Piano Recital — LISZT: Romantic Poetry & Passions

Description

Liszt — Clément Chatelain Mairie du 5e (Agora) — 21 Place du Panthéon, Paris 5th arrondissement Friday, January 23, 2026 — 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM This piano recital is an immersion in Franz Liszt’s world, where music becomes narrative, poetry, and inner theatre. Through myths, operas, and declarations of love, Liszt turns the piano into a stage for every human passion. The programme opens with Ballade No. 2, inspired by the ancient myth of Hero and Leander. Two lovers are separated by the sea: every night, Leander swims towards Hero, guided by the light she kindles for him. A storm extinguishes the flame; Leander drowns, and Hero joins him in death. Liszt transforms this story into a true sonic fresco, in which romantic yearning, unleashed nature, and tragic fate intertwine in a narrative of striking power. At the heart of the concert comes Petrarch’s Sonnet 104, “Pace non trovo” — “I find no peace.” Liszt sets to music one of love’s most beautiful paradoxes: burning and freezing at once, hoping and suffering, living in a constant tension between bliss and torment. The poem ends with a moving confession: “This is the state I am in, my lady, to please you.” It is an avowal of absolute love, fragile and sincere, magnified by Liszt’s pianistic writing. Isolde’s Death, Liszt’s transcription of Richard Wagner’s Liebestod, extends this quest for absolute love. Drawn from the medieval myth of Tristan and Isolde, born in the 12th century and foundational to the Western Romantic imagination, this music celebrates the lovers’ union beyond life. In Wagner — and through Liszt’s vision — love finds fulfilment only in the final transfiguration, where death becomes ecstasy. The programme then turns to Italian opera with Bellini. In Casta Diva, a prayer suspended outside time, the priestess Norma implores peace and mercy before her love drives her towards tragedy. This ideal purity, both fragile and luminous, is one of the summits of bel canto. The concert closes with Réminiscences de Norma, in which Liszt concentrates the opera’s entire drama: forbidden love, jealousy, betrayal, and sacrifice. Through this vast pianistic fresco, Norma’s fate unfolds towards its tragic conclusion with an intensity that steadily sets the keyboard ablaze.