Franz Liszt
Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses
S. 173

About Franz Liszt's Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses

One of Liszt’s most personal and confessional piano cycles, the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses contains two of his best-loved masterpieces – the serenely contemplative Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude (No. 3) and the heroic elegy Funérailles (No.7). The title is taken from a group of poems by Alphonse de Lamartine which inspired the set. Several of the pieces are headed by excerpts from the Lamartine poems, giving insight into Liszt´s programmatic intentions.
The cycle was composed in the years immediately after Liszt had abandoned the concert stage, persuaded by his lover Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein to concentrate on composition.
Many of the pieces here were written at Woronince, the Ukrainian country estate of Sayn-Wittgenstein.