(Allegro vivace ironico)

The full title of this "symphony" (composed in 1853-54, revised in 1857), which has been said to be "really a concatenation of three symphonic poems rather than a symphony, properly so-called," is (in translation), "A Faust Symphony; in Three Character-Pictures (after Goethe), for Grand Orchestra and Men's Chorus." The names of the "three characters," Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles, head the three movements of the symphony. The men's chorus enters only as an epilogue to the last movement. The plan of the work (the score bears no programme or argument), as lucidly and concisely stated by Mr. H. E. Krehbiel, is as follows:

"By means of musical treatment given to four motives, or themes, in the first movement, the idea of Faust is presented—a type of humanity harassed with doubt, rage, despair, loneliness (the first theme, Lento); his strivings and hopes (second theme, Allegro agitato); his ideals and longings (third theme, Andante); his pride and energy (fourth theme, Grandioso).

"The subject of the second movement is Goethe's heroine. There is a brief prelude for flutes and clarinets, which introduces a melody obviously designed to give expression to the gentle grace of Gretchen's character (Andante); then a motive borrowed from the beginning of the first theme of the first movement suggests the entrance of Faust into the maiden's mind; it is followed by the second extended melody, which delineates the feeling of love after it has taken complete possession of her soul. This gives way in turn to the third theme of the first movement, in which the composer had given voice to the longings of Faust, and which in its development shows the clarifying influence of association with the Gretchen music.

"In the third movement Mephistopheles appears in his character as the spirit of negation ('Der Geist der stets verneint'); it is made up of mimicries and parodies of the themes of the first movement, especially the third [Faust's ideals and longings], which one is tempted to think is made the special subject of the evil one's sport, because it enables him to get nearest to Gretchen, whose goodness protects her from his wiles. By these means Liszt develops a conflict which finds its solution in the epilogue sung by the male chorus and solo tenor. The text is the Chorus mysticus which ends Goethe's tragedy, the translation of which ... is as follows:

"'All transient earthly things
Are but as symbols;
The indescribable
Here is accomplished;
Earth's insufficiency
Here grows to event;
The woman-soul e'er leads
Upward and on!' [84]

"The outcome of the struggle is plainly indicated by the circumstance that the words, 'The Woman-Soul,' are sung to the Gretchen motive."

SYMPHONY AFTER DANTE'S "DIVINA COMMEDIA" [85]

  1. INFERNO
  2. PURGATORIO AND MAGNIFICAT

This symphony, begun in 1847-48, completed in 1855, is in two parts, the first wholly instrumental, the last having a choral ending. Prefixed to the published score is an introduction, interpretative and analytical, by Richard Pohl, which there is every reason to believe was inspired, as it was evidently sanctioned, by Liszt. Omitting certain not altogether essential passages of philosophic and æsthetic speculation, Pohl's elucidation is as follows:

"When Liszt sought to mirror in music so gigantic a design [as that of Dante's conception], it became his plan to pass by the dramatic and the philosophic parts, that play the rôle, in poetry, of sculpture in architecture. He could view only the ethical (or æsthetical) idea that forms the outline of the whole.

He has therefore put no undue strain upon the means at his command; he has not even charged them with a novel burden. He has sought to represent in general merely such feelings as other masters before him have vented in other forms. In dramatic music, Gluck, Mozart, and others have painted the terrors of hell. Grief, longing, and hope have ever been the main motives of lyric music; visions of heavenly choirs are an oft-recurring figure of religious music.

"Dante's poem consists of three main parts. The first has for its burden the bitter, barren, self-consuming woe that hurls its blasphemies at goodness and divine love, the grief that spurns all hope. The second reveals a suffering tempered by hope, purged by love, that is gradually dissolved by its own purifying power. The third part unfolds the highest fulfilment of hope through love, in that blessed contemplation of God that can only be achieved in another life.

"It was thus possible for the composer to preserve the division of the Dante epic without marring the symmetry of the subject in merging the borders of purgatory and heaven. Considerations of art as of creed must have induced the composer not to separate the second and third parts in their appearance, as indeed they are inseparable in an intrinsic sense. By the cleansing and hallowing that the soul undergoes in purgatory, it is brought, in an unbroken course, nearer to the divine presence, until, freed of every clouding stain, it reaches the full contemplation. It lay within the power of music to present this psychic growth as a general conception of purgatory itself, although Dante touches upon this moment of redemption only in a single episode (in the 21st and 22d cantos). The form demanded by his design and by his art did not allow him to linger over this purely lyric side.

"In spite of the merging of the last two parts, it is easy to distinguish in the outline of Liszt's work the three original divisions, of which the first corresponds to Dante's Hell, the second to his Purgatory, and the third, following the second immediately, and sustained in an all-embracing mystic mood, proclaims the heavenly bliss of Paradise."

INFERNO

"The first movement takes us directly to the gates of Hell, which burst ajar with the thunder-tones of the first bars while a harrowing recitative of trombones hurls in our ears the beginning of that famous legend over the infernal gates:

"'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 is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost!') [86]

"Whereupon the trumpets and horns sound the eternal curse: 'Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate' ('All hope abandon, ye who enter in.')

"The latter is the main rhythmic motive of the whole movement; it returns again and again in varying guise and volume.

"At our first entrance within the gates begins that demon tumult—we hear, all about, those tones of woe, lament, and blasphemy of which the poet tells in the third canto:

"'Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,
Parole di dolore, accenti d'ira,
Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle,
Facevano un tumulto, il qual s'aggira,
Sempre in quell' aria senza tempo tinta,
Come la rena quando il turbo spira.'

("'Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
Accents of anger, words of agony,
And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,
Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
Forever in that air forever black,
Even as the sand doth when the whirlwind breathes.')

