Dante Alighieri certainly needs no introduction!<\/p>\n\n
His work La Divina Commedia<\/em> has been a source of inspiration for generations of composers over the centuries. The feelings and, above all, the characters of the poem’s three canticles<\/em> – Inferno<\/em> (Hell), Purgatorio<\/em> (Purgatory) and Paradiso<\/em> (Paradise) – have been set to music in a wide variety of musical forms. From madrigal and symphony to romance and melodrama, contemporary opera and rock, metal and electronic music. <\/p>\n\n Luzzasco Luzzaschi’s famous madrigal \u201cQuivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai\u201d(Secondo libro de Madrigali a 5<\/em>, Venice, 1576), for example, takes lines from theInferno<\/em>. And the Florentine poet’s journey through Hell is also echoed in one of the earliest operas in music history: Hope’s aria \u201cEcco l’atra palude, ecco il nocchiero\u201d from Act III of Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, favola in musica<\/em> (1607). <\/p>\n\n The Divina Commedia<\/em> was of particular interest to 19th-century Romantic composers. No surprise there! In the 19th century, the Middle Ages were taken as an example and exhumed by the unjust age-old accusation of a \u201cdark century\u201d. <\/p>\n\n Many composers dedicated their art to the Florentine genius. Franz Liszt’s Dante Symphony<\/em> is a prime example, as is Giovanni Pacini’s Sinfonia Dante<\/em>. Liszt also wrote a piano sonata Apr\u00e8s une lecture du Dante: fantasia quasi sonata<\/em>, published in the second volume of Ann\u00e9es de p\u00e8lerinage, Italie<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n