Festklänge

Despite all his wondrous abilities, Orpheus failed to win Eurydice, and, in a way, the same fate was to befall Liszt. 'Festklänge', composed in 1853 as music for his own wedding to Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, eventually had to be used for another purpose; the wedding fell through because the Pope refused to grant a dispensation to the Princess, who - on paper - was still married. The 'programme-less' work was thus premièred in 1854 not as an explicit act of homage to the Princess but as the overture to a performance in Weimar of Schiller's lyric play 'Die Huldigung der Künste'. Outstanding: ClassicToday.