Liszt has supplied no programme of any kind to this symphonic poem (composed in 1851). The music has been variously interpreted. It has been said to be a "portrayal of scenes that illustrate some great national festival"—"a coronation, something surely of a royal character"; others have believed that it was composed to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary (occurring November 9, 1854) of the arrival in Weimar of Liszt's patroness and friend, the Grand-Duchess Marcia Paulowna, sister of the Tsar Nicholas I. Lina Ramann, Liszt's biographer, offers the more plausible explanation that the work was intended as the wedding-music for Liszt and the Princess Carolyn von Sayn-Wittgenstein,[77] between whom, in 1851 (the year of the composition of the music), a union sanctioned by state and church seemed at last to be possible. Fräulein Ramann sees in this symphonic poem "a song of triumph over hostile machinations"; ... "bitterness and anguish are forgotten in proud rejoicing." The programme thus suggested is as acceptable as any other.