Sonetto123 del Petrarca: “I’ vidi in terra…” S161/6 (1839-1856)

Liszt’s creative relationship with Petrarch’s sonnets began in 1838 or 1839 when he was staying in Italy with the Comtesse d’Agoult. His first inspiration was to set three of them, No.47 “Benedetto sia ‘l giorno,” No.104 “Pace non trovo” and No.123 “I’ vidi in terra” (though not in that order), as songs for high tenor and piano. At much the same time he reworked all three songs for piano and it was in this version that they were first published: the piano pieces were issued in 1846, the songs a year later. At some point in the next ten years or so he rewrote the piano Sonnets and allocated them to the second volume of the Années de pèlerinage, where they found an appropriate place alongside other works with a literary or artistic inspiration written in Italy in 1838-9. Although that was the end of the story as far as the piano pieces are concerned, Petrarch still meant enough to Liszt for him to undertake a radical revision of the three songs, this time for baritone, in 1865.

Preserving much of the freshness of the amorous inspiration of the original song settings - which might well have been Liszt’s first works of that kind, incidentally - all three of the piano Sonnets are rhapsodic inventions with an abundance of keyboard decoration: they are not so much transcriptions of the songs as contemplations on them. Sonnet No.123 begins with something like the introduction to the song with its distant anticipations of the second act of Tristan und Isolde. From the entry of the first vocal melody, recognisable by its expressively lyrical line and the arpeggiated accompaniment, the piano piece follows the construction of the song up to the ethereally coloured modulation that introduces the third stanza and the poet’s direct address to Love. But then the pianist in Liszt takes over for an exquisitely delicate cadenza. The pianist and the song composer agree on the waywardly lingering harmonies of the postlude, which is much the same in the two versions.

I' vidi in terra angelici costumi,

E celesti bellezze al mondo sole;

Tal che di rimembrar mi giova, e dole:

Che quant'io miro, par sogni, ombre, e fumi.

E vidi lagrimar que' duo bei lumi,

Ch'han fatto mille volte invidia al sole;

Ed udì' sospirando dir parole

Che farian gir i monti, e stare i fiumi.

Amor! senno! valor, pietate, e doglia

Facean piangendo un più dolce concento

D'ogni altro, che nel mondo udir si soglia.

Ed era 'l cielo all'armonia s'intento

Che non si vedea in ramo mover foglia.

Tanta dolcezza avea pien l'aer e 'l vento.

(Petrarch)

I beheld on earth angelic grace,

and heavenly beauty unmatched in this world,

such as to rejoice and pain my memory,

which is so clouded with dreams, shadows, mists.

And I beheld tears spring from those two bright eyes,

which many a time have put the sun to shame,

and heard words unered with such sighs

as to move the mountains and stay the rivers.

Love, wisdom, excellence, pity and grief

made in that plaint a sweeter concert

than any other to be heard on earth.

And heaven on that harmony was so intent

that not a leaf upon the bough was seen to stir,

such sweetness had filled the air and winds.

(translation by Lionel Salter)