Chapter 34

SYMPHONIC POEM,

ORPHEUS

In this work, as must always be the case in poetically suggestive
music, the composer trusts to the general intelligence and insight
of the listener. For a mere mention of the name Orpheus may
well call up the vision of a majestic, godlike youth proclaiming
his message of joy and peace to soften the unruly passions of
men and animals.

It is said that Liszt’s imagination was kindled by a beautiful
representation of Orpheus playing on the lyre, which decorates
an Etruscan vase in the Louvre. The aim of the music was thus
to intensify and supplement the visual effect. The Poem begins
with soft, sustained calls on the horns, creating a mood of ex-
pectancy, interspersed with modulatory arpeggios on the harp
serving to complete the legendary picture. In these Symphonic
Poems, we must always observe how closely the nature of the
themes and the whole import of the music are involved with the
orchestral dress. For Liszt, though not perhaps so brilliant and
sensational as Berlioz, was equally a great master of orchestral
coloring and poetic suggestion by means of appropriate instru-
ments; often, too, more delicate and refined. In measure 15
begins for sustained strings the stately march which typifies the
gradual approach of Orpheus. The second phrase of the march,
beginning in measure 38, has received the compliment of being
appropriated, almost literally, by Wagner in the second act of