A Symphony to Dante's Divine Comedy, S.109, or simply the Dante Symphony, is a choral symphony composed by Franz Liszt. Written in the high romantic style, it is based on Dante Alighieri's journey through Hell and Purgatory, as depicted in The Divine Comedy. It was premiered in Dresden on 7. November 1857, with Liszt conducting himself, and was unofficially dedicated to the composer's friend and future son-in-law Richard Wagner. The entire symphony takes approximately 50 minutes to perform.Franz Liszt’s Dante Symphony Robert Greenberg Music
Some critics have argued that the Dante Symphony is not so much a symphony in the classical sense as it is two descriptive symphonic poems.Ewen, 517. Regardless, Dante consists of two movements, both in a loosely structured ternary form with little use of thematic transformation.Temperley, New Grove, 18:460.
Composition Liszt had been sketching themes for the work since the early 1840s.In February 1839, he noted in his Journal des Zyi: "I will attempt a symphonic composition based on [Dante's Divine Comedy]." See Kenneth Hamilton (2005), p.219. The French poet Joseph Autran recalled that in summer 1845, Liszt improvised for him "a passionate and magnificent symphony upon Dante's Divine Comedy" on the organ of the empty Marseille Cathedral at midnight,.. and later invited Autran to collaborate with him on a Dante oratorio or opera, which the poet failed to pursue."Il joua, il improvisa une symphonie ardente et magnifique sur la Divine Comédie de Dante, dont nous venions de parler ensemble... A quelque temps de là, je reçus d'Italie une lettre de Listz accompagnée d'un exemplaire de la Divine Comédie tout chargé de commentaires et de notes... Il me priait de tirer de là, si je pouvais, un poëme d'oratorio, ou même d’opéra mystique en trois parties. J'aurais dû peut-être tenter la chose. Pourquoi ne le fis-je pas? je n'en sais rien." In 1847, he played some fragments on the piano for his Polish mistress Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. At this early stage in the composition, it was Liszt's intention that performances of the work be accompanied by a slideshow depicting scenes from the Divine Comedy by the artist Bonaventura Genelli.A performance with slideshow was eventually given in Brussels in 1984. See Derek B. Scott (2003), p. 140. He also planned to use an experimental wind machine to recreate the winds of Hell at the end of the first movement. Although Princess Carolyne was willing to defray the costs, nothing came of these ambitious plans and the symphony was set aside until 1855.Alan Walker (1989), p. 50. Here, Walker writes that the symphony was "shelved until 1856", but on page 260, he writes that work on the symphony was resumed in June 1855.
In June 1855, Liszt resumed work on the symphony and had completed most of it before the end of the following year. Thus, work on the Dante Symphony roughly coincided with work on Liszt's other symphonic masterpiece, the Faust Symphony, which was inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's drama Faust. For this reason, and because they are the only symphonies Liszt ever composed (though certainly not his only symphonic works), the Dante and Faust symphonies are often recorded together.
In October 1856, Liszt visited Richard Wagner in Zürich and performed his Faust and Dante symphonies on the piano. Wagner was critical of the Dante Symphony fortissimo conclusion, which he thought was inappropriate as a depiction of Paradise. In his autobiography, he later wrote:
Liszt agreed and explained that such had been his original intention, but he had been persuaded by Princess Carolyne to end the symphony in a blaze of glory. He rewrote the concluding measures, but in the printed score, he left the conductor with the option of following the pianissimo coda with the fortissimo one.Alan Walker (1989), pp. 409–410; Richard Wagner (1857).
Liszt's original intention was to compose the work in three movements: an Inferno, a Purgatorio and a Paradiso. The first two were to be purely instrumental, and the finale choral.Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2, Letter 189, 2 June 1855. Wagner, however, persuaded Liszt that no earthly composer could faithfully express the joys of Paradise.Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2, Letter 190, 7 June 1855. Liszt dropped the third movement but added a choral Magnificat at the end of the second movement. This action, some critics claim, effectively destroyed the work's balance, leaving the listener, like Dante, gazing upward at the heights of Heaven and hearing its music from afar.Searle, New Grove, 11:45. As Liszt originally intended the Paradiso movement to be choral, it is not at all certain to what extent the final outcome was due to Wagner's intervention: the Magnificat is choral and is clearly meant to be a depiction of Dante's Paradiso. Moreover, Liszt scholar Humphrey Searle argues that while Liszt may have felt more at home portraying the infernal regions than the celestial ones, the task of portraying Paradise in music would not have been beyond his powers.Searle, "Orchestral," 310–11. It could be argued that this is precisely what Liszt has done in the Magnificat.
Liszt put the final touches to the symphony in the autumn of 1857. The premiere of the work took place at the Hoftheater in Dresden on 7 November, 1857. The performance was an unmitigated disaster due to inadequate rehearsal; Liszt, who conducted the performance, was publicly humiliated.Alan Walker (1989), p. 296. Nevertheless, he persevered with the work, conducting another performance (along with his symphonic poem Die Ideale and his second piano concerto) in Prague on 11 March, 1858. Princess Carolyne prepared a programme for this concert to help the audience follow the unusual form of the symphony.Alan Walker (1989), p. 317 and pp. 488–489.
