Liszt, a French composer, wrote a symphony
inspired by the Divine Comedy and used the sections of
the Comedy as dividers for the movements. I will be talking
about the second movement of the symphony, Purgatorio.
The movement begins with the faint sounds of the
strings playing eighth notes (in open fifths) and then we hear the
oboe softly coming in with melody. As the oboe continues, it starts
to crescendo and that slowly decrescendo (hairpins). This
highlights the beginning of Canto I when Dante talks about the dead
poetry rising up again in lines 7-10. What Dante meant in these lines is that
poetry and other forms of beauty are dead in the Inferno and only exist within Purgatorio
and possibly alluding to it existing in Paradise. Liszt uses his composition
has a form of poetry. The rising melody
from the Oboe signifies the great emergence of the extravagant beauty music
displays. Beauty represents something that comes from God; the beauty of
nature. Liszt incorporates the beauty of God through his composition in which
the notes Liszt puts on paper come indirectly from God.
Within
the violin I score, Liszt labels a section, poco a poco piu di moto, meaning
move with more joy little by little. It seems like the section is similar to
description of brotherly embrace between Sordello of Mantua and Virgil in canto
6. At first, Virgil and Sordello are not immediately joyful towards each other,
but as they gradually begin to engage in conversation, they find out that they
are from the same place (Mantua) and thus achieve the highest amount of joy.
Dante talks about how this brotherly embrace is non-existent in Italy and can
be contrasted to the connotation the music brings. By placing this section in D
major, the notes present a much happier tune than by placing the section in
D-flat major or a different minor. That is contrast to Mantua and Italy. D
major is more embracing and D-flat major or a minor is sadder, deeper and
possibly negative (depending on the notes if their accidental or not).
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