Liszt, the understated post-romantic
When the septuagenarian Liszt was invited to Windsor Castle to play before his slightly younger contemporary, Queen Victoria, he launched into some of his compositions of recent vintage, of an austere, non-virtuosic style. The Queen demanded to hear the old works that had swept Europe off its feet 30-40 years earlier, but Liszt refused to oblige: “We don’t play that kind of music anymore.” Indeed, Liszt’s late compositions have little in common with the works we still celebrate today, like the B minor Sonata and the Hungarian rhapsodies. A late composition, Nuages gris (Gray clouds), serves as a good example.