Zubin Mehta - Liszt: Symphonic Poems (1997/2019)

Franz Liszt (1811-86) is rightfully credited as one of the great pianists of the 19th century, but he is equally well known as the inventor of the single-movement symphonic poem. These poems are large- scale pieces bearing not only titles, but also extra-musical associations consisting of actual stories and emotional impressions. Liszt was not interested in music that made "sense" on its own terms; he liked the additional dimensions offered by an evocative, artistic programme. Les Preludes is the most frequently performed of these works, in which a heroic, sublime score accompanies the alternately warlike and pastoral passages of a Lamartine poem. On the other hand, Orpheus was inspired by a live performance of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice attended by Liszt. Another literary- bound creation is Hamlet, which features several brooding themes for the Prince of Denmark as well as yearning material for the tragic Ophelia. A mural painting depicting a clash between the Attila the Hun and the Christian army of King Theodoric forms the basis of the concluding Hunnenschlacht. The performance, courtesy of Zubin Mehta and the Berlin Philharmonic, is preserved through some of the finest engineering in recent memory. --Kevin Mulhall