Années de pèlerinage

Four sets of piano pieces by Liszt, mainly recording his travels in Switzerland and Italy, composed between 1835 and 1877.

1re Année: En Suisse was composed 1835–36 and published in 1855. It comprises: 1. Chapelle de Guillaume Tell. 2. Au Lac de Wallenstadt. 3. Pastorale. 4. Au Bord d'une source. 5. Orage. 6. Vallée d'Obermann (inspired by Étienne Sénancour's Obermann; the valley is an imaginary or unidentified one in the canton of Valais). 7. Eglogue. 8. Le Mal du pays. 9. Les Cloches de Genève. (Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6, and 9 originally formed part of an Album d'un voyageur for piano published in 1836: they were revised for the publication of the Années de pèlerinage in 1855).

2me Année: En Italie was composed 1838–39 and published in 1846. It comprises: 1. Sposalizio (after Raphael's painting in the Brera at Milan). 2. Il pensieroso (after Michelangelo's statue of Giuliano dei Medici in the Medici mausoleum at San Lorenzo, Florence). 3. Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa. 4. Sonetto No. 47 del Petrarca. 5. Sonetto No. 104 del Petrarca. 6. Sonetto No. 123 del Petrarca (Nos. 4–6 are transcriptions of settings of these Petrarch sonnets for voice and piano). 7. Aprilès une lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata (‘Dante Sonata’).

3me Année was composed 1872–77 and published in 1883. It comprises: 1. Angelus: Prière aux anges gardiens. 2. Aux Cyprès de la Villa d'Este. 3. ditto: Thrénodie. 4. Les Jeux d'eau de la Villa d'Este. 5. Sunt lacrymae rerum en mode hongrois. 6. Marche funèbre (in memory of the Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, who died on 19 June 1867). 7. Sursum corda.

The Supplement to Vol. II, Venezia e Napoli, was composed in 1859 and published in 1861. It comprises: 1. Gondoliera (on a canzona by Cavaliere Peruchini). 2. Canzone (on the gondolier's song in Rossini's Otello). 3. Tarantella (on some canzoni by Guillaume Louis Cottrau). (This set is partly a revision of an earlier one of the same title composed in 1840, but not published.)