When I discovered Franz Liszt’s Consolation No. 3 (S. 172), I was very pleasantly surprised by how tenderly beautiful and generally amazing-sounding it was. I absolutely love it and it’s a refreshing change from Liszt’s usual complicated ferventness (not saying that’s bad of course). I feel like when Liszt is quieter he is very nice too, and I kind of wish that his quiet pieces like this Consolation were more well-known.
This is just the romantic in me speaking, but what made me quite emotional upon discovering the piece was the knowledge that Liszt composed it shortly after Frédéric Chopin’s death. The piece is so sweet that I couldn’t help but have my heart warmed with the thought that Liszt actually did care about Chopin – the two Romantic composers were friends at one point, sure, but their friendship was tense, characterized by a grudging admiration of each other, and by around 1845 they had fallen out. The fact that Franz Liszt composed this Consolation shortly after Chopin’s death, however, just makes me think that Liszt and Chopin’s relationship was sweeter than it seemed to be, and that thought is simply romantic.
Originally posted March 9, 2019 on WordPress
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