Liszt's Dantesque Monuments

Afterlives: Liszt's Dantesque Monuments

March 6, 2026

New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies

A complete recording of Liszt's work as performed by Cziffra can be found here. 

Excerpt 1 (first minute and twenty seconds of the linked recording) 

In the world of piano lessons, these first pages of Liszt’s so-called Dante Sonata are often presented as signifying the inscription, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Indeed, this music’s downward spiraling dissonances, halting rhythms, and disconcerting rumblings match Dante’s scene rather well. 

But I have questions about all this, and primarily, questions along these lines:

What was Liszt’s actual engagement with the writings of Dante, and how was that engagement expressed in and around his own work?

Key issues give rise to these questions and complicate the search for insights. Liszt scholarship continues to be involved in unravelling fact from fiction in the highly romanticized early biographies of Liszt, who, himself, famously stated to one author that his biography was “more to be invented than written.”  And in terms of challenges to discerning the creative spirit of this sonata, Liszt provided no program, no specific narrative, linking the unfolding drama of the music to anything particular in Dante. In contrast, he wrote a separate Dante Symphony in which he at least named the two movements “Inferno” and “Purgatorio” and copied some of Dante’s text above a few of the instrumental parts. A close associate of Liszt’s later provided a descriptive plan for that piece. While there is not time in this presentation to address those details, suffice it to say the origins and creation of that symphony are not as obscure as those of this sonata.  

These problems aside, we can see from a few verifiable biographical notes that Liszt’s engagement with Dante was both multifaceted and deeply personal. 

It is now thought that he had some experience with The Divine Comedy in his teens which probably amounted to reading for enjoyment or basic familiarity. But his own description of his literary interests at that time suggests he was already on a trajectory leading beyond the adulation he received as a virtuoso to a desire to enter into broader cultural conversations. 

That said, his deeper reading of Dante seems to have begun during his relationship with the Countess Marie d’Agoult. They met in Paris in 1833 and we can see from their correspondence that they read Dante together and thought of Beatrice and Dante as a model for their own relationship with Liszt being sent on his artistic pilgrimage by Marie’s qualities as a muse. They were, however, a little different from Beatrice and Dante in that Marie left her husband and daughter for Liszt in 1835 and together they had three children out of wedlock. Beginning in 1837 they spent considerable time in Italy being inspired by its history and culture but also feeling an increasing tension between the life of the family they were creating and Liszt’s touring. In the end, touring won out and in the eight years from 1839 to 1847, Liszt appeared in the areas of 21 modern countries from Ireland and Portugal in the west to Russia and Turkey in the east. 

But back in 1838, Marie mentioned in her diary that Liszt was progressing in his large-scale compositional aspirations by sketching, among other things, a “Fragment dantesque.” 

Excerpt 2 (linked recording 1:20 - 2:40)

Although Liszt never mentioned it, this second excerpt from his sonata is sometimes cast as reflecting the whirlwind of the Francesca da Rimini episode. Whatever his intention, the drama of this music resonates with the context in which he wrote the following to fellow composer Hector Berlioz in 1839: “Dante has found his pictorial expression in Orcagna and Michelangelo, and someday perhaps he will find his musical expression in the Beethoven of the future.” Here, like several of his peers, Liszt was starting to position himself as the rightful heir to Beethoven’s legacy. From his own legendary story of receiving the great master’s kiss of blessing to becoming the ground-breaking exponent of Beethoven’s esoteric late piano works, Liszt interpreted himself as a Dante to Beethoven’s Virgil.  

In the years between “Fragment dantesque” and the final version of the sonata, Liszt crossed through several provisional titles for the work. In the most thought-provoking, he described the piece as a “Paralipomènes to the Divine Comedy, a Fantaisie symphonique.” This title suggests several distinct things about his conception of the work at that point. First, being “symphonique,” it was to be no ordinary piano piece. Liszt was thinking of the orchestra while at the keyboard which makes perfect sense for him as he had also been transcribing Beethoven’s symphonies to be performed on the piano since the late 1830s. Second, in referencing The Divine Comedy, he revealed the scope of the sonata to be the entire poem, not just the Inferno, for example. Finally, and most intriguingly, the term paralipomènes, used in some traditions to refer to the biblical books of Chronicles, suggests Liszt viewed the work as something after-the-fact, an appendix or a summary. Maybe even Dantesque material presented in a different framework.

And that brings us to the final title by which the work is known today. In 1856, it was published in the Italian book of Liszt’s three-volume series of piano pieces known as Years of Pilgrimage, and there it was called “Après une Lecture du Dante - Fantasia quasi Sonata.” “Fantasia quasi sonata” is a reference to Beethoven’s innovative piano works bearing the title “Sonata quasi una fantasia.” One of these is the well-known “Moonlight Sonata” which Liszt played. The “Après une Lecture du Dante” part is the name of a poem by Victor Hugo, a reflection which summarizes a perspective on Dante’s journey that understands the journey ultimately to be life itself.  

Here is a slightly abridged translation of Hugo’s poem, “After a reading of Dante”:

When the poet paints hell, he paints his life:

His life, 

a fleeing shadow pursued by specters;

Mysterious forest where his frightened steps stray groping off the beaten paths;

Black journey obstructed by deformed encounters;                                                                       

spiral with doubtful edges, enormous depths,

whose hideous circles go ever deeper into a shadow 

where vague and living hell stirs!

This ramp is lost in the uncertain mist;

…one sees passing there with a faint sound the grinding 

of white teeth in the dark night.

There are visions, dreams, chimeras;

Eyes that pain changes into bitter springs,

Love, an entwined couple, sad, and ever burning, which in a whirlwind passes …

In a corner, vengeance and hunger, impious sisters, crouching side by side on a gnawed skull;

Then pale misery with an impoverished smile …

ambition, pride, lust, avarice … 

All the leaden cloaks with which the soul can be burdened!

Further on, cowardice, fear, betrayal …

And then, lower still, and at the very bottom of the abyss, 

The grimacing mask of suffering Hatred!

Yes, this is indeed life, O inspired poet,

And its misty path cluttered with obstacles.

But, so that nothing is lacking, on this narrow road

You always show us, standing on your right,

The genius with the calm brow, with eyes full of light,

The serene Virgil who says: Let us continue!

Excerpt 3 (linked recording 4:40 - 6:35)

In this final excerpt one might hear a return of the musical whirlwind but in lament form giving way to something more hopeful, a heavenly and noble continuation.

To conclude, having outlined some of Liszt’s multi-faceted and personal ways of processing Dante, it seems reasonable to assert that this sonata does not retell The Divine Comedy so much in any specific way as it invites the listener into reflecting on their own knowledge of Dante. Its narrativity is of a general sort, harrowing and soothing the listener by turns with clangorous sonorities and other-worldly harmonies, all to stir up a remembrance of their own experiences of Dantesque materials. 

Liszt was adamant regarding the crucial role of individual engagement in the experience of music. When he heard pianists perform with little imagination, he accused them of what he called “the Pilate offence” of washing their hands of interpretive responsibility. If he showed up here today, he would likely hold us to a similar standard as listeners. Perhaps he would call the Sonata, “Having read Dante . . .” and would follow it up with a good conversation with each of us about our own insights.