"Abyss upon abyss open before our view. We behold those fearful depths that fall from one circle to the other, down to the most hideous torture, the delirium of despair. The Allegro frenetico paints the madness of despondency, the rage of the damned, their curses and maledictions. Without love or rest or solace, they are ever torn along to that region where the sins of carnal lust are atoned, and a horrible hurricane whirls the condemned souls about in perpetual darkness.

"Here the tone poet halts. The storm abates; it ceases for a moment while are invoked the unhappy lovers, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. A dialogue begins, and we hear the lamenting sounds:

"'Nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria—'

("'There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery—') [87]

"They pass into the Andante amoroso (in 7/4 rhythm), where the composer is enabled, in the midst of the sobs of hell, to let us feel the irresistible charm of youth and beauty. Not of the heavenly kind, the earthly love still lingers here. But earthly passion brings its own punishment, and the essence of its nature seems expressed in the words that abandon all hope of heavenly bliss. And so the sudden breaking in of the motive 'Lasciate ogni speranza'—though tempered, it is the more ominous and forbidding—is a profound touch of ethical significance.

"When the last glow has passed of this the most alluring of illusive joys, undreamed-of sounds ascend from even deeper abysses. Here hide the sinning souls forgetful of all benefit, contemptuous of mercy, strangers to all reverence, rebellious in their ingratitude. The accents here resound of mockery and scorn and gnashing of teeth. These phantom shrieks of raging impotence are merged in the strange harmonies that lead to the returning motive of the Allegro frenetico. The terrible tumult of the damned is enhanced at the close by the thought of the loss of all hope—a final refrain of the Lasciate, an all-destroying lightning-blast, seems to reveal the horrid scene of torture in the bosom of the archangel of evil himself. The music here seems to rival the impression of Dante's graphic views and forceful lines upon our minds."

PURGATORIO AND MAGNIFICAT

"The episode of Francesca da Rimini, when she sings of the fatal charm of the sweetest of human errors, was chosen by Liszt from all the many scenes of the 'Inferno.' So in the 'Purgatory' we find one vision taken from the poem. Right in the initial bars Liszt follows the poet through the first canto. After the horrors of hell, the mild azure of heaven calms the risen souls. In ecstasy they greet the 'Sapphire of the East.' A wonderfully gentle murmur, quieting the spirit, puts us in dreams of the sea rocking in eternal radiance. We think of the ship that glides o'er its mirror without breaking the waves. The stars are still twinkling before the nearing splendor of the sun. A cloudless blue o'ervaults the sacred stillness, where we seem to hear the winged flight of the angel that soars over the ocean of infinity.

"This is the first, soul-stirring moment of redemption. Vanished are all the ghosts of an obstinate fancy, of a pride that at once exalts and destroys itself. Dead are the echoes of unbelieving mockery. The last throes of convulsive blasphemy have left the spirit free. A solemn, soothing silence now prevails in which the soul is loosed from painful rigor, where it breathes freely, though still without a full pervading consciousness. After the angry tempest of flaming nights, peace has appeared, but peace alone—the dawn, the light, without the sun. The wearied soul is not yet ready for a more intense experience. This is perhaps the general meaning of the introduction (Andante).

"This gentle, passive state, however, is but transitory. The secret powers and senses soon awaken, and with them a ceaseless longing. The more it grows, the stronger the thirst for the divine reality, the keener the desire for its immediate view, the deeper is the sense of weakness, of unworthiness, of inability to reach and comprehend it. Here a certain dread appears, together with a healing, a redeeming pain. The barren anguish of envious impotence has turned to devout penitence. This is, however, a moment of sombre elegy. Dante has uttered its oppression most forcefully in the tenth canto, where the sinners recall in remorse the good and beautiful deeds that they have left undone. There is no other feeling that can so bow down a lofty spirit.

"Here the main motive sounds as a choral hymn. A second theme is then sung lamentoso, in fervent self-reproach, in passive resignation, in unutterable grief. The fugue is the most fitting figure for the perpetual play of the feeling at once of retrospection and of hope. At the height of the fugue the main motive (of the choral hymn) rises proudly aloft, presently returns humbly and in contrition, and, broken by phrases of lament, dies finally away. Slowly the heavy clouds of inexpressible woe are lifted. The Catholic chant of the Magnificat proclaims softly deliverance by prayer, "the breathing of the soul." We feel that a conquering penitence is soaring towards eternal blessedness, is leading us up through the purifying circles to the summit of the mystic mount that lifts us to the gates of paradise.

"Now we have reached the point when the poet of the Divine Comedy, at the first song of paradise, stands on the edge of purgatory and catches the glow of the divine light, that his eyes as yet cannot directly bear. Art cannot paint heaven itself, but merely the earthly reflection in the soul that is turned towards the light of divine mercy. And so the full splendor stays hidden from our eyes, though it grows ever brighter with the purer contemplation. Thus far only, the tonal poet wanders in the footsteps of the seer; he does not follow him from star to star, no more than yonder through the various circles of the damned. The idea of absolute bliss transcends human description. The composer could only point to it as a spiritual state that grows from a chain of experience. The union of the soul with God, in prayer, is foreshadowed in the instrumentation. After the sacred glow of divine love has inflamed the human heart, all pain has ceased, all other emotion is lost in the heavenly ecstasy of surrender to God's mercy. The Magnificat of individual praise, extending to the universe, passes into a common Hallelujah and Hosanna, that rises pianissimo in a mighty scale of ancient tone, and creed as well, like a symbolic ladder up to heaven.

"For a long time the soul dwells in this blessed contemplation, that is made sensible by the soft, invisible choir

[88] Thus closes this mysterious work with the sense of eternal reconciliation, of hope fulfilled, in the glory of transfiguration."[89]