1. Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne, after Victor Hugo.
2. Tasso, Lamento and Trionfo.
3. Les Preludes, after Lamartine.
4. Orphée.
5. Prométhée.
6. Mazeppa.
7. Fest-Klänge.
8. Héroïde funèbre.
9. Hungaria.
10. Hamlet.
11. La bataille des Huns, after Kaulbach.
12. L'idéal, after Schiller.
The symphonic poem in the form in which Liszt has given it to us, is ordinarily an ensemble of different movements depending on each other, and flowing from a principal ideal, blending into each other, and forming one composition. The plan of the musical poem thus understood may vary infinitely. To obtain a great unity, and at the same time the greatest variety possible, Liszt most often chooses a musical phrase, which he transforms by means of artifices of rhythm, to give it the most diverse aspects and cause it to serve as an expression of the most varied sentiments. This is one of the usual methods of Richard Wagner, and, in my opinion, it is the only one common to the two composers. In style, in use of harmonic resources and instrumentation, they differ as widely as two contemporary artists could differ, and yet really belong to the same school.
THE BERG SYMPHONY
"Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne"—or, as it is more familiarly known, "Die Bergsymphonie"—is ranked among the earliest of Liszt's symphonic works. The first sketches of this symphonic poem were made as early as 1833-35, but they were not orchestrated until 1849, and the composition had its first hearing in Weimar in 1853.
A German enthusiast says this work is the first towering peak of a mountain chain, and that here already—in the first of the list of Symphonic Poems—the mastery of the composer is indubitably revealed. The subject is not a flippant one, by any means: it touches on the relation of man to nature—das Welträtsel. Inspiration came directly from Victor Hugo's poem, "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne." The subject is that of Nature's perfection contrasted to Man's misery:
Die Welt ist volkommen überall,
Wo der Mensch nicht hinkommt mit seiner Qual.
Only when one withdraws from the hurdy-gurdy trend of life, only from the height of mountain does one see Truth in perspective. This is "What one hears on the Mountain."
Zuerst vermorr'ner, unermess'ner Lärm,
Undeutlich wie der Wind in dichten Bäumen,
Voll klarer Tone, süssen Lispelns, sanft
Wie'n Abendlied, und stark wie Waffenklirren.
Es war ein Tönen, tief und unausprechlich,
Das flutend Kreise zog rings um die Welt
Und durch die Himmel ...