Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 02/22/2017, uploaded on 10/18/2017

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Between 1837 and 1839 Franz Liszt toured Italy extensively and put down his musical impressions in the second book of his Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage). The most important and powerful part of this book is Après une lecture de Dante, bearing the title of a poem by Victor Hugo. Liszt and his mistress, Marie d’Agoult, frequently read Dante’s works, which were very popular in the Romantic period.

Known as one of the most difficult pieces written for the instrument, the “Dante Sonata” is a powerful and passionate piece in a single movement. The work begins with a recurring motive, an ominous series of tritones (the Medieval diabolus in musica). The flight of ascending and descending chromatic scales shifts the scene immediately to the second circle of Hell, where the lustful are buffeted about in an eternal whirlwind, symbolic of their uncontrolled passion. The chaos then subsides for Francesca’s story of her affair with Paolo, cut short by their murder by her husband. Like her life, Francesca’s tale is abruptly and violently interrupted. Towards the end, Liszt tries to give a glimpse of Paradise, concluding with a powerful coda, which exploits the full resources of the piano, much like a pitched battle between the infernal and romantic.                 Notes by Joseph and Elizabeth Kahn

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.