The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

360
Anna Piotrowska
Consequently improvisation was credited with the possession of its own musical dramatics. As identified by
Ali Jihad Racy improvisation is characterised by a number of features including: intuitiveness, practical aspect,
creativeness, personalization (individualization), inspiration, power, specific musical idiom, balance between
the familiar and the novel, direct contact with the audience, mystical or emotional transcendence, freedom, and
finally naturalness (Racy, 2000: 304-307). Similar notions: virtuosity, emotions and improvisation have been
commonly used in reference to Gypsy music and its perception in European culture. For example European
intellectuals treated Gypsy music as very emotional, melancholic and full of joy at the same time.
Accomplished improvisation was an essential component of concerts given by piano players in 19th
century, for instance young Liszt largely added to the fame he managed to achieve after moving to Paris
where he was regarded incontestable as a virtuoso improvising on themes from Schubert Lieder, Chopin, etc.
(Bekker, 1936: 277). Liszt’s piano music, rejecting the instrument’s limitations, imitated the sound effects of
other instruments including the ones commonly linked with the Gypsy music. Not only was it the violin but also
the cimbalom. But soon –as Leon Botstein suggests – “Liszt’s dissatisfaction with his virtuoso career was the
result of his extensive internal musing regarding the inadequacy of performance alone as realizing the higher
calling of the artist and the elevation of the new public’s taste” (Botstein, 2006: 544).
Virtuosi were blamed for drawing away the public’s attention from the work itself in favour of emotions:
for Liszt, however, composing started exactly where the improvisation ended. Liszt incorporated a number of
musical figures on which improvisation thrived into his musical compositions focusing on the role of melody
unifying the work. He did not shun repetitions and digressions. <strong>The</strong> structural logics followed the inner plan of
historical trajectory as if reflecting the improvising path.
As argued by Botstein, for Liszt musical composition “remained tied to the musical event as a
performative experience” (Botstein, 2006: 555). <strong>The</strong> musical ideal was defined – as in case of improvisation
so well known by Liszt from Hungarian Zigeunerkapellen – by the momentary experience characterised by
factors aptly enumerated by Ali Jihad Racy. <strong>The</strong> musical work was conceived for different reasons than in the
case of an educated, professional musician following the set of rules regarding composition. Framed within an
audible entity piece of music inspired by improvisation practice was an attempt to express the inexpressible.
It was the trial to conjure up in the form of a written text the emotions of the moment – the compromise
between the dilettante and the professional artist, an attempt to marry two opposites, an attempt to sustain
the ideal of improvisation while not rejecting the new ideas of the higher status of the autonomous, written
down piece of music.
What Liszt managed to do was the transformation of improvisation into a jotted down composition. This
transformation might be a consequence of the fact that Liszt was very open to the 19 th century ideas also as a
vivid reader of the press in German and French. Botstein, alluding to Liszt’s ability to imitate and transform,
suggests that the composer, while absorbing the romantic trends also “transcended them” (Botstein, 2006:
519). Drawing heavily on what Liszt believed was Gypsy tradition he set to express the inexpressible. David
Malvinni in his 2004 book “<strong>The</strong> Gypsy caravan: from real Roma to imaginary gypsies in Western music and
film” suggested that „Gypsy music, as understood by Liszt and others in the nineteenth century, is not simply
a musical style, nor another exoticism (the German –centric view), but a consciousness of the communicative
essence of music; differently put, it is the power of musical performance to convey a ‘passionate’ impression
on the listener” (Malvinni, 2004: ix).
<strong>The</strong> romantic image of the Gypsy musician influenced the perception of improvising virtuosi and
strengthened the growing tendency of rejecting improvisation as an ultimate proof of an instrumentalist’s