4. Milton’s Paradise Lost and the Bible
As I mentioned in the previous chapters, Goethe’s Faust had an important influence on the composition of the Sonata for sure, and the Faustian interpretation is traditional and most known. But it is not the only one. Szász Tibor proposed an alternative interpretation1, considering as the main program of the Sonata not Faust, but two other important masterpieces of Christian culture: Milton’s Paradise Lost and the Bible.
4.1 Why the Paradise Lost? The reasons behind a different vision
As we know, Liszt was a committed Christian, and the religious spirit permeates a lot of his compositions, especially on the second half of his life. The Sonata is not an exception: as we have seen in chapter 2, the piece is full of religious symbols, like the Cross symbol or the Lucifer-Satan symbols. In his letters, Liszt always writes about religion, and it seems that the religious dimension was the one he was daily living in. Moreover, we know that in 1848, after less than one year since Liszt met the Princess Caroline Sayn-Wittgenstein (a Russian-born Pole Princess deeply Catholic), she gave him a copy of Paradise Lost in English2. As Tibor Szász shows in his article, in January 1851 Liszt sketched the opening measures of the Sonata and he wrote to the Princess about:
“…the serpent who seduced our mother Eve.”3
So, it is clear not only that Liszt was concerned with Paradise Lost, but also that the Sonata was deeply influenced by the poem. We cannot imagine the Sonata’s conception separated from this Christian living dimension. And the way that Liszt used to express this religious dimension in his piece are the symbols, that now acquire a more evident sense. Moreover, we don’t have to forget that the Sonata (1852-1853) is the first member of the trilogy completed by the “Faust Symphony” (1854) and the oratorio “Christus” (composed in 1862-1866, but Liszt’s first mention of it occurs in 1853)4. And, as we’ll see, the three works are deeply philosophically connected, and the Sonata is exactly in the middle.
4.2 Another vision: a Miltonian/Biblical interpretation of the Sonata
Differently from the Faustian interpretation, the Miltonian/Biblical vision of the Sonata is not built on the references to specific scenes, but on the usage of specific symbols and their union. So, as Szász Tibor did in his article, I will decode the Miltonian/Biblical Program analyzing the symbols in order and focusing on their relationship with this different vision of the piece.
Before entering more in details, it is important to specify that, talking about a Christian vision of the Sonata, the Bible (Old and New Testament) is a program as important as the Paradise Lost, and the reason is evident: it is the Holy Book of all Christians, the base for every other religious composition like Paradise Lost and an absolute point of reference for Liszt.
Following this different interpretation, Sonata’s program would be the History of Salvation intended in a Christian way. Szász Tibor says: “Original Sin, Crucifixion, and Last Judgement, the three tenets of the Christian faith, are all symbolized in the Sonata.”5 In this vision, the exposition of the piece refers to Paradise Lost, the development to the Crucifixion and the final part to the Last Judgement. Milton’s poem starts as follows:
"Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste,
Brought Death into the World, and all out woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing heav’nly Muse…"6
In the first seven measures it appears the symbol of temptation and damnation, as we already saw in the paragraph 2.1. According to what Szász Tibor says in his article, these first measures “symbolize Lucifer as he surreptitiously tempts Man in the Garden of Eden.”7, and it corresponds to the “First Disobedience” of Paradise Lost preface.
The deception is at the base of the opening of the piece: there is nothing to indicate the metric downbeats or the B minor key. The whole section is on upbeat, but the listener doesn’t know it: Liszt negates the strong beats and stress the off-beats as Lucifer negates the divine warning about the forbidden fruit. The music is polyphonic, because there are a tempter and a tempted: quoting Szász Tibor “The top voice is that of Lucifer whose tempting is symbolized exclusively through the off-beat repetition of the pitch G, notated with stems up. The lower voice is that of Man whose receptivity to Lucifer’s temptation is symbolized through the repetition of G, notated with stems down”.8 These stems Szász Tibor is talking about are not present in the modern printed editions of the Sonata, but Liszt wrote them on the Weimar Manuscript.
Moreover, the deception of Man, symbolized in the music by the G repetitions, happens in three stages as three are the Devil’s temptations in Genesis 3:
“Of course you will not die,” said the serpent; “for God knows that, as soon as you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God himself, knowing both good and evil.”9
The three serpent’s temptations are the three false consequences of eating the apple: you will not die, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God himself.
