Section 1: Structure

Liszts Trube Wolken can be organized into three main parts. Part I is
comprised of measures 1 through 20. Part II is comprised of measures 25
through 48 (the end). Measures 21 through 24 serve as a bridge between
the two parts.
Part I can be further divided into two parts, the first of the two being
measures 1 through 8. In these first 8 measures, Lizst introduces his short,
yet poignant six-note theme. After the theme has played twice, Lizst
provides a tremolando in the bassa kind of accompanimentabove which
the main theme plays twice more. The second of these two smaller parts
begins at measure 9 with the strike of an augmented chord (though it is
spelled in fourths) on the downbeat. After a total of six chords, the bridge
begins at measure 21.
The bridge consists of a five-note melody played in octaves. The
melody is derived from the theme. The bridge melody is then repeated. The
simple bridge is melodically open ended and serves to foster in the listener
anticipation for the second half of the piece.
Part II can be divided into two smaller parts as well. The first of these
begins at measure 25. The original six-note g minor theme plays in the bass
as before, but this time Liszt includes above it a new counterpoint motive
and turns the theme, itself, into an accompaniment. For eight bars, the
piece carries on in this two voice texture rendering a total of four repetitions
of the theme. At measure 33, the second half of part II begins. Arpeggiated
augmented chords comprise a left-hand accompaniment to an ascending
ostinato figure played in octaves by the right hand. This ostinato then
repeats twice. After the second repetition of the ostinato, there is an entire
measure of rest followed by a three bar coda, which begins at measure 46.
The structure of the piece is noticeably and deliberately parallel. In
summary, there are two distinct parts each comprised of 20 measures of
material separated by four bars of bridge. Each part then contains 8
measures of material in its first portion contrasted by twelve measures of
material in its latter portion. The four measures of bridge, which are at the
very center of the piece, are perfectly divisible into two bars of material
simply played twice. Symmetry is quite literally at the center of Trube
Wolken!
By the incorporation of a concrete, precisely organized form, Liszt may
have intended to present a contrast to the pieces more nebulous and
uncertain mood and implied poetic instability. While the mathematical
divisions of the form are easy to see when mapped out on the short twopage paper score, the minute elements of the form are not quite so apparent

to the listener when he or she hears the piece played Andante. But there is
nonetheless a comforting predictability to the piece lent by the precise
organization Liszt employs which makes the dissonances and harmonic
obscuritysoon to be addressedeasier to accept.

Section 2: Harmonic Language

Trube Wolken is part of a body of Franz Liszts later work which serves
as a departure in many ways from, for example, the composers more readily
called to mind Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and Liebestraume. In Trube
Wolken, Liszt makes use of an experimental and not entirely straightforward
harmonic language.
At the second repeat of the melody, a tremolando on B-flat enters as a
kind of accompaniment to the melody. It is unclear whether the Bb serves as
a reminder of the relative major or whether it points us in the direction of the
tonicG. In measure 15, as the first section of Part I comes to a cadence, the
B-flat tremolando returns. Then, in measure 16, there is a tremolo on A. The
ear expects at this point a tremolo on G, which would provide scale degrees
3, 2, and 1 in g minor. Alas, Liszt delays us the satisfaction of the tonic and
returns to a tremolo on the B-flat. While the B-flat is merely friendly scale
degree 3 in the g minor tonality already established in the listeners ear, this
fact is obscured by the augmented chord played in the right hand on the
downbeat of measure 17.
The B-flat creates a deliciously crunchy
dissonance with the C-flat in the augmented chord above it.
Using augmented chords in a chromatically descending fashion from
measures 11 through 20, Liszt creates a tremendous amount of harmonic
instability.
Though is worth noting that, theoretically speaking, an
augmented chord is a perfectly symmetrical chord in all its inversions and
contains 2 whole steps between each chord member in each of those
inversions once enharmonically respelled. This nuance speaks yet again to
the recurring theme of contrast in Trube Wolken. How is it that a chord which
appears on paper to be so balanced can be so dissonant and sound so
obscure?
The alternation between B-flat and A returns in the second portion of
Part II at measure 33.
B-flat serves as the root of the arpeggiated
augmented chord found in the left hand and Liszt writes the B-flat as a half
note, emphasizing its importance to the listener. In the measure that
immediately follows, A stands in for B-flat while the chord remains the same.
Liszt continues similarly, providing the left hand accompaniment for his
upward rising ostinato, alternating between B-flat and A and changing to a
new augmented chord every 2 measures.

