Beyond Sonata Deformation: Liszt's Symphonic Poem Tasso and the Concept of Two-Dimensional Sonata Form

Abstract

1. Form and Deformation The idea that musical form in Liszt's orchestral music is mainly program­ driven has loomed large in twentieth -century musicology.! It undoubtedly originates with Liszt himself. In his seminal 1855 essay Berlioz und seine Harold-Symphonie-a thinly disguised apology for his own symphonic poems-Liszt defends the formal innovations in contemporaneous orches­ tral music by invoking its programmatic nature. 2 A renewal of musical form, he maintains, is vital not only because traditional forms have been fully exhausted by great composers from the past, but also because it is necessary for the adequate expression of an extra-musical program: [Progressive composers) do not hope to glean further harvest from fields already mown by giants and live in the belief that the work begun by these [giants) can only be continued when they, like the latter in their time, create forms for skins for wine. (Liszt [1882) 1978:59-60 )3 Over the last few decades, it has become generally accepted that Liszt did not refrain from recycling traditional patterns of formal organization for the expression of these new ideas, perhaps more than he was aware. As Michael Saffle has considered, the formal organization of Liszt's orchestral compositions is often determined no less by the tradition of sonata form than by the demands of their programs (Saffle 2002:240-42). Indeed, in nine of the twelve Weimar symphonic poems, sonata form is one of the central principles guiding the large-scale organization. Even where this is not the case (in Orpheus, Heroide funebre, and Hunnenschlacht), isolated procedures originating in sonata form often exert a local influence. This does not mean, of course, that the form of Liszt's symphonic poems can be reduced to an unproblematic sonata form scheme, yet detailed studies of how exactly Liszt does treat sonata form are, nonetheless, rare. 4 Much might be expected from applying James Hepokoski's theory of generic or structural deformation to Liszt's orchestral music. This