This week I have begun to study Les préludes by Franz Liszt, a very popular orchestral work which, once again, has somehow managed to escape my eye for many years. This is what has made my symphonic journey such a pleasure, week after week. In many disciplines, you may find yourself dreading continuing, but from the start I knew this would work because it is an evolving project, with something new every week. I constantly find new works for myself, and the satisfaction only seems to grow.
When I first started the project in January 2012, I was very excited to finally gain familiarity with pieces that I’d long felt that I should already have intimate relationships with if I intended to continue calling myself a professional musician, so in that portion of each year there has been a tinge of shame as I wonder why it took me so many years to gain familiarity with Brahms’ Symphony No. 2, Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Scheherazade. But, by midyear, I have found my way into deeper tracks, so to speak, and end up quite satisfied that I have found some pieces which orchestras may play on occasional seasons, but which for the most part won’t be found on television
commercials and movie trailers. Yet they’re fabulous pieces! It is the back-end of the year, I have unearthed Glazunov’s Symphony No. 1, the Sibelius Violin Concerto, and now Liszt’s Les préludes.