Liebestraume by Franz Liszt is easily one of my favorite pieces of music. It’s a piano piece that was published in 1850 and one of Liszt’s most popular works. The piece can be broken up into 3 different parts, but the same melody carries throughout the piece. The title is translated to mean “dreams of love” and the piece is just that. It sounds like a dream with the flowing melody that is equally haunting and beautiful. Yes, there may not be any lyrics but it evokes feelings of love better than any love song I’ve heard. The melody sounds like a love sick boy/girl trying to convince someone of their unbreakable love they have for a person. The beginning melody, which carries through, is beautiful and sure of itself. It flows effortlessly through the pianist’s hands. Then in the second, more agitated, part of the piece the same melody in a different key is more impassioned, almost like someone begging another person to recognize the love they have for them. It reaches the climax in the piece when the melody grows and grows to its final height. If I had to describe what it sounds like I would describe it as someone just crying and begging someone to love them as much as they love them, and then finally when the person agrees you hear that beautiful, graceful run up and down the piano. Then you hear the original melody slightly modified, almost like the song is singing you back into that dream-like state. The ending is so dreamy with the light, broken up chords, almost like a person’s eyelids opening and closing right when they’re about to fall asleep. And the end is exactly that, someone falling back into that dream of love.

This piece sounds so effortless when played by a skilled pianist, but it is no where near an easy piece to play. The piece needs to be so fluid and light on your fingers to have it sound as dreamy as it is supposed to be, and that’s very hard to do when making all those runs and jumps that Liszt wrote in. When done properly though, it’s magical. I have loved this piece ever since I was a little girl taking piano lessons and always promised myself that I would learn it. I finally did in 11th grade in high school and it was very, very difficult to play the piece how it was intended to be played. But when I did play it as graceful as it was meant to be, all the runs, jumps and notes seemed to mix together so perfectly to sound exactly like what love feels like. I can’t even tell you how many times I have listened/played the theme that goes from 2:12 to the run, I can’t find the words to describe how beautiful and passionate that part of the piece is.

Liszt is known for writing extremely difficult music to play. The music he wrote was also very unconventional for his time period, and he influenced a lot of later composers who experimented with impressionism, like Debussy. I hear a lot of similarities between Debussy’s Clair de Lune and Liszt’s Dreams of love. This is definitely my favorite piece by Liszt because even though it is a difficult piece to play, it’s still melodically beautiful. Some pieces that are overly technical lose emotion and passion.

I really hope that everyone has a chance to listen to this piece. When I was younger it inspired me to continue practicing the piano so that one day I could learn it. And I hope that when everyone listens to it they at least almost get the chills because I think it’s chills worthy.