Quoting again from Szász Tibor: “Man’s first hesitant, yearnful responses to the temptations, with the reaching up of his hand toward the apple, is symbolized by widening, ascending intervals, a minor seventh individually marked crescendo, and a major seventh also individually marked crescendo. […] The two hesitant withdrawals of Man’s hand are symbolized by descending scales, each similarly marked decrescendo.”10
The first theme (bars 8-17) symbolizes the Man during the Original Sin. After two withdrawals, the Man succumbs to the temptation, eats the apple and, therefore, corrupts himself: in the music, this gesture is symbolized by the two upward octave leaps, the change from Lento assai to Allegro energico11, and the falling diminished octaves. Here we find the symbols of Lucifer and Satan (c.f.r. par. 2.2), and, using these symbols to depict the Man during the Original Sin, Liszt establishes a brilliant connection: as the Man (Adam and Eve) were happy and pure, but, disobeying, they became fallen beings because they tried to become like God (“and ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil”), so Lucifer, “The Bearer of Light”, disobeying his Creator, became a fallen angel because he tried to put himself at God’s place, and he became Satan, “The Adversary”. In the same musical symbols, Liszt represents two Paradise Lost’s main characters: the Man (Adam and Eve) and Lucifer/Satan, made similar by pride and disobedience.12
The music after the first theme (bars 18 – 104), agitated and breathless, summarizes the drama in the Eden after the Original Sin (Genesis 313, Paradise Lost Book X14). In the Grandioso (bars 105 – 119), Liszt uses the Cross Symbol (c.f.r. par. 2.3) to symbolize Christ's decision to redeem the Man through His sacrifice and His descent to judge the Serpent, Adam and Eve and send them away from Eden. In this case, Liszt follows the Paradise Lost version: in the Bible, God himself descended after the Original Sin calling the Man in the Garden15; instead, in Milton’s poem, Christ, called the Son of God, was generated by God before creation, and he was sent by God to create the Universe and to judge the Man after the Original Sin. (Paradise Lost, Book VII16 and X17).
As said before, Liszt refers to Paradise Lost during the exposition, and here we can find another link with the poem’s preface: if the first theme in B minor refers to the Man, Adam, who fell because of the “First Disobedience”, and therefore bears the tritone B-E# (B-F), Christ’s Grandioso theme in D major is the second theme, and symbolizes the “greater Man” who will redeem mankind from the Original Sin. In the Paradise Lost, the Son himself promises his sacrifice to the Father for the humanity’s redemption, and that is the continuation of this Sonata’s program.
After the first section, Szász Tibor imagines and proposes a free interpretation of the section from bar 120 to bar 297. I agree with this vision, but I believe it has not to be considered unequivocally. Quoting exactly from Szász Tibor’s article18:
“In the Bible the first two human acts mentioned are sex between Adam and Eve, and violence between Cain and Abel. In view of Liszt’s comments about love between man and woman in Paradise Lost19, it is easy to imagine that measures 120-254 represent Adam and Eve seeing each other with their newly opened eyes, and measures 255-276 represent the eruption of violence between Cain and Abel. [In Paradise Lost, Milton writes a long description of the Man and Woman seeing each other lustfully after the Original Sin, Book IX20]
The Lucifer motif in measures 120-140 seems to imply Adam’s growing desire for Eve. Through the machinations of Satan (mm 141-152), Eve appears to him in sensuous, seductive femininity (m. 153 ff). Love making ensues (mm 205-238, climax in 233-238). A denouement follows (mm 239-250).
At this point, Liszt introduced an harmonic device known as the devil’s mill (Teufelsmühle: mm. 251-254) [c.f.r. par 3.3], after which violence erupts (mm 255-276). Having characterized the human condition of fallen man (sex and violence), Liszt reintroduces the motif of original sin (mm 277-285). Man no longer strives to be god-like as when he reached or the knowledge of good and evil. The ascending seventh intervals become descending seconds. Man is sinking into sin.”