The pieces final two measures are of particular harmonic interest. In

measure 44, the ascending ostinato ends on an F#, which is the leading tone
of g minor. After a full measure of rest, Liszt rearticulates the highly
suggestive F# as part of a rolled chord which also contains an e minor triad
and a pedal tone A, which recalls the ominous pedal tone tremolos from
earlier in the piece. In the following measure, we hear the same chord again,
but with one alteration: Both F#s are resolved up to G! (Could this be a bit
of sun peeking out from behind the Grey Clouds?) Amid the ambiguity of
these two final chords, Liszt does not fail to provide us the resolution we
have been looking for throughout this piece, and yet he does so with such
subtlety and finesse without ruining the mood he has created.

Section 3: Motivic and Thematic Elements

Liszts six-note theme is in g minor, which agrees with the key
signature Liszt provides the piece. The first three notes of the six-note
melody represent scale degrees 5, 1, and #4 in g minor. The raised fourth
scale degree adds an unexpected and interesting tension to the short melody
as it drives the melody along to the D, scale degree 5, whence Liszt begins a
descending g minor triad. It is not until the listener hears this descending
triad that we have confirmation of the key. And in fact, until the Bb, the
second to last note of the melody, we cannot even be sure whether we are in
major or minor modeas the raised fourth scale degree is often indicative of
Lydian. Liszt goes one step further to emphasize the tension of the C#,
which notably forms an interval of an augmented fourth with the G that
precedes it: He begins the melody on the second beat of the four-beat
measure every single time! The 2-beat C# is as a result tied over the bar to
a C# on beat 1 of the following bar. The melody moves again on beat 2 of its
second measure. The emphasis of the downbeat lends the dissonance a
strong, unexpected emphasis.
The material for the bridge at measure 21 is derived from the main
theme, but Liszt modifies the melody to generate anticipation, making it an
effective bridge. Instead of the descending triad at the end of the melody,
Liszt descends from scale degree 5 of g minor to B-flat and hiccups. The
ear expects the complete g minor triad, but we do not have the pleasure of
its stability until the return of the original theme at the beginning of Part II at
measure 25.
With the beginning of Part II, the two-bar theme returns as an
accompaniment. Above it is a wandering melody, which creates a mostly 2:1
counterpoint. While filled with longing and emotional intensity, the texture

from measure 25 to measure 32 is sparse and simplistic, which recalls the

eerie opening of the piece in which only the theme is presented.
Then, an upward reaching ostinato enters at measure 33. This
chromatically ascending line yearns and pines as it creeps slowly upward.
This adds to the melancholic, wallowing quality of the piece. For more on
this poetic theme, it is worth noting the structure of the main musical theme
itself: a slowly ascending and then slowly descending melody of two bars.
There is a sighing quality to this organization. It calls to mind the slow, sure,
and steady breath of deep sleep or perhaps of a drunken, depressive stupor.

Section 4: Summary
Despite a palpable emotional depth and intensity, this piece is short
and contains few notes, relatively speaking. It illustrates how a good
composer can write economically and still be provocative.
I acquired some familiarity with a body of Liszts work that I didnt
beforehand know existed.
According to Grove Music Online, Liszt
experienced depression and ailing health late in his life, giving rise to this
body of music filled with lament and grief. This illustrates the importance
and helpfulness of knowing a composers biography and what was going on
in his life when interpreting a piece of his. (The same can be said of any
artist and his artwork.)
The tonal qualities of Trube Wolken are perhaps not immediately
apparent, but the elements of tonality need not be immediately apparent in
a tonal piece. Upon closer examination, scale degree and function play a
large role in Trube Wolken, as in the way the #4 moves expectedly up to
scale degree 5 in the theme or in the way the F# resolves up to the G to
confirm g minor in the stacked chords at the very end of the piece.

