- 10:30
As part of the al-Bustan Festival, the University of Notre-Dame de Louaizé Choir, accompanied by the Lebanese-French pianist Abdel Rahman el-Bacha, presented a highly commendable interpretation of Franz Liszt's Via Crucis, a radical work from the composer's final creative period. This performance particularly highlighted the dramatic tension of the score, which combines austerity and expressive power in a poignant exploration of the Stations of the Cross.
On March 15, at the Saint-Joseph Church of the Jesuit Fathers in Monnot, the al-Bustan Festival dedicated a musical evening to Franz Liszt's Via Crucis, one of the most radical works in his sacred repertoire. Composed between 1878 and 1879, this cycle illustrates the profound aesthetic and spiritual transformation of the Hungarian composer in his later years. Abandoning the orchestral lyricism and virtuosic display that had marked his romantic period, Liszt here adopts a pared-down style, stripped down to the essentials, where harmony and rhythmic cadence convey both the austerity and the dramatic tension of the Stations of the Cross.
Structured in fourteen stations, Via Crucis stands out for its innovative approach to form and musical language. Liszt incorporates elements of plainchant, references to Lutheran chorales, and an often suspended harmony, on the border of atonality. The use of silence, block chords and dissonances contributes to a contemplative atmosphere, marked by a raw expressiveness, almost ascetic in nature. The alternation between choral passages and solo piano interventions creates an introspective dramaturgy where the suffering of Christ is not declared in exuberance, but revealed in a poignant stripping away, akin to the modernist aesthetic that would emerge in the following century.
In the March 15 performance, Gianluca Marcianò's conducting managed to highlight a commendable balance between the formal rigor and expressive intensity of the work. Under the guidance of Father Khalil Rahme, the University of Notre-Dame de Louaizé Choir met the challenge of this demanding score with great precision. It explored a wide range of vocal textures, from homophonic chants to more complex harmonies, creating effects of tension and release. Special mention must be made of the choir's accurate rendering of the choral lines in O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (6th Station), with particular praise for the sopranos, who brought a palpable emotion to their interpretation of the Stabat Mater. Furthermore, the dialogue between the voices and the piano — well beyond mere accompaniment — strengthened the tension inherent in Liszt's writing: between hammered chords and suspended harmonies, the keyboard supports, even accentuates, the dramatic character of each station.
At the piano, Abdel Rahman el-Bacha grasped the duality of the score, alternating between an almost monastic approach to the most stripped-down sequences and a more pronounced expressiveness in moments of greater tension. Despite the complexity of Liszt's harmonic language, he maintained a constant fluidity in the musical discourse, knowing exactly where to support the choristers and where to let the piano assert itself in all its power. In certain stations, such as the ones where Jesus succumbs under the weight of the cross (Stations III, VII and IX), the pianistic writing takes on an almost heartbreaking intensity, with broken chords and a strong use of syncopation to simulate the physical and spiritual effort.
Moreover, Spanish baritone Gabriel Alonso found in this work a more suitable space for expression than in his role as Escamillo in La Tragédie de Carmen on March 8. His deep tessitura perfectly matched the dark and solemn dimension of the score. Soumaya Baalbaki punctuated each station of the Via Crucis with a biblical reading that revealed its deeper meaning.
The execution of Via Crucis by the ensemble thus took place in a deeply respectful interpretation of Liszt's spirit, capturing the austerity and modernity of the work. Between contemplation and dramatic tension, the score reveals, beyond its religious dimension, a musical approach ahead of its time, already foreshadowing the upheavals, even the musical transformations, of the 20th century, which would lead to the great schism between Western art music and the tonal system.
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