Liszt: Dante Symphony / The Black Gondola (Orch. John Adams) – Gergely Madaras

Following their critically acclaimed recording of the Faust Symphony (BIS-2510), the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, conducted by Gergely Madaras and joined by the Choeur Symphonique de Namur, now presents Liszt’s Dante Symphony — a work reflecting his profound engagement with Dante’s Divine Comedy. Initially planned in three movements — Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso — the Dante Symphony was ultimately cast as two symphonic poems with a choral conclusion.

The Inferno opens with a stern trombone theme beneath Dante’s gate inscription, moves through lyrical episodes evoking Paolo and Francesca, and ends in demonic frenzy. The Purgatorio, serene and simple, contains a central fugue evoking souls striving toward paradise, leading without pause into the choral Magnificat. Liszt’s treatment of tonality anticipates Mahler and Nielsen, while his use of the tritone and whole- tone scale confirms him as a composer ahead of his time. This recording also includes the symphony’s original conclusion, later abandoned at Richard Wagner’s insistence.

The programme concludes with John Adams’ orchestration of La Lugubre Gondola II, a visionary late work inspired by a funeral gondola procession on Venice’s Grand Canal. Adams’ arrangement honours the structural, stylistic and poetic dimensions of Liszt’s original, placing its Romantic language within a modern soundscape.