(Continued) This popular piece is a musician's interpretation of one view of life - Lamartine's, in the poem in which he asks 'What is life but a series of preludes to the song that death begins?'
There is the Prelude of Love, and the tempests that break in upon its joy. There is another Prelude in which the unhappy lover seeks balm in quiet retirement from the world; but when the trumpet peals he rushes to the fight, finding his real strength in battle.
These ideas give Liszt scope for picturesque, vivid music, in the Symphonic Poem we are to hear.