(Franz Liszt: born in Raiding, near Ödenburg, Hungary, October 22, 1811; died in Bayreuth, July 31, 1886)
Tasso: Lamento e Trionfo, was conceived as a "symphonic prelude" to Goethe's drama "Tasso," and performed during the celebration at Weimar in 1849 of the centenary of the poet's birth. It was revised by Liszt in 1854, and published, in its present form, two years later. The score contains this preface by the composer:
"In 1849 all Germany celebrated brilliantly the one-hundredth anniversary of Goethe's birth. At Weimar, where we then happened to dwell, the programme of the festival included a performance of his drama 'Tasso,' appointed for the evening of August 28th. The sad fate of the most unfortunate of poets had excited the imagination of the mightiest poetic geniuses of our time—Goethe and Byron: Goethe, whose career was one of brilliant prosperity; Byron, whose keen sufferings counterbalanced the advantages of his birth and fortune. We shall not conceal the fact that, when in 1849 we were commissioned to write an overture for Goethe's drama, we were inspired moredirectly by the respectful compassion of Byron for themanesof the great man whom he invoked than by the work of the German poet. At the same time, although Byron gave us the groans of Tasso in his prison, he did not join to the recollection of the keen sorrows so nobly and eloquently expressed in his 'Lamentation' the thought of the triumph that awaited, by an act of tardy yet striking justice, the chivalric author of 'Jerusalem Delivered.'"We have wished to indicate this contrast even in the title of the work, and we have endeavored to succeed in formulating this grand antithesis of genius, ill treated during life, but after death resplendent with a light that dazzled his persecutors. Tasso loved and suffered at Ferrara; he was avenged at Rome; his glory still lives in the people's songs of Venice. These three points are inseparably connected with his undying memory. To express them in music, we first invoked the mighty shadow of the hero, as it now appears, haunting the lagoons of Venice; we have caught a glimpse of his proud, sad face at the feasts in Ferrara, where he produced his masterpieces; and we have followed him to Rome, the Eternal City, which crowned him with the crown of glory and glorified in him the martyr and the poet."'Lamento e Trionfo'—these are the two great contrasts in the fate of poets, of whom it has been justly said that, while curses may weigh heavily on their life, blessings are always on their tomb. In order to give this idea not only the authority but the brilliance of fact, we have borrowed even the form from fact, and to that end chosen as the theme of our musical poem the melody to which we have heard the Venetian gondoliers sing on the lagoons three centuries after his death the first strophes of Tasso's 'Jerusalem':"'Canto l' armi pietose e 'l Capitano,Che 'l gran Sepolcro liberò di Cristo!'"The motive [first given out with sombre effect by the bass clarinet and three solo 'cellos, accompanied by harp, horns, and low stringspizzicato], is in itself plaintive, of a groaning slowness, monotonous in mourning; but the gondoliers give it a peculiar coloring by drawling certain notes, by prolonging tones, which, heard from afar, produce an effect not unlike the reflection of long stripes of fading light upon a looking-glass of water. This song once made a deep impression on us, and when we attempted to speak of Tasso our emotion could not refrain from taking as the text of our thoughts this persistent homage paid by his country to the genius of whose devotion and fidelity the court of Ferrara was not worthy. The Venetian melody is so charged with inconsolable mourning, with such hopeless sorrow, that it suffices to portray Tasso's soul; and again it lends itself as the imagination of the poet to the picturing of the brilliant illusions of the world, to the deceitful, fallacious coquetry of those smiles whose treacherous poison brought on the horrible catastrophe for which there seemed to be no earthly recompense, but which was clothed eventually at the capital with a purer purple than that of Alphonse."
