Symphonic Poems (Liszt) - Programmatic Content

Programmatic Content

Liszt provided written prefaces for nine of his symphonic poems. He knew well the general public's fondness for attaching stories to instrumental music. In a pre-emptive gesture, he therefore provided context before others could invent something to take its place. Liszt may have also felt that since many of these works were written in new forms, some sort of verbal or written explanation would be welcome to explain their shape. However, because Liszt wrote his prefaces or programs for these works long after composing the music, coupled with the theory that his then-companion Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein likely had a hand in their formulation, it is very possible that posterity may have overestimated the importance of extra-musical thought in Liszt's symphonic poems. Liszt held an idealized view of the symphonic poem as being evocative rather than representational. He generally focused more on expressing poetic ideas by setting a mood or atmosphere, refraining on the whole from narrative description or pictorial realism.