Nuages gris (pronounced: [na i]; French, lit. Grey Clouds), S.199 or Trbe Wolken, is a work
for piano solo composed byFranz Liszt on August 24, 1881. It is one of Liszt's most haunting and at
the same time one of his most experimental works, representing, according to Allen Forte, "a high
point in the experimental idiom with respect to expressive compositional procedure."' [1] If we must
look for biographical parallels with the music, perhaps the bleakness of mood is connected with
difficulties faced by Liszt at the time of composition, when he was suffering from dropsy, failing
eyesight, and severe injuries sustained in a fall down the stairs of the Hofgrtnerei seven weeks
earlier.[2]
Departing from his earlier virtuoso style, Liszt in his later years made several radical, compositional
experiments, includingNuages gris, Unstern S.208 and Bagatelle sans tonalit S.216. Yet it was only
in the second half of the twentieth century that the significance of Liszt's late experimental works
began to be appreciated. R. Larry Todd, for example, has noted that "Arguably, Liszt was the first
composer to establish the augmented triad as a truly independent sonority, to consider its
implications for modem dissonance treatment, and to ponder its meaning for the future course of
tonality. Liszt's accomplishments in these areas were considerable and support in no small way his
position, in Busoni's phrase, as the 'master of freedom.' [3] Scholars such as Humphrey Searle, Zoltn
Harsnyi, Bence Szabolcsi, Lajos Brdos, and Istvn Szelnyi have contributed much to placing
these works in the repertoire of today's pianists.[4]
Nuages gris is quite short and technically simple. According to Jim Samson, "the most distinctive
features of Liszt's late style are present in this short workthe avoidance of a conventional cadential
structure, the importance of semitonal movement, the use of the augmented triad as the central
harmonic unit and of parallelism as a principal means of progression." [5] The harmonies are based on
augmented triads while the melody line makes extensive reference to the hungarian minor scale.
The harmonies, which are very different from those found in his earlier works, give a very dark and
almost morbid feel to the piece. Leonard Ratner has commented: "The restless, unresolved
dissonances ofNuages gris the isolated figures, the sense of alienationthese have a clear affinity
with the somewhat later expressionism of the Viennese composers Mahler and Schoenberg....
[Nuages gris] is a musical bellwether that indicated what was happening and what would happen in
European music: sound, with the assistance of symmetry, would take over, harmony would be
absorbed into color and lose its cadential function."[6]
Claude Debussy probably had Nuages gris in mind when he composed his own Nuages.[7] Mauricio
Kagel used Nuages gris in his Unguis incarnatus est (1972).[8] in 1986, Heinz Holliger worked the
piece out into Zwei Liszt-Transkriptionen for orchestra (together with Unstern!).[9] A shocking scene at
the morgue in Stanley Kubrick's last film Eyes Wide Shut is accompanied by Nuages gris.

References[edit]
1.

Arnold, Ben, ed., The Liszt Companion, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, p. 169.

2.

Arnold, The Liszt Companion, p. 169.

3.

Arnold, The Liszt Companion, p. 140.

4.

Arnold, The Liszt Companion, p. 26.

5.

Samson, Jim, Music in Transition, New York, 1977, p. 17.

6.

Arnold, The Liszt Companion, p. 169.

7.

Palmer, Christopher, Impressionism in music, Volume 1973, Part 1, p. 58.

8.

Decarsin, Franois. 1985. "Liszts Nuages gris and Kagels Unguis incarnatus est: A Model
and Its Issue", translated by Jonathan Dunsby. Music Analysis 4, no. 3:25963.

9.

Stefan Drees, Transkription versus bermalung. Zu Heinz Holligers und Peter Ruzickas
kreativer Auseinandersetzung mit den spten Klavierstcken Franz Liszts. In: Neue Zeitschrift fr
Musik, Schott, Mainz 04/2014, p. 44.