Program Music as Sacramental Prayer: Liszt, Lamartine, and <i>Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude</i>

Franz Liszt considered Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude—the third piece from his 1853 piano cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses—to be one of his most significant works for solo piano, but its roots in the eponymous poem by Alphonse de Lamartine have yet to receive full consideration. Scholarship on the Bénédiction and the Harmonies as a whole has tended to focus more on the cycle’s convoluted twenty-year genesis than on the poetic cycle that inspired it. This omission is consistent with the persistent belief that Liszt was haphazard in his application of programmatic titles. However, Liszt’s Bénédiction closely corresponds to Lamartine’s poem in its content and form, showing the composer’s indebtedness to French Romanticism. This article reveals connections between sacred and pastoral tropes in Lamartine’s poetry and Liszt’s music, as well as between long-breathed poetic and musical phrases. In its sensitive interpretation of Lamartine’s poem, Liszt’s Benediction stands as his most successful meditation on the poet’s work as a whole. The broader ramifications of these findings suggest a reevaluation of Liszt’s approach to program music, and of program music in general.