Göllerich in his Liszt biography mentions that once during his stay in Italy the composer, in a covered wagon, had himself driven slowly over the course along which the corpse of Tasso had been taken. And of this incident he is supposed to have said: "I suffered the sad poetry of this journey in the hopes that one day the bloody irony of vain apotheosis may be spared every poet and artist who has been ill-treated during life. Rest to the dead!"
The analysis of this work is short and precise. The musical programme is simple. It opens with a cry of distressful mourning, while from the distance the cortège approaches. A reminiscence of the Tasso theme is recognisable in this pompous approach and the mood changes to one of triumph. In the midst of all this the public adoration is mingled with its tears, and the two climax in the Tasso motive.
LES PRELUDES
The third of Liszt's symphonic poems, Les Préludes, was sketched as early as 1845, but not produced until 1854, and then in Weimar. Lamartine's Meditations Poétiques set the bells tolling in Liszt's mind, and he wrote Les Préludes. "What is life but a series of preludes to that unknown song whose initial solemn note is tolled by Death? The enchanted dawn of every life is love; but where is the destiny on whose first delicious joys some storm does not break?—a storm whose deadly blast disperses youth's illusions, whose fatal bolt consumes its altar. And what soul thus cruelly bruised, when the tempest rolls away, seeks not to rest its memories in the calm of rural life? Yet man allows himself not long to taste the kindly quiet which first attracted him to Nature's lap; but when the trumpet gives the signal he hastens to danger's post, whatever be the fight which draws him to its lists, that in the strife he may once more regain full knowledge of himself and all his strength."
Corresponding to the first line of the programme the composition opens promisingly with an ascending figure in the strings, followed by some mysterious chords. Liszt had that wonderful knack—which he shared with Beethoven and Wagner—of getting atmosphere immediately at the first announcement. Gradually he achieves a climax with this device, and now he has pictured the character—his hero—in defiant possession of full manhood.
"The enchanted dawn of every life is love" reads the line, and the music grows sentimental. That well-known horn melody occurs here, a theme almost the character of a folk-song; then the mood becomes even more tranquil until—
"But where is the destiny on whose first delicious joys some storm does not break?—a storm whose deadly blast disperses youth's illusions, whose fatal bolt consumes its altar." Here was one of those episodes on which Liszt doted, a place where he could unloose all his orchestral technique, piling his climaxes furiously high.
"And what soul thus cruelly bruised, when the tempest rolls away, seeks not to rest its memories in the pleasant calm of rural life?" There was nothing else for Liszt to do but to write the usual pastoral peace dignified by Handel and Watteau.
"Yet man allowed himself not long to taste the kindly quiet which first attracted him to Nature's lap; but when the trumpet gives the signal he hastens to danger's post, whatever be the fight which draws him to its lists, that in the strife he may once more regain full knowledge of himself and all his strength." The martial call of the trumpets and the majestic strife is made much of. Liszt tortures his peaceful motives into expressing war, and welds the entire incident into a stirring one.