Franz Liszt - Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S. 173 No. 3: Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude (1847)

The close relationship between music and literature is one of the hallmarks of the 19th century. A striking example is Liszt’s Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, No. 3 of his piano cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, composed between 1847 and 1852. This cycle, which contains 10 pieces, bears the exact Alphonse de Lamartine literary title. Among these 10 works, four of them use titles directly from Lamartine, including Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, the most expansive of the cycle. 

Dedicated to Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, the Bénédiction was completed in 1847 at Woronince, a Ukrainian country estate of the princess. That year marked a turning point in Liszt’s life: he met the princess for the first time, gave up his dazzling concert career, and devoted himself more fully to composition. Most importantly, it was the year he returned to the practice of his Catholic faith – an awakening reflected throughout this work’s atmosphere of serene devotion.

The Bénédiction unfolds like a timeless, improvisatory elaboration of harmonic colour. Its home key of F-sharp major, one Liszt frequently associated with translucence and sanctity, sets the tone for its luminous sound world. The score is prefaced by a stanza of Lamartine’s poem “Bénédiction de Dieus dans la solitude”, beginning with “D’où me vient, ô mon Dieu, cette paix qui m’inonde?” (Whence comes, oh my God, this peace that floods over me?).  These lines fit the opening melody that has been drawn from an earlier piece called Marie-Poème. 

The stanza centres on the idea of the heart overflowing with renewed faith and religious joy. Lamartine’s imagery abounds with references to water, waves, flooding, and storm, and Liszt mirrors this in this A-B-C-A form piece. The A sections are characterised by flowing, legato, arpeggiated accompaniments that evoke gently surging currents. The D-major B section places its melody largely in the upper voice of chains of first-inversion chords, recalling the sonority of 15th-century fauxbourdon. After a lunga pausa, the music moves to B-flat major for the C section, a prélude composed by Liszt in 1845.  When the F-sharp major A section returns, the music becomes more densely harmonised with thicker textures and faster arpeggios, resulting in a more glorious sound. 

Despite being a work of the mid-19th century, the work is rather restrained in its chromaticism. Composers of that time often used unresolved dissonances and chromatic harmonies to depict suffering and death, states traditionally understood in both the Christian and Catholic theologies as consequences of human sin. However, in the divine vision that the Bénédiction illustrates, there can be no sin and death has lost its sting. Liszt therefore writes with relatively less chromatic and more straightforward harmonies.