Die Ideale, conceived in 1856, completed in 1857, is based on Schiller's poem of that title. The burden of the poem—which, to Lord Lytton, seemed "an elegy on departed youth"—has been set forth as follows: "The sweet belief in the dream-created beings of youth passes away; what once was divine and beautiful, after which we strove ardently, and which we embraced lovingly with heart and mind, becomes the prey of hard reality; already midway the boon companions—love, fortune, fame, and truth—leave us one after another, and only friendship and activity remain with us as loving comforters."
Schiller's conclusion, which the poet himself admitted to be somewhat tame, did not satisfy Liszt, and in a note to the final section of his symphonic poem he wrote: "The holding fast and at the same time the continual realizing of the ideal is the highest aim of our life. In this sense I ventured to supplement Schiller's poem by a jubilantly emphasizing resumption, in the closing Apotheosis, of the motives of the first section."
Liszt's tonal paraphrase, as he pointed out in a letter to Hans von Bülow, divides itself, after the introduction, into four (connected) sections, superscribed as follows: (1) Aspiration; (2) Disillusion; (3) Activity; (4) Apotheosis. There is no programme or argument prefaced to the work, but instead Liszt has printed in the score, as mottoes, quotations from Schiller's poem. These excerpts, consecutively arranged, are as follows—their sequence will suggest the dramatic and emotional outlines of Liszt's music:[81]
[INTRODUCTION]
"Then wilt thou, with thy fancies holy—Wilt thou, faithless, fly from me?With thy joy, thy melancholy,Wilt thou thus relentless flee?O Golden Time, O Human May,Can nothing, Fleet One, thee restrain?Must thy sweet river glide awayInto the eternal Ocean-Main?The suns serene are lost and vanish'dThat wont the path of youth to gild,And all the fair Ideals banish'dFrom that wild heart they whilom fill'd.ASPIRATION
"The Universe of things seem'd swellingThe panting heart to burst its bound,And wandering Fancy found a dwellingIn every shape—thought, deed, and sound."As a stream slowly fills the urn from the silent springs of the mountain and anon overflows its high banks with regal waves, stones, rocks, and forests fling themselves in its course, but it rushes noisily with proud haste into the ocean.
"Thus happy in his dreaming error,His own gay valor for his wing,Of not one care as yet in terrorDid Youth upon his journey spring;Till floods of balm, through air's dominion,Bore upward to the faintest star—For never aught to that bright pinionCould dwell too high or spread too far."How fair was then the flower, the tree!How silver-sweet the fountains fall!The soulless had a soul to me!My life its own life lent to all!"As once, with tearful passion fired,The Cyprian sculptor clasp'd the stone,Till the cold cheeks, delight inspired,Blush'd—to sweet life the marble grown;So youth's desire for Nature!—roundThe Statue, so my arms I wreathed,Till warmth and life in mine it found,And breath that poets breathe—it breathed."And aye the waves of life how brightlyThe airy Pageant danced before!—Love showering gifts (life's sweetest) down;Fortune, with golden garlands gay;And Fame, with starbeams for a crown;And Truth, whose dwelling is the day."DISILLUSION
"Ah! midway soon lost evermore,After the blithe companions stray;In vain their faithless steps explore,As one by one they glide away.
"And ever stiller yet, and everThe barren path more lonely lay."Who, loving, lingered yet to guide me,When all her boon companions fled,Who stands consoling yet beside me,And follows to the House of Dread?"Thine, Friendship, thine the hand so tender,Thine the balm dropping on the wound,Thy task, the load more light to render,O earliest sought and soonest found!"ACTIVITY
"And thou, so pleased, with her unitingTo charm the soul-storm, into peace,Sweet Toil, in toil itself delighting,That more it labored, less could cease;Tho' but by grains thou aid'st the pileThe vast Eternity uprears,At least thou strik'st from Time the whileLife's debt—the minutes, days, and years."[82]
The concluding section (the "Apotheosis") of Liszt's symphonic poem, as it was pointed out above, has no analogue in Schiller's poem, but was contrived by Liszt to round out and complete the poet's conception after what seemed to him a nobler and more eloquent plan.