Liszt's Open Structures and the Romantic Fragment

Abstract

An of the Romantic illuminates matters of prolongation and closure in Liszt works that (1) contain no decisive cadential arrival on the tonic, either within the body of the work or at the end, and (2) are based upon a dominant-function harmony. Consideration of the relationship between these works and other kinds of tonally open compositions in the Liszt repertoire builds upon insights offered by recent scholars who have written about the aesthetics of fragmentary forms in nineteenth-century art: Charles Rosen, John Daverio, and Thomas McFarland. Liszt's works analyzed include Einst (S. 332, 1878), Verlassen (S. 336, 1880), Mephisto Waltz No. 3 (S. 216, 1883), Valse oubliee No. 4 (S. 215 no. 4, 1883), En reve (S. 207, 1885), Csardas obstine (S. 225, 1886), Resignazione (S. 263, 1877), and the Second Elegy (S. 197, 1877). e Divine artist's] work ... through w ich nfinite being or infinite th comes to expression with n the limits essential to creation, resses the infinitely beautiful, but in a certain measur refract d, en, scat ered by the opaque medium of the world f appeares . . . But as the infinite is in opp sition t the essence of the ld, it follows that he infinite is the id al aim which it appro ches . . ithout ever reaching it.31 aesthetics of the fragment offers to the Liszt scholar erspective that acknowledges the structural incompletes of those Liszt works that re based on a dissonant chord, rooted in diatonicism. Some scholarship as characte ized zt's adventurous works a coherent wholes, with structu es t are closed with respect to a referential sonority or pitchss set. Inde d, ther are some Liszt works that invite this of analysi . But, as considered here, while L szt's protoal music does anticipate developments of this century, it very much grows out of aesthe ic values of his time. 31Robert Felicit6 de Lamennais, Esquisse d'une philosophie, trans. in E. Cowdery, Franz Liszt: Artist and Man (London: W. H. Allen and Company, 1882), 375-76. 30Liszt, From Berlioz, 116. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.33 on Wed, 12 Oct 2016 04:55:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms