarch’s Sonnet 123)
7. Après une lecture de Dante: Fantasia Quasi Sonata (After Reading Dante: Fantasia Quasi Sonata)

• Venezia e Napoli (Venice and Naples (supplement to the Second Year)); Published 1861; composed 1859, partially as a revision of an earlier set with the same name Composed ca. 1840)

1. Gondoliera (Gondolier’s Song (based on the song “La biondina in gondoletta” Giovanni Battista Peruchini))
2. Canzone (Canzone (based on the gondolier’s song “Nessun maggior dolore” from Rossini´s Otello))
3. Tarantella (Tarantella (using themes by Guillaume-Louis Cottrau, 1797–1847))

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Third Year:

Title translates as “Third Year.” Published 1883; nos 1–4 and 7 composed in 1877; no 5, 1872; no 6, 1867.

1. Angélus! Prière aux anges gardiens (Angelus! Prayer to the Guardian angels (dedicated to Daniela von Bulow, Liszt’s grand-daughter, first daughter of Hans von Bülow and Cosima Liszt and wife of art historian Henry Thode.)) It was written for both melodeon, piano, or an instrument that combines both, for Liszt wrote “piano-melodium” on his manuscript.
2. Aux cyprès de la Villa d’Este I: Thrénodie (To the Cypresses of the Villa d´Este I: Threnody)
3. Aux cyprès de la Villa d’Este II: Thrénodie (To the Cypresses of the Villa d’Este II: Threnody) The Villa d’Este in these two threnodies were describing a park in a Tivoli near Rome. It is famous for its beautiful cypresses and fountains.
4. Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este (The Fountains of the Villa d´Este)
5. Sunt lacrymae rerum/En mode hongrois (There are Tears for Things/In the Hungarian Mode (dedicated to Hans von Bülow))
6. Marche funèbre (Funeral March) (In memory of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico)
7. Sursum corda (Lift Up Your Hearts)

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Recordings:

There has been several recordings, which can´t be counted on two hands. One of the very active is Claudio Arrau, who has been recording Les Annees de Pelerinages three times complete 1928/1937, 1969, 1982/83/89. Wilhelm Kempff in 1950 for Decca. Jerome Roce in 1973, Lazar Berman in 1979 for Deutsche Grammophone, Jefferey Swan in 1989 for akademia, Leslie Howard 1995/96/90 for Hyperion, Ksenia Nosikova 2001/03/05 for Centaur, Aldo Ciccolini 2003 for EMI, Yoram Ish-Hurwitz 2003/04.  Steffen Fahl 2011, And then Bertrand Chamayou in 2011 on Naive. The version presented at the concert. Some pianists has only been recording the one year. Vladimir Horowitz recorded 1 and 2nd year in 1947/51 for RCA.

 

Bertrand Chamayou CD on Naive.fr:

CD 01 première année : suisse s.160 1848-1854