Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, S. 173 No. 5: Pater Noster

Instrumentation

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Editions (2)

• Original Lvl 6 4 min
• Original Lvl 7 5 min

Musical Terms (11)

• appassionato Italian
  With passion, with intense feeling. Calls for deeply committed, emotionally uninhibited expression.
  Appassionato in Liszt gives permission for expressive excess — wide dynamic range, rhetorical tempo flexibility, and full tonal projection. The passion should feel inevitable, not indulgent.
• con abbandono Italian
  With abandon — a complete surrender to the expressive moment, holding nothing back.
  Liszt's most characteristic invitation to full emotional commitment. The technique must be secure enough that the performer can genuinely let go within it. Restraint defeats the purpose entirely.
• con fuoco Italian
  With fire. Indicates fierce, passionate energy with a burning, driven quality.
  In Liszt's bravura passages, con fuoco means both speed and ferocity — incisive articulation, strong accents, and a willingness to push the instrument hard. The fire should feel barely controlled.
• grandioso Italian
  Grand, majestic. One of Liszt's most characteristic directions, calling for a broad, sweeping, imperial character.
  Grandioso in Liszt means physical scale as well as emotional weight — full arm weight, generous pedal, and a sense of spaciousness in the tempo. Don't rush; grandeur requires time to fill the room.
• grandioso Italian
  With grandeur and magnificence — broad, ceremonial, and architecturally scaled.
  Liszt's grandioso moments require physical scale: the tone must fill a large concert hall. The sound should feel monumental rather than merely loud.
• leggierissimo Italian
  As light as possible — the superlative of leggiero. Indicates the most delicate, weightless touch imaginable.
  Essential in passages like the upper-register figuration of Un sospiro or the rapid scales in the Transcendental Etudes. The fingers should barely depress the keys; use the natural rebound of the key rather than active finger pressure.
• lugubre Italian
  Mournful, lugubrious, funereal. A characteristic marking in Liszt's late works, especially La lugubre gondola.
  Lugubre requires a dark, hollow tone — minimal pedal, slow key descent, and a sense of weight pressing downward. The late pieces marked lugubre are among Liszt's most prophetic; avoid any hint of Romantic warmth.
• pesante Italian
  Heavy, weighty. Indicates a pressing, deliberate quality, as though bearing physical weight.
  In Liszt's fortissimo chordal passages, pesante means the arms and body weight behind the keys, not just the fingers. The sound should be massive but never brittle — press rather than strike.
• quasi cadenza Italian
  Like a cadenza — freely and without strict pulse, in the manner of an improvised virtuosic passage.
  These passages in Liszt should feel improvised even when fully notated. The pulse floats and the performer makes each note feel like a choice. Time is subject to expression.
• quasi improvisando Italian
  As if improvising. Indicates a free, spontaneous quality, as though the music is being invented in the moment.
  In quasi improvisando passages, loosen the pulse and allow the phrasing to breathe unpredictably. Think of a great operatic recitative — the rhythm serves the expression, not the other way around.
• recitativo Italian
  In a declamatory, speech-like style — the musical equivalent of dramatic recitative, as in opera.
  Liszt frequently writes passages that imitate operatic recitative: free rhythm, dramatic pauses, declamatory tone. These passages are literally speaking; treat each phrase as a rhetorical utterance.