Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 06/14/2017, uploaded on 05/04/2018

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Liszt’s Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude [“Benediction of God in solitude”] is the third work from his cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses [“Poetic and Religious Harmonies”] completed in 1853. This magnificent piece is the perfect marriage between Liszt’s abilities as a virtuoso pianist and his profound spirituality. The Benediction is prefaced by a poem of the French literary romantic Alphonse de Lamartine, and comes from a collection dating from 1830 also titled Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. Through several meetings, Lamartine’s socio-political, aesthetic, and religious views influenced Liszt greatly. Despite the popular belief that he only converted to Catholicism late in life in order to repent from his youthful transgressions, Liszt’s father took him to several churches as a young boy and instilled in him a curiosity and reverence which would persist through old age.

The piece can be divided into four large sections [ABCA’]. The A section features long, rich, fluid melodies while B is contrasting in its short gestures and pastoral peacefulness.  Section C is rather improvisatory and guides the music emotionally from the tranquil B section to the glorious return of the A section. This time, the melody is further ornamented with elaborate accompanimental figures as the music climactically ascends to the heavens. An introspective, prayer-like postlude follows in which a fragment from the B section appears as a reminiscence, a cyclical feature present in many of Liszt’s larger late works. A professor of mine once remarked about the piece, “It doesn’t matter whether you are religious or not, when you listen to the Bénédiction you are convinced that there is a God.”      Peter Klimo

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.