ABSTRACT
Liszt came late to vocal music. In 1839, when his first surviving song was published, he was already famous for his keyboard improvisations, fantasies, and adaptations. By 1883, however, he had (re)composed and published literally hundreds of vocal works. A few of them reflect his knowledge of fantasy conventions, and each is a work of tone-poetry that combines musical and extra-musical elements. At the same time, most of his cantatas, choruses, oratorios, and solo songs differ structurally and stylistically from almost everything else he created. For these reasons, each of his vocal works deserves to be considered on its own terms, if only because each—save for the masses and certain motets—possesses its own distinctive text. The present chapter examines only a very few of Liszt’s many vocal compositions as well as romantic irony, “camp” as a mode of self-conscious exaggeration, and forms of religious expression that may help us understand how and why Liszt wrote and rewrote so much sacred music during his later life.
