2. Symbolism
Before talking more specifically of the Sonata and the relationship with its programs, it is important to talk about the symbolic meaning of some elements in the piece. Their comprehension is crucial to understand many connections between the Sonata and its programs and to reveal a “leading thought” behind the whole piece. About this topic, important research was made by a Hungarian pianist and musicologist, Tibor Szász, who proposed in an article1 a new and innovative way to look at Liszt’s Sonata.
2.1 The beginning: the symbol of temptation and damnation
The first seven bars are one of the most mysterious parts of the piece. However, it has a high symbolic value, and here we already have the first important symbol of the piece: the symbol of temptation and damnation.
Liszt starts its B minor Sonata with three repetitions of three G on upbeats and two distorted descending scales (Example 1). In B minor, G is the 6th degree, and it is repeated three times, making 666. If we put together this symbol with the upbeats, one of the biggest means of instability in music, we can easily link this introduction to the Devil. Moreover, as we will see after, the repetition of a chain of equal sharped notes symbolizes Satan in the Sonata2. To prove more the devilish nature of this sequence, there is the ascending 7th leap just before every scale: as we will see, a reversed symbol of Lucifer’s fall. That the opening interval is an ascending 7th rather than a descending 2nd is clear not only from the writing of the left hand, but in the Lehman manuscript too3.
Talking about this passage, the Hungarian pianist and musicologist Tibor Szász says in his article about Liszt’s Sonata that: “The listener has nothing to orient his ear to the B minor key signature, nothing to explain the pitch sequence of the opening seven measures, and nothing to indicate the metric downbeats. He is the unwitting victim of musical symbolism that evokes Lucifer’s deception. […] Everything about the Lento symbolizes the deception of the tempter, and Man’s succumbing to the temptation”4. He continues: “Lucifer’s deception can be symbolized by the repetition of the pitch G because G in the designated key signature of B minor is the sixth degree. The sixth degree above all others is associated with deceptive cadences, and hence, deception.”5 So, what is more deceptive of Devil’s temptation? Therefore, we can say that the three G repetitions in the Lento opening represent Devil’s deception and temptation.
But it is not over yet: it is interesting the symbolic value of the two descending scales too. About these, Tibor Szász says: “The immediate use of accidentals so veils the B minor pitches of the descending scales in the opening that many scholars consider them a phrygian and a gypsy scale. […] The distortion of B minor pitches is symbolic of Lucifer’s distortion of the truth. […] Instead of phrygian and gypsy scales, there are only two distorted sequences of B minor pitches.”6. He talks about the devilish distortion of the truth, keeping the two scales in the symbolic context of temptation. In my idea, if we think about devilish distortion, we could think not only to deception and temptation, but also to damnation. Is not Hell and damnation a distortion of the Heaven’s eternal life? And is not damnation a result of Satan’s temptation? If we look to the score too, Liszt uses this symbol several times during the piece, and, in my opinion, he uses it every time he wants to symbolize a concrete damnation risk. But we will deepen this aspect during the programmatic interpretation of the specific programs. For now, it is important to say that, in my opinion, the two descending scales are a symbol of damnation, that is indissolubly connected with the symbol of temptation. This symbolic duo comes back seven times during the whole Sonata.
2.2 Symbols of Lucifer and Satan: two sides of the same coin
After the enigmatic introduction, there is the presentation of the first theme (bars 8 – 17, Example 2). The theme has an inner dual nature, and a high symbolic value: the first part (bars 8 – 13) symbolizes the fall of Lucifer7, and the second part (bars 13 – 17) symbolizes Satan,” The Adversary”8. The two symbols are always together throughout the whole piece9, “two sides of the same coin”.