"In 1849 all Germany celebrated brilliantly the one-hundredth anniversary of Goethe's birth. At Weimar, where we then happened to dwell, the programme of the festival included a performance of his drama 'Tasso,' appointed for the evening of August 28th. The sad fate of the most unfortunate of poets had excited the imagination of the mightiest poetic geniuses of our time—Goethe and Byron: Goethe, whose career was one of brilliant prosperity; Byron, whose keen sufferings counterbalanced the advantages of his birth and fortune. We shall not conceal the fact that, when in 1849 we were commissioned to write an overture for Goethe's drama, we were inspired moredirectly by the respectful compassion of Byron for themanesof the great man whom he invoked than by the work of the German poet. At the same time, although Byron gave us the groans of Tasso in his prison, he did not join to the recollection of the keen sorrows so nobly and eloquently expressed in his 'Lamentation' the thought of the triumph that awaited, by an act of tardy yet striking justice, the chivalric author of 'Jerusalem Delivered.'"We have wished to indicate this contrast even in the title of the work, and we have endeavored to succeed in formulating this grand antithesis of genius, ill treated during life, but after death resplendent with a light that dazzled his persecutors. Tasso loved and suffered at Ferrara; he was avenged at Rome; his glory still lives in the people's songs of Venice. These three points are inseparably connected with his undying memory. To express them in music, we first invoked the mighty shadow of the hero, as it now appears, haunting the lagoons of Venice; we have caught a glimpse of his proud, sad face at the feasts in Ferrara, where he produced his masterpieces; and we have followed him to Rome, the Eternal City, which crowned him with the crown of glory and glorified in him the martyr and the poet."'Lamento e Trionfo'—these are the two great contrasts in the fate of poets, of whom it has been justly said that, while curses may weigh heavily on their life, blessings are always on their tomb. In order to give this idea not only the authority but the brilliance of fact, we have borrowed even the form from fact, and to that end chosen as the theme of our musical poem the melody to which we have heard the Venetian gondoliers sing on the lagoons three centuries after his death the first strophes of Tasso's 'Jerusalem':"'Canto l' armi pietose e 'l Capitano,Che 'l gran Sepolcro liberò di Cristo!'"The motive [first given out with sombre effect by the bass clarinet and three solo 'cellos, accompanied by harp, horns, and low stringspizzicato], is in itself plaintive, of a groaning slowness, monotonous in mourning; but the gondoliers give it a peculiar coloring by drawling certain notes, by prolonging tones, which, heard from afar, produce an effect not unlike the reflection of long stripes of fading light upon a looking-glass of water. This song once made a deep impression on us, and when we attempted to speak of Tasso our emotion could not refrain from taking as the text of our thoughts this persistent homage paid by his country to the genius of whose devotion and fidelity the court of Ferrara was not worthy. The Venetian melody is so charged with inconsolable mourning, with such hopeless sorrow, that it suffices to portray Tasso's soul; and again it lends itself as the imagination of the poet to the picturing of the brilliant illusions of the world, to the deceitful, fallacious coquetry of those smiles whose treacherous poison brought on the horrible catastrophe for which there seemed to be no earthly recompense, but which was clothed eventually at the capital with a purer purple than that of Alphonse."
"In 1849 all Germany celebrated brilliantly the one-hundredth anniversary of Goethe's birth. At Weimar, where we then happened to dwell, the programme of the festival included a performance of his drama 'Tasso,' appointed for the evening of August 28th. The sad fate of the most unfortunate of poets had excited the imagination of the mightiest poetic geniuses of our time—Goethe and Byron: Goethe, whose career was one of brilliant prosperity; Byron, whose keen sufferings counterbalanced the advantages of his birth and fortune. We shall not conceal the fact that, when in 1849 we were commissioned to write an overture for Goethe's drama, we were inspired moredirectly by the respectful compassion of Byron for themanesof the great man whom he invoked than by the work of the German poet. At the same time, although Byron gave us the groans of Tasso in his prison, he did not join to the recollection of the keen sorrows so nobly and eloquently expressed in his 'Lamentation' the thought of the triumph that awaited, by an act of tardy yet striking justice, the chivalric author of 'Jerusalem Delivered.'
"We have wished to indicate this contrast even in the title of the work, and we have endeavored to succeed in formulating this grand antithesis of genius, ill treated during life, but after death resplendent with a light that dazzled his persecutors. Tasso loved and suffered at Ferrara; he was avenged at Rome; his glory still lives in the people's songs of Venice. These three points are inseparably connected with his undying memory. To express them in music, we first invoked the mighty shadow of the hero, as it now appears, haunting the lagoons of Venice; we have caught a glimpse of his proud, sad face at the feasts in Ferrara, where he produced his masterpieces; and we have followed him to Rome, the Eternal City, which crowned him with the crown of glory and glorified in him the martyr and the poet.
"'Lamento e Trionfo'—these are the two great contrasts in the fate of poets, of whom it has been justly said that, while curses may weigh heavily on their life, blessings are always on their tomb. In order to give this idea not only the authority but the brilliance of fact, we have borrowed even the form from fact, and to that end chosen as the theme of our musical poem the melody to which we have heard the Venetian gondoliers sing on the lagoons three centuries after his death the first strophes of Tasso's 'Jerusalem':
"'Canto l' armi pietose e 'l Capitano,Che 'l gran Sepolcro liberò di Cristo!'
"The motive [first given out with sombre effect by the bass clarinet and three solo 'cellos, accompanied by harp, horns, and low stringspizzicato], is in itself plaintive, of a groaning slowness, monotonous in mourning; but the gondoliers give it a peculiar coloring by drawling certain notes, by prolonging tones, which, heard from afar, produce an effect not unlike the reflection of long stripes of fading light upon a looking-glass of water. This song once made a deep impression on us, and when we attempted to speak of Tasso our emotion could not refrain from taking as the text of our thoughts this persistent homage paid by his country to the genius of whose devotion and fidelity the court of Ferrara was not worthy. The Venetian melody is so charged with inconsolable mourning, with such hopeless sorrow, that it suffices to portray Tasso's soul; and again it lends itself as the imagination of the poet to the picturing of the brilliant illusions of the world, to the deceitful, fallacious coquetry of those smiles whose treacherous poison brought on the horrible catastrophe for which there seemed to be no earthly recompense, but which was clothed eventually at the capital with a purer purple than that of Alphonse."
The second portion of the symphonic poem, the "Triumph," is introduced by trumpet calls and by brilliant passages in the strings. The Tasso theme, transformed, is proclaimed with the utmost orchestral pomp and sonority, and brings the music to a jubilant and festive close.