Consolations (Liszt)

The Consolations are a set of six solo piano works by Franz Liszt. The compositions take the musical style of Nocturnes with each having its own distinctive style. Each Consolation is composed in either the key of E major or D-flat major. E major is a key regularly used by Liszt for religious themes.

There exist two versions of the Consolations. The first version (S.171a) was composed by Liszt between 1844 and 1849, and the second version (S.172) was composed between 1849 and 1850. The first version of his Consolations was published in 1992 by G. Henle Verlag. The second version was first published in 1850 by Breitkopf & Härtel and contains the renowned third Consolation.

The source of the title Consolations may have been Lamartine’s poem Une larme, ou Consolation from the poetry collection Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (Poetic and Religious Harmonies). Liszt's piano cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is based on Lamartine's collection of poems. Another possible inspiration for the title are the Consolations of the French literary historian Charles Saint Beuve. Saint Beuve's Consolations, published in 1830, is a collection of Romantic era poetry where friendship is extolled as a consolation for the loss of religious faith.

The Consolations are also referred to by the title Six Pensées poétiques (Six poetic thoughts). The title Pensées poétiques was not used in the first (Breitkopf, 1850) publication of the Consolations but was used in a version published shortly afterwards (1850) by the Bureau Central de Musique, Paris.

The Consolations, S.171a consist of six solo compositions for the piano.

Composed between 1844 and 1849, they are Liszt's first version of the Consolations and were first published in 1992 by G. Henle Verlag. The manuscripts are located at the Goethe and Schiller Archives in Weimar.

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