FRANZ LISZT - nca - new classical adventure

The score of Inferno begins with merciless and
harsh trombone calls mutely underlain with
Dante’s verses. This is a motto repeated three
times declaiming the words that appear chiselled
into the stone lintel of the gate to Dante’s Hell
(Canto III).
„Per me si va nella città dolente
Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore
Per me si va tra la perduta gente“
“Through me the way to the city of desolation
Through me the way to miseries eternal
Through me the way amid the lost creation”
38 39
Horns and trumpets answer with the leitmotif, that
with its several occurrences is always underlain by
the closing line of the inscription.
„Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate!“
“Leave all hope behind, you that go in through me!”
In Inferno, a modified sonata form, Liszt attempts
with every means at his disposal, to fan the flames
of Hell and to reproduce its miseries musically (“...
the screams of anguish, the painful wailings, voices
shrieking and moaning, here and there fisticuffs,
created all around a ceaseless din...”). As in the
“Dante Sonata”, Liszt works the tritone into many
motifs and themes of this movement, the interval
that symbolises the diabolus in musica. Once
through the Gates of Hell, the listener is met by a
falling chromatic motif that splits the octave into
its tritone halves; this is the first theme proper, the
devil musically incarnate, as it were.
The calmer middle section relates to the episode
describing Paolo Malatesta and Francesco da Rimini’s
forbidden love, whose double adultery leads to their
damnation in Hell. The music played on harps, flutes
and violins is soft and gentle. The main theme of this
section is underlain by Dante’s lines:
„Nessun maggior’ dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria“
“There is no bitterer woe To remember
happy times In our wretchedness.”
The third section takes up the flow of the first,
but now with increased violence. Liszt indicates in
the score at this point: “The whole of this passage
perceived as a vicious derision.” At the end of the
movement one of the tritone themes is presented six
times, alluding to the last verse of Dante’s Inferno,
where Vergil and Dante catch sight of Lucifer’s six
eyes. The movement closes with a repeat of the
“Lasciate ogni speranza”.
The second movement, Purgatorio, takes up
the mood of the middle section of the first: “A
wonderfully soft whisper that quietens the mind and
permits us to dream of the sea in eternal clarity”,
was Richard Pohl’s fitting description, which with
Liszt’s permission appeared in the score. The central
lamentoso part begins with a fugue whose theme
is based very successfully and aptly on the ‘Paolo
and Francesca’ episode from the first movement.
The section is accompanied by quasi-recitative
elements, sighing motifs, and chorale-like passages
that symbolise the lamenting of the penitent.
The second movement flows without a break into
the closing Magnificat, the heavenly choir. Of the
Latin text only two verses are set, beginning with
a sequences based on the Gregorian chant Crux
fidelis that Liszt often used as a tonal symbol of
the cross: Magnificat anima mea Dominum / Et
exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo, and
culminating in the closing, ethereal exclamations
of “Hosanna” and “Hallelujah”. The chorus ends with
an astonishing succession of rising major triads,
most likely symbolising the stairway to heaven,
that resolves itself through a descending whole-
tone scale. Liszt made use of this procedure at the
end of his “Dante Sonata”, but here he extends
it considerably and expands the passage over a
complete octave. A second, triumphant fortissimo
ending that can be played ad libitum or omitted, is
added to the ethereal pianissimo possibile.
ÉVOCATION À LA CHAPELLE SIXTINE
When Liszt moved to Rome in 1861 he was
overwhelmed by the musical impressions he
received, now being at the centre of Catholic church
music. Every Sunday he used to visit the Sistine
Chapel, to be immersed in the sounds of Palestrina’s
english