Tickling My Ivories
Tickle this!
OK, so… I don’t play piano. I don’t play anything, really — musical or otherwise (on occasion, I have been referred to as “the anti-jock” by my girl friends*). I used to play percussion and softball back in the day, and sometimes I can convince people to play Boggle or Scene It or Yahtzee with me, but… at the present time, you could say I’m play-less. (Aww…)
I do maintain a somewhat codependent-yet-loving relationship with music, however, and I like to share it. My most preferred methods of sharing are via carefully crafted mix CDs, and via my raucously loud voice belting out of my open car window and strutting into yours, if you’re (un)lucky. Yeah, you could say I’m a giver.
So…it’s not news that I’m a literature nerd, right? OK. So, during one of my many time-travel missions back to 19th-Century France in my Alfred de Vigny research, I discovered that he held a very close attachment to the Hungarian composer, Franz Liszt. Now, I could count the number of non-Liszt “classical pieces” I’m familiar with on one hand, so… suffice it to say, I hadn’t the tiniest little clue what a Liszt concerto sounded like. On my quest to discover the Land of Liszt, I resorted to that instantaneous informational sleuth that you might know by the name of: Google. Google granted me lists and lists of Liszts… so I lisTened.
Sorry — I think I just fell into a phonetic coma.
Franz Liszt wants to reach out and touch you too.
My whole point is that, while I considered each of his songs melodic and beautiful, I was ill-prepared for the effect that Liszt’s “La Campanella” would have on me. Now, I know I’m a sensitive, sentimental soul, but… I’d never experienced such an emotional reaction to music-without-lyrics before. It wrecked me. I cried. And then I hit “repeat.” And cried again. And then I hit “repeat” again. And again. And again. And… you get the point. Obsessive-compulsive relationship. I’m a masochist.
But what I realized is that “La Campanella” (which apparently means “the handbell” or “the little bell”) truly spoke to me in each of my extremes. Again, it’s quite near impossible for me to speak/write intelligently about classical music (or jockism), but… All I know is that this score touches me in a way that almost no other score/song/melody ever has before. EVER. And that’s pretty d@mn monumental. The way it flies from one extreme to the next, back and forth…surprising flourishes and intense trills…and then coming back together… well… it’s rather bi-polar. And well… there you have it. Another wink from good ole Alfred.
If my life were a piano concerto, this would be it.
*To my credit, though, my closest girl friends are all freakishly athletic and many coach at the college level. So… in essence, the vast majority of the population is “anti-jock” from their perspective. It’s all relative. But I can still kick their collective As at putt-putt. 
Oh, I know and love this piece as well (7 years of music school behind me, doesn’t mean much, really, except that at some point, I did hear every major piece of classical music in a meaningful context, which I have since successfully forgotten).
Wasn’t Liszt also a friend of Georges Sand? And someone else, another famous contemporary of theirs?
Did you know that the theme was not Liszt’s? He borrowed it from Paganini (now, that’s one dude who seems to be popping out nothing but masterpieces):
La Campanella (meaning “The Little Bell”) is the nickname given to the final movement of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, because the tune was reinforced by a little handbell.
Franz Liszt borrowed the tune and wrote various pieces based on it, the most famous of which is the third of six Grandes Etudes de Paganini (“Grand Paganini Etudes”), S. 141, of 1851,known also as La Campanella. (from Wikipedia)
Hi Natalya!
Yeah, I’ve done a bit of research on Liszt since he was a friend of Vigny’s — I have a couple of CDs with various concertos and “Etudes,” including the ones you mentioned, so I’m aware of Paganini. And you’re totally right: Paganini was ridiculously brilliant.