Like his symphonic poems Tasso and Les préludes, the Dante Symphony is an innovatory work, featuring numerous orchestral and harmonic advances: wind effects, progressive harmonies that generally avoid the tonic-dominant bias of contemporary music, experiments in atonality, unusual key signatures and time signatures, fluctuating tempi, chamber-music interludes, and the use of unusual musical forms. The Symphony is also one of the first to make use of progressive tonality, beginning and ending in the radically different keys of D minor and B major, respectively, anticipating its use in the symphonies of Gustav Mahler by forty years.
Liszt was not the only symphonic composer who was inspired by Dante's Commedia. In 1863, Giovanni Pacini composed a four-movement Sinfonia Dante (the finale depicts Dante's triumphant return to Earth).
Instrumentation The symphony is scored for one piccolo (doubling as 3rd flute in the second movement), two flutes, two oboes, one English horn, two clarinets in B and A, one bass clarinet in B and A, two bassoons, four horns in F, two trumpets in B and D, two tenor trombones, one bass trombone, one tuba, two sets of timpani (requiring two players), cymbals, bass drum, tamtam, two harps (the second harp only in the second movement),In the full score, Liszt sanctions the use of a pianoforte "in the absence of harp". strings, harmonium (second movement only), and a women's choir comprising soprano and alto singers (second movement only), one of the sopranos being required to sing a solo.In the full score, Liszt calls for Frauenchor. Frauen- oder Knabenstimmen, "Female chorus. Female or boys' voices." He also requests that the harmonium and choir be invisible to the audience.
Inferno The opening movement is entitled Inferno and depicts Dante's and Virgil's passage through the nine Circles of Hell. The structure is essentially sonata form,Jean-Pierre Barracelli (1982), pp. 151–152. but it is punctuated by a number of episodes representing some of the salient incidents of the Inferno. The longest and most elaborate of these – the Francesca da Rimini episode from Canto 5 – lends the movement something of the structure of a triptych.M. D. Calvocoressi, The Musical Times, Volume 66, No. 988 (1 June 1925), pp. 505–507.
The music is chromatic and tonally ambiguous; although the movement is essentially in D minor, this is often negated by G, which is as far as one can get from D. There are relatively few authentic cadences or key signatures to help resolve the tonal ambiguity. The harmony is based on sequences of diminished sevenths, which are often not resolved.
The Gates of Hell The movement opens with a slow introduction (Lento) based on three recitative-like themes,Derek B. Scott (2003), p. 134. which Liszt has set to four of the nine lines inscribed over the Gates of Hell:
+ Inferno, Canto 3 Per me si va nella città dolente, Per me si va nell'eterno dolore, Per me si va tra la perduta gente. ... Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate. Through me is the way to the sorrowful city, Through me is the way to eternal sorrow, Through me is the way among the lost people. ... Abandon all hope you who enter here. 1
3
9
The first of these themes, which is immediately repeated in a slightly varied form, begins in D minor – a key Liszt associated with HellAlan Walker (1989), p. 154n. – but ends ambiguously on G a tritone higher. This interval is traditionally associated with the Devil, being known in the Middle Ages as diabolus in musica:This theme has been compared to the subject of the Fugue in C Major from Book One of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier:
The second theme is closely related to the first, but this time there is an unambiguous authentic cadence on G:
The third theme begins as a chantlike monotone played by horns and trumpets on E against a string tremolo in C minor. It cadences on a tonally ambiguous diminished seventh on G:
The first and third of these themes are punctuated by an important drum-roll motif played on two timpani and the tamtam, which recurs in various forms throughout the movement:
As the tempo increases, a motif derived from the first of these themes is introduced by the strings. This Descent motif depicts Dante and Virgil's descent into Hell:
This is accompanied by another motif based on rising and falling semitones (appoggiature), which is also derived from the symphony's opening theme, while the horns play the third theme in augmentation on G:
This passage is punctuated by a brass motif taken from the third theme:
These motifs are developed at length as the tempo gradually increases and the tension builds. The music is dark and turbulent. The chromatic and atonal nature of the material conveys a sense of urgency and growing excitement.
The Vestibule and First Circle of Hell
At the climax of this accelerando, the tempo becomes Allegro frenetico and the time signature changes from common time to Alla breve: the slow introduction comes to an end and the exposition begins. The first subject, which is introduced by the violins, is based on the same rising and falling semitones that we heard in the introduction. Ostensibly it begins in D minor, but the tonality is ambiguous:
The tempo increases to Presto molto and a second subject is played by wind and strings over a pedal on the dominant A:
Although Liszt provides no verbal clues to the literary associations of these themes, it seems reasonable to assume that the exposition and ensuing section represent the Vestibule (in which the dead are condemned to perpetually chase after a whirling standard) and First Circle of Hell (Limbo), which Dante and Virgil traverse after they have passed through the Gates of Hell. It is even possible that the transition between the two subjects represents the river Acheron, which separates the Vestibule from the First Circle: on paper the figurations are reminiscent of those Beethoven uses in the Scene by the Brook in his Pastoral Symphony, though the aural effect is quite different.