Franz Liszt's sonata narratives: large-scale forms at the Weimar Court

Drawing primary attention to the theoretical models of the new <i>Formenlehre</i>, including William Caplin’s theory of formal functions, James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy’s Sonata Theory, and their nineteenth-century complements in Schmalfeldt, Horton, and Vande Moortele, the analyses co-inhabit both empirical and hermeneutic approaches, endorsing the multi-variate methodologies of musicology alongside the literary models of narratology and transtextuality.<br><br>Following a conceptual introduction to narrative theory and detailed review of narrative’s adoption in musicology, the thesis builds a theoretical model for the analysis of large-scale forms in nineteenth-century instrumental music.

Key case studies comprise the most important of Liszt’s sonata-form works from this period, including <i>Après une lecture du Dante (Fantasia quasi Sonata)</i> and the Piano Sonata in B Minor; the symphonic poems <i>Les Préludes</i>, <i>Orpheus</i>, <i>Prometheus</i>, and <i>Tasso: Lamento e Trionfo</i>; and “Mephistopheles” from <i>Eine Faust-Symphonie</i>; each of which are analysed here under the rubric of the new <i>Formenlehre </i>for the first time, demonstrating the suitability of Liszt’s inclusion in the field, and endorsing the sonata principle as the foundational structure of his large-scale forms.