The symphony is dead. It no longer is possible to reconcile the new Romantic music with the old, stale forms of the symphony. This is, at least, what Liszt believed. He also thought that the future of symphonic music was to pair it up with its sisters in the arts: literature, poetry, drama, and painting. Forms could then be generated to serve the subject matter being expressed. He felt it was his duty to save German Romantic music and to show his colleagues the way. From this noble concept the symphonic poem was born. This one-movement work, based on a single melodic idea, would be flexible in form, shaped by the demands of the subject matter. The compositional technique he developed for these works is called thematic transformation. This idea was taken from Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, where the idée fixe theme returns in each movement, but in an altered form, meter, tempo, orchestration, etc. Liszt uses the thematic transformation to unify the many sections of his symphonic poems. In Tasso, the theme is first given in its entirety by the bass clarinet. This same theme expresses both the lament and the triumph. This is accomplished with a shift from minor to major, and by the rhythm, accompaniment, tempo, and setting. The theme is also transformed into a charming minuet which represents the court life at Ferrara.
Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), an Italian Renaissance poet, is most remembered for the epic poem, Jerusalem Delivered. However, during his lifetime, he struggled for recognition, respect, and love. He also struggled with depression, alcoholism, and paranoia. There are many parallels between Tasso's life and Robert Schumann's, both suffering from depression, mental disorders, and drinking. They warded off depression through intense creative work, seeking refuge in their inner lives and fantasies. They also could not do without socializing, which usually included heavy drinking. They vacillated between euphoria and severe depression, but were generally unhappy with their lives and situations, and were quite gloomy and depressed. Both ended up in insane asylums.
Tasso, from his earliest memories, learned to distrust people. His father was to receive a handsome dowry at his wedding, but the brothers of his wife refused to pay. The legal battle over the money lasted Tasso's entire life, and he still was unable to obtain the dowry. His father, also a poet, had his manuscripts illegally published in pirated editions, robbing him of the financial rewards. This was also the case for Tasso. He was suspicious of servants, looked for the slightest indication that he was being treated lower than he felt he should be (such as not being invited to dine at the Duke's table even though he was of a lower class), and feared that the Inquisition would condemn him for his poems. This led him to constantly confess to the Inquisitors, something which made his boss, the Duke of Ferrara, very nervous. He feared that members of his court would be implicated by the emotionally unstable Tasso. After several years of depression, violent outbursts, and frequent trips without permission, the Duke had Tasso imprisoned in an asylum, chained to the wall like a madman. This lasted for seven years. When he was finally released from the Duke's charge, he went to Rome, where the new Pope was installed. The Pope sought to honor Tasso with a Coronation at the Capitol for his religious epic poem, Jerusalem Delivered, which treated the crusaders as heroes. Sadly, Tasso died before the event.
In the program notes Liszt provided for Tasso, he wrote, "Lament and Triumph: these are the two great contrasts in the destiny of poets. I have taken, as the theme of this musical poem, the melody to which, three hundred years after the poet's death, we have heard the gondoliers of Venice sing. This melody is in itself plaintive, slow, and mournfully monotonous. I could not but take for the text of my thoughts this enduring homage rendered by his nation to a genius of whom the court of Ferrara had proved itself unworthy. The Venetian melody breathes so gnawing a melancholy, so irremediable a sadness, that a mere reproduction of it seems sufficient to reveal the secret of Tasso's sad emotions."
The inspiration for this work was the Goethe Festival held in Weimar in 1849 where Goethe's Tasso was performed. Goethe, and the British poet Byron, both wrote works on the life of Torquato Tasso, each having a profound effect of Liszt. The work is laid out in four sections, all transformations of the Venetian melody: