Liszt: Tasso, lamento e trionfo

Liszt: Tasso, lamento e trionfo

Liszt dedicated several works to Torquato Tasso, an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the Siege of Jerusalem of 1099. His work was widely translated and adapted, and until the beginning of the 20th century, he remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe.

The first work by Liszt dates from the early 1840s and the last from 1866. Liszt often put Tasso on a par with Goethe and Byron. The first piece of music based on Tasso's literature is based on a melody Liszt heard a Venetian gondolier sing. He is said to have sung for Liszt an old song with words from "Gerusalemme liberata". This folk song would become the basis for a piano piece and later the symphonic poem. Liszt wanted to include the piano piece - a variation on a barcarolle - in his piano cycle 'Années de pèlerinage', deuxième année: Italie'. In the end, Liszt did not include the piece in the Années, but used the melody, including the variations, in the Tasso Overture. This overture was written for a gala performance of Goethe's drama Tasso on Goethe's 100th birthday (August 28, 1848) in Weimar.

[Tasso, 1590s]

The work is in two movements, traditionally in the form of an overture, beginning slowly and ending quickly. It is unusual in that it is essentially a constant variation on a single motif: the gondolier's song. Liszt called the two parts lamento and trionfo, in reference to the suffering and belated artistic redemption of the character of Tasso (his imaginary coronation and triumphant immortality). Liszt later claimed that it was not Goethe's drama that inspired him to compose Tasso, but the work of Lord Byron. Goethe paints Tasso surrounded by conflicts at the court of the d'Este family (in Ferrara), and Byron introduces his readers to Tasso's hell: the madhouse where the poet spent seven years of his life. Almost naturally, Byron's description appealed more to Liszt - who preferred macabre, depressive expressions with a religious atmosphere - especially because of the classic Romantic element: the contrast between suffering and victory.

After the premiere, Liszt rewrote the overture several times, the most significant change being the addition in 1854 of a middle movement in the form of a minuet. This minuet depicts Tasso's relatively quiet years in Ferrara, between the two extremes. The three-part work, however, can no longer be called an overture. Because the memories of Goethe, Byron, and the gondolier are clearly written into the music - and later printed in the final score - it is clearly program music.

More than ten years later - in 1864 - Liszt wrote an epilogue to the work entitled "Le triomphe funèbre du Tasso". This work, the third part of his Trois odes funebres, was completed in 1866.

[Contains parts of an edited translation of the open source Dutch Wikipedia article on Tasso]

Symphonic Poems