A Gift from a Friend: Franz Liszt

The Contemplative Journey of Franz Liszt

A friend sent me this link.  Franz Liszt is one of my very favorite classical composers--I love the Etudes after Paganini and the Mephisto Waltzes, the Second Hungarian Rhapsody, amongst other wonderful pieces.

An excerpt:

Both Franz Liszt's piece, "Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude," and St. John's poem revel in their rich and ecstatic language, daringly extreme in their attempts to depict a state of spiritual bliss, the highest form of which was pointedly called the spiritual marriage by many saints

The first-time listener or reader would have been unwittingly on target in his intuitive, instinctive reaction. Both the composer and poet realized (the former through aspiration and reading, the latter though inspiration and burning experience) that Christian contemplation is meant to be a love affair; that human love, even at its pinnacle, is a mere shadow of that love with which God created us and to which he calls us for an eternal consummation.

Hear part of it--Part One

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