The Allegro frenetico, 2-2, in the development paints the madness of despair, the rage of the damned. Again there is the cry, "All hope abandon" (trumpets, horns, trombones, tuba). There is a lull in the orchestral storm. Quasi Andante, 5-4. Harps, flutes, violins, a recitative of bass clarinet and two clarinets lead to the episode of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo. The cor anglais sings the lamentation:—
There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.
Before the 'cello takes up the melody sung by the clarinet, the Lasciate theme is heard (muted horn, solo,) and then in three tempo, Andante amoroso, 7-4, comes the love duet, which ends with the Lasciate motive. A harp cadenza brings the return to the first allegro tempo, in which the Lasciate theme in combination with the two Hell motives is developed with grotesque and infernal orchestration. There is this remark in the score: "This whole passage should be understood as sardonic, blasphemous laughter and most sharply defined as such." After the repetition of nearly the whole of the opening section of the allegro the Lasciate theme is heard fff.
II. Purgatorio and Magnificat. The section movement begins Andante con moto, D major, 4-4. According to the composer there is the suggestion of a vessel that sails slowly over an unruffled sea. The stars begin to glitter, there is a cloudless sky, there is a mystic stillness. Over a rolling figuration is a melody first for horn, then oboe, the Meditation motive. This period is repeated a half-tone higher. The Prayer theme is sung by 'cello, then by first violin. There is illustration of Dante's tenth canto, and especially of the passage where the sinners call to remembrance the good that they did not accomplish. This remorseful and penitent looking-back and the hope in the future inspired Liszt, according to his commentator, Richard Pohl, to a fugue based on a most complicated theme. After this fugue the gentle Prayer and Repentance melodies are heard. Harp chords established the rhythm of the Magnificat (three flutes ascending in chords of E-flat). This motive goes through sundry modulations. And now an unseen chorus of women, accompanied by harmonium, sings, "Magnificat anima mea Dominum et exultavit spiritus meus, in Deo salutari meo" (My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour). A solo voice, that of the Mater Gloriosa, repeats the song. A short choral passage leads to "Hosanna Halleluja." The final harmonies are supposed to illustrate the passage in the twenty-first canto of the Paradiso:—
I saw rear'd up,
In colour like to sun-illumined gold,
A ladder, which my ken pursued in vain,
So lofty was the summit; down whose steps
I saw the splendours in such multitude
Descending, every light in heaven, methought,
Was shed thence.
The "Hosanna" is again heard, and the symphony ends in soft harmonies (B major) with the first Magnificat theme.
Liszt wrote to Wagner, June 2, 1855: "Then you are reading Dante? He is excellent company for you. I, on my part, shall furnish a kind of commentary to his work. For a long time I had in my head a Dante symphony, and in the course of this year it is to be finished. There are to be three movements, 'Hell,' 'Purgatory,' and 'Paradise,' the two first purely instrumental, the last with chorus."
Wagner wrote in reply a long letter from London: "That 'Hell' and 'Purgatory' will succeed I do not call into question for a moment, but as to 'Paradise' I have some doubts, which you confirm by saying that your plan includes choruses. In the Ninth Symphony the last choral movement is decidedly the weakest part, although it is historically important, because it discloses to us in a very naïve manner the difficulties of a real musician who does not know how (after hell and purgatory) he is to describe paradise. About this paradise, dearest Franz, there is in reality a considerable difficulty, and he who confirms this opinion is, curiously enough, Dante himself, the singer of Paradise, which in his 'Divine Comedy' also is decidedly the weakest part." And then Wagner wrote at length concerning Dante, Christianity, Buddhism, and other matters. "But, perhaps, you will succeed better, and as you are going to paint a tone picture, I might almost predict your success, for music is essentially the artistic, original image of the world. For the initiated no error is here possible. Only about the 'Paradise,' and especially about the choruses, I feel some friendly anxiety."
The next performance of the symphony in Boston was May 1, 1903, again under the direction of Mr. Gericke. Mr. Philip Hale furnished the notes for the analytical programme. Richard Pohl, whose critical annotations were prompted and approved by Liszt, points out that a composer worthy of a theme like Faust must be something more than a tone-composer: his concern ought to be with something that neither the word with its concrete definiteness can express, nor form and colour can actually realise, and this something is the world of the profoundest and most intimate feelings that unveil themselves to man's mind only in tones. None but the tone poet can render the fundamental moods. But in order to seize them in their totality, he must abstract from the material moments of Dante's epic, and can at most allude to few of them. On the other hand, he must also abstract from the dramatic and philosophical elements. These were Liszt's views on the treatment of the subject.