Liszt Lamartine and the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses

We cordially invite you to an exceptional event in the Dialogo della musica series: a lecture recital on Liszt, Lamartine, and the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. The lecture, delivered in English, will be given and the piano performed by Andrew Haringer.

The lecture will take place on Tuesday, December 2, 2025 at 5 pm in the Musicological library IAH, Puškinovo nám. 9, Prague 6.

As one of the pioneers of program music, Franz Liszt frequently turned to literary sources for inspiration. Especially fruitful was his friendship with the French Romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine, whose poetic cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses formed the basis of Liszt’s piano cycle of the same name. This lecture recital chronicles the twenty-year gestation of Liszt’s Harmonies project, from standalone experimental piano work in the 1830s to the final ten-piece cycle of the 1850s. These various iterations show how Liszt’s relationship with Lamartine’s poetry evolved over the years, inviting us to reconsider the composer’s approach to program music.

Andrew Haringer is Associate Professor of Music at Saint Anselm College, where he teaches courses in music history and theory, piano, and chamber music. His research on Liszt and musical topics has appeared in 19th-Century Music, The Journal of the American Liszt Society, Liszt in Context (Cambridge University Press), and The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory. In 2023 he received the Father Gerald R. McCarthy, O.S.B. Faculty Member of the Year Award, as voted on by the Saint Anselm student body. He is currently a Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Musicology of Charles University.