In the second volume, Italie, published in 1858, of the three-part Années de pèlerinage the great names of Italian art and poetry occupy centre stage. Among these was also Petrarch and his collection of sonnets to the beloved Laura, who was however unattainable for the poet. Liszt selected three poems as ideal models for numbers 4–6 in his Italian volume. The second of his three Petrarch sonnets alternates in musical expression between enthusiasm and melancholy, between passion and gloom. It thus corresponds exactly to the conflicting feelings of the lover that Petrarch describes in “Sonetto 104” on which it is based. In spite of the brevity of the piece, one encounters a wealth of harmonic modulations and stylistic variants of the elegiac main melody. In short: a work representative of the “Master of the Piano”. This piece, which is demanding with regard to expression and style, but for the most part moderate in terms of technique, numbers among the most popular of the Année volumes and is now also available as a revised single Urtext edition.
