Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 07/20/2015, uploaded on 07/20/2015

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

One of the greatest epic poems in Western literature, Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy inspired two compositions from the pen of Franz Liszt. The composer was introduced to the works of Dante in the 1830s and soon after composed a two-movement piece titled Fragment after Dante, which he premiered in Vienna in 1839. Liszt later returned to the work in 1849, concurrent with the composition of the much grander Dante Symphony, and revised it into a lengthy, single-movement composition. Giving the work a new title, Après une Lecture de Dante, borrowed from Victor Hugo, Liszt made it the last installment in the second volume of his Années de Pèlerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage”).

Liszt termed the work a Fantasia quasi Sonata. Though it is often referred to as the “Dante Sonata,” it is strictly speaking certainly more the former than the latter. Structured quite freely, it is based on two distinct themes, with the second being a transformation of the first. After a menacing introduction of tritones and dissonant harmonies, Liszt arrives at the key of D minor and the chromatic first theme depicting the tortured souls Dante witnessed in Hell. Liszt also used D minor in the Dante Symphony and the key has a rather infamous reputation throughout classical music of being associated with death. This theme is developed to great extent before the arrival of the second theme. Shifting to F-sharp major, Liszt now portrays the joy of those in Heaven. The chromatic first theme also reappears, though greatly transformed, and now appropriate for the heavenly vision. Ultimately arriving at the key of D major, the ending comes not in gentle tones that one might expect of a depiction of Paradise but instead with grandiloquent chords in D major. The final cadence, plagal in nature, concludes with resonant open fifths, hearkening back to the religious works of centuries past.      Joseph DuBose

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Après une Lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata       Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) is a set of three piano suites written over a twenty-three year period (1838-1861). The first is entitled Suisse, the second Italia, and the third simply Troisième année.

This work— often referred to as simply the Dante Sonata— comes from the second suite, Italia, and here Liszt thrusts us into Dante’s Divine Comedy and, specifically, the “Inferno,” but also with a few thoughts of “Purgatorio” and “Paradiso.” At the risk of a too programmatic interpretation of the work, we cannot miss the whirlwind of dark implications.  In a musical sense, the “fantasia” of the title refers to the free fantasy quality of the work.  Most evident in the piece is its stunning virtuosity driven to the highest point.    © 2015 Lucy Miller Murray

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.