Lucifer symbol (we could call it “fall symbol”) has “two different musical gestures: first, with a bold upward leap […]; and only thereafter, the second, downward gesture symbolizing the fall […].”10 To symbolize the fall, Liszt uses at first a falling seventh leap, followed by arpeggiated diminished seventh chords. This symbolic use of the seventh leap is not original, but probably Liszt took it from Bach. Bach symbolizes Adam’s fall with three successive falling sevenths in an organ chorale prelude: “Durch Adam’s Fall”11. Liszt probably liked this symbolism and used it several times in his works: we can recognize it in his “Mass for Male Voices” (“Et homo factus est”) and in the cantata “Bells of the Strassburg Cathedral”. This cantata is truly interesting because we can clearly see there the use of the falling seventh leap symbol to directly characterize Lucifer. It is significant that also Wagner used this symbol in his “Parsifal” as a leitmotif for the accursed Kundry.12
About Satan symbol (the Devil symbol) Tibor Szasz says: “The evenly spaced, sharply marked chain of repeated notes symbolize the already fallen devil known as Satan, or to use his medieval personification, Mephistopheles.”13 Again, Liszt didn’t invent this symbol, but it can be traced to Weber, Berlioz, Meyerbeer and Alkan; and again, we can recognise the use of Devil’s symbol not only in the Sonata, but also in “Legend of St. Elisabeth”, “Legend of St. Christoph (not published) and “Christus”14. Liszt uses this symbol in the beginning of the third movement (Mephistopheles) of his “Faust Symphony" too (c.f.r. par. 3.2).
If we relate Lucifer symbol and Satan symbol in their infinite struggle (bars 32 – 33 and following), we can identify a third symbolic element: together, they form the tritone, “diabolus in musica” (Lucifer’s symbol is in B harmony, Satan’s symbol starts on E#, which is equal to F: so, the tritone is B-F)15. Of course, tritone was a diabolic symbol since Middle Ages, and Liszt always uses it to symbolize the Devil. In this case, the complete tritone comes putting together the dual and conflicting nature of the Devil, symbolized respectively in Lucifer and Satan.16 Middle Ages symbology notoriously associated the duality with the Devil (the duality is conflict) and the trinity with God (trinity is perfection).
2.3 The Cross symbol
The Grandioso section (Example 4) brings one of the most important symbols of the Sonata and, in general, of Liszt’s music: the Cross symbol. It consists in a three-note figure made of a major second and a minor third. This symbol is taken from an old Gregorian hymn for the Good Friday: “Crux Fidelis” (Example 3). About this hymn, Tibor Szász says: “Crux Fidelis is the refrain of the hymn Pange lingua. […] In the Catholic liturgy as Liszt knew it, the hymn was central to the Solemn Adoration of the Holy Cross during the Good Friday Mass of the Presanctified. Ascribed to Venantius Fortunatus of the sixth century, the hymn celebrated the receipt of a relic of the True Cross brought to the monastery founded at Poitiers by Saint Radegonde.”17
Liszt used this symbol several times in many other works too, always in a religious and Christian connotation: we can find the Cross symbol in “Via Crucis”, in the Symphonic Poem “Hunnenschlacht” (the Battle of the Huns), in “Legend of St. Elisabeth”, in “Magnificat” from Dante Symphony and in the oratorio “Christus”. The symbolic use of Crux Fidelis is identified in Liszt’s letters, especially about “Hunnenschlacht”. About the Symphonic Poem and the Kaulbach’s painting which it is inspired to, Liszt wrote:
“Kaulbach’s world-renowned picture presents two battles – the one on earth, the other in the air, according to the legend that warriors, after their death, continue fighting incessantly as spirits. In the middle of the picture appears the Cross and its mystic light; on this my “Symphonic Poem” is founded. The chorale “Crux Fidelis”, which is gradually developed, illustrates the idea of the final victory of Christianity in its effectual love to God and man.”18
And, in another letter:
“I absolutely wrote the “Hunnenschlacht” for the sake of the hymn “Crux Fidelis”.19
It is interesting that we can find this symbolic theme also in Liszt’s transcription “Solemn March to the Holy Grail from Parsifal” from Wagner. About this, a Liszt’s pupil, August Göllerich, just wrote on his diary what Liszt said:
“Those intervals are very well known to me, as I have written them time and time again! For example in the “Elizabeth”. – Wagner himself said, “Now you can see how I have stolen from you!” – However, they are old Catholic intervals, and so even I did not invent them myself.”20
So, the Cross symbol is always used by Liszt to symbolize the Holy Cross and, for analogy, Christ and God, and he doesn’t make an exception for the Sonata. Liszt puts together two Cross symbols to create Christ’s theme. We find this theme used programmatically seven times in the Sonata (on the symbology on the number seven c.f.r. 4.2), and especially in three crucial points: once in the Grandioso section (bars 105 – 119), in which, together with the plagal Amen formula21, it symbolizes Christ and His promise of redemption; once during the Recitativo Appassionato section (bars 297 – 310, Example 5), in which it can refer to the Crucifixion and Christ Passion; and once in the Presto section (bars 700 – 710, Example 6), in which it can symbolize Christ at the Last Judgement during Armageddon. I will deepen this Christian interpretation in the next chapters (c.f.r. par. 4).
