Liszt: Two Legends, (Jando, Pierdomenico)

This is how impressionism began. (Well, perhaps even earlier, with Harmonies du Soir and Chasse-Neige, but the basic point stands.) The Two Legends, written in 1863, represent unprecedented attempts at musical naturalism and religious expression – Liszt’s total mastery of pianistic colour and texture only rarely found vehicles of expression as pure as these. The first work narrates the tale of St Francis of Assisi stopping along his travels to deliver a sermon to the first in the trees; as he speaks, the come down and surround him until he blesses them. The second depicts St Francis of Paola, having been denied use of the ferry to cross the Straits of Messina, laying his cloak over the waters and crossing the straits on it. Both pieces are works of genius: the first adopts an unusual call-and-response structure and spins out a plethora of shimmering ornithological effects; it was by far the most sophisticated imagistic treatment of birds in music when it was written (you have to wait for Messiaen, really, to