The coming back of the Original Sin theme and the Man’s damnation (it comes again the symbol of temptation and damnation, bars 277-285) brings the music to a crucial point in the History of Salvation: Jesus’s Crucifixion. Christ, as promised, comes to sacrifice himself to save mankind from the damnation of Original Sin, and redeem the humanity with His Passion. Liszt symbolizes Christ’s Crucifixion using again the Cross symbol, but this time it is almost identical to the “Station XI: Jesus wird ans Kreuz gsechlagen (Jesus is Crucified)” from his “Via Crucis”. The section is built by two series of hammered dissonant chordal blows alternated with two recitatives marked appassionato. In this case, the appassionato is a symbol itself and refers to Christ’s Passion. Szász Tibor writes: “In “Via Crucis”, the chordal blows symbolize the nailing of Jesus to the Cross, and the recitative sets Christ’s words from the Cross […] The Sonata’s chords and recitative had become two separate Stations of the Cross”21
According to the Gospels, Christ’s words on the Cross which the Sonata’s recitatives refer to are:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”22
After the Crucifixion, the Redemption starts: Christ’s sacrifice gives to mankind an upward impulse symbolized by two ascending cruciform symbols (bars 307-308) introducing two ascending scales (bars 309-310 and 312-313) and the evil forces must step back (bars 314-330).23
From bar 331, it starts the Andante sostenuto, the four-part chorale in F#, the faith theme (as seen in 2.4). We have already seen that this part, according to both Szász Tibor and Paul Merrick, is representative of Man’s Redemption after the Fall and his faith and devotion to Christ. The struggle of the Cross motif to the final return of the faith theme (from bar 363 to bar 414) could even symbolize Christ’s victory over the Death through the Resurrection, foundation of Christian faith (bars 395-401). However, at the end of this section, Liszt uses a musical figure of speech: the “passus duriusculus” or chromatic fouth24. In music theory, it consists of a melodic line spanning a perfect fourth with all the chromatic intervals in it, and it usually symbolizes pain or weeping. In bars 422-428, Liszt puts a chromatic fourth in the left hand to symbolize the weakness of the human flesh, and the Man falling again into the sin. As evidence of this, from bar 453 to bar 459 it comes back the symbol of temptation and damnation, and after it starts a diabolic fugue (c.f.r. 3.2 and 3.3).
The recapitulation comes, and Szász Tibor says: “The restatement of the first key area (mm 533-672) is not to be interpreted programmatically. These measures adhere to the tradition of restating the first key area as a part of the abstract sonata form”25. But, if I agreed with him for the Faust interpretation, this time I still see a programmatic intention in the recapitulation, as Paul Merrick partially says: “Here the same first-subject material is presented, since Man’s struggle with the Devil is eternal, but, after the coming of Christ, took place in a new context.”26
Even after Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, the History of Salvation continues, and it will end only with the Armageddon, symbolized in the last pages of the Sonata. As Liszt’s music was inspired by the Paradise Lost in the first part and by the Gospels in the center, in the final part it refers directly to the Apocalypse, the Revelation of St. John. Szász Tibor says: “The Presto and Prestissimo (mm 673-699) symbolize Armageddon with the martial rhythm.”27 The Christ’s final return in glory is symbolized by the Cross theme coming a seventh and last time (bars 700-710): the key is B major (counterposed to the B minor of the beginning), the tempo is 3/2 and the dynamic is triple forte. In Christian theology, numbers three and seven are highly symbolical: the three symbolizes the perfection of Trinity (counterposed to the number two, symbol of duality and imperfection), and the number seven symbolizes the fullness and completeness (in the Apocalypse, the number seven comes 88 times). This is the reason why the last return of Christ is the seventh return of His theme and, as previously, it always coincides with a change from duple meter (4/4, tempus imperfectum28) to triple miter (3/2, tempus perfectum con prolatione perfecta29). Christ motif continues, raising more and more harmonically and in the register to end in a dramatically, and it could symbolize “the raising of the living and the dead to stand before the Judgment seat”.30
After, the faith theme comes once again (bars 711-728), symbolizing the devotion of the ones “on the right-hand side of Christ”31. The last two pages of the Sonata symbolize the separation between the two groups of souls: the saved and the damned. From the Allegro moderato (bar 729), there are two different elements: on the right hand, whole-note chords rising higher and higher, symbolizing the redemption of the souls at the right-hand side of God; on the left hand, the immobile repetition of the Satan theme, symbolizing the souls at the left-side of God stuck by the sin. Between bars 737-749, there is the transformation of the Fallen Man into the Redeemed Man: Lucifer motif, symbol of Man’s will to become like God with the knowledge of good and evil, comes a last time in B major, and, at bars 748-749, the symbol of temptation (this time in B major) is on the real strong beats, and not off-beat anymore. The Redeemed Man is pacified, and his desire to reach God is finally satisfied.
The final Lento assai depicts the final damnation and redemption.32 The two descending scales symbolize the sinking of damned souls into the abyss, and the pianissimo chords symbolize the eternal life of the redeemed souls in the “Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God”33. The chords end with an unresolved 6/4 chord, symbol of eternal life, and the last B, the lowest on the keyboard, is the symbol of the second death of the unredeemed souls34.