It is interesting to report a detail that Paul Merrick noticed in his study on Cross motif in Liszt’s Sonata: “And is not the opening, so-called “yearning” theme of the Faust Symphony (ed. it is the same theme material of the first part of the first theme in the Sonata, the “fall symbol”, c.f.r. par. 3.2 and par. 2.2, attributable to Faust character in the Sonata too) the three-note motif in disguise? And does this not illuminate Liszt’s use of the Faust story as simply another parable of redemption – in particular redemption through love?”22 So, Merrick’s thesis about the Cross motif disguised in the first theme (Faust/Lucifer/Adam theme, as we’ll see after) could be realistically true: if, on bar 8, we take the first note of the theme (G) and we play it one octave lower, we have the second – third series of intervals that characterize the Cross symbol. In Merrick opinion this is not casual, but there was a precise intention of Liszt in putting the disguised Cross symbol in Faust theme: in Faust there is the fall and damnation coming from the Devil, but there is also the possibility of redemption coming from Christ. In my opinion, this has not to be related only to Faust Symphony, but to the Sonata too, and, since Faust symbolizes every man, Liszt intention in disguising Christ symbol in man’s theme is more universal: every man has a dark side, conditioned by arrogance, egoism and vices, but also a divine side (maybe hidden or disguised), thanks to which he can always be redeemed through love and faith.
2.4 The faith theme
In my opinion, there is another element that, even if it is not truly a symbol as the previous ones, is very important for its hidden meaning: the faith theme.
In the middle of the piece (Andante sostenuto, bars 331 – 348, Example 7) it appears for the first time a new theme in a chorale form in F# major, never presented in the piece until that moment. Tibor Szász discovered a strong relationship between Sonata’s middle theme and another Liszt work’s theme: Consolation N°4 (Example 8: this theme, as Liszt himself revealed, was based on a song by Maria Pavlovna, Grand Duchess of Weimar and one of his composition students)23. The choice of a four-part chorale is already characterizing the new theme in a holy way, but the key is also highly symbolic: F# major is a “mystical” key in Liszt’s music.24 So, this theme has a strong holy connotation. Tibor Szász says that: “(it is) symbolic of Man’s devotion to Christ”25, Paul Merrick defines that as “the redemption of Man after the Fall”26. In my opinion, this theme could refer to the Christian “faith” idea, and it would be consistent with the Consolation n°4: what is a milder consolation for a Christian than faith?
The faith theme comes back also in the Andante sostenuto at end of the piece. About this point, Szász Tibor writes: “Following a dramatic pause, a return of the Andante sostenuto symbolizes those on the right-hand side of Christ. The melody is one of religious devotion borrowed by Liszt from a lied by Maria Pavlovna. In the Sonata it functions as the motif of devotion to Christ.”27