Trauerode (Les Morts. Oraison, 1862)

Franz Liszt (1811–1886) broke new ground in organ music in the 19th century. In addition to three large-scale and highly famous compositions – the Fantasia and Fugue on the chorale “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam” from Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera “Le Prophète”, the Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H, and the Variations on “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” – he left numerous other organ works of varying dimensions. Some of them are quite experimental in terms of harmony, compositional technique and form – features that are characteristic of Liszt's late works as a whole.

One of the first and, in my opinion, most impressive compositions from this group of works is the “Trauerode”, whose original title in the manuscript was “Les Morts. Oraison”. Liszt composed this piece in August 1860 as a reaction to the tragic death of his twenty-year-old son Daniel in December 1859. Just how close this piece was to him is evident from the fact that he had at times intended it to be played at his own funeral. However, it was only published posthumously in 1890.

As with many of his works, Liszt also presented versions for different instrumentations of “Trauerode” – in addition to a version for orchestra and male choir, versions for piano for two and four hands as well as for organ also exist. It would be misleading to want to distinguish between an “original version” and “arrangements” here: apparently the versions were created in parallel, whereby - with the same overall structure - some sections are worked out quite differently in detail.

The title of the work refers to a literary source: the composition is actually based on a poem by Félicité de Lamennais (1782–1854), a Catholic cleric who, in poems and political and philosophical writings, advocated, among other things, the idea of “Christian socialism”, with which Liszt also sympathized. And it was indeed Lamennais who wrote the eight-stanza prose poem “Les morts”, to which the structure of Liszt's composition refers.