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| Franz Liszt, composer of Les Preludes about 150 years or so ago |
About a million years ago, I got to conduct this piece with the American Symphony Orchestra League in NY. I loved it. Others thought and still do think it trite but I've found that these are the same folks who associate the William Tell Overture with the Lone Ranger theme song.
LaMartines d'après Lamartine (Les Preludes)
What else is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown Hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?—Love is the glowing dawn of all existence; but what is the fate where the first delights of happiness are not interrupted by some storm, the mortal blast of which dissipates its fine illusions, the fatal lightning of which consumes its altar; and where is the cruelly wounded soul which, on issuing from one of these tempests, does not endeavour to rest his recollection in the calm serenity of life in the fields? Nevertheless man hardly gives himself up for long to the enjoyment of the beneficent stillness which at first he has shared in Nature's bosom, and when "the trumpet sounds the alarm", he hastens, to the dangerous post, whatever the war may be, which calls him to its ranks, in order at last to recover in the combat full consciousness of himself and entire possession of his energy.