Totentanz (Liszt)

According to Alan Walker,[1] Liszt frequented Parisian "hospitals, gambling casinos and asylums" in the early 1830s, and he even went down into prison dungeons in order to see those condemned to die.

A musical example of such irony can be found in the last movement of the Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz which quotes the medieval (Gregorian) Dies Irae (Day of Judgment) melody in a shockingly modernistic manner.

Since it is based on Gregorian material, Liszt's Totentanz contains Medieval sounding passages with canonic counterpoint, but by far the most innovative aspect of the scoring is the shockingly modernistic, even percussive, nature of the piano part.

Richard Pohl (an early biographer) notes, "Every variation discloses some new character—the earnest man, the flighty youth, the scornful doubter, the prayerful monk, the daring soldier, the tender maiden, the playful child.

[5] Besides the performances by Hans von Bülow, Béla Bartók, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Ferruccio Busoni, performances of historic significance include those of the Liszt student José Vianna da Motta (1945 – Port Nat S IPL 108), as well as György Cziffra (EMI 74012 2), Claudio Arrau, Jorge Bolet (Decca), Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1961 – Arkadia HP 507.1; 1962 – Memoria 999-001), Michel Béroff (EMI Classics), Byron Janis (RCA), Martha Argerich, Krystian Zimerman (Deutsche Grammophon), Arnaldo Cohen (Naxos and BIS), Raymond Lewenthal, and Enrico Pace at the Second International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in 1989.