Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026  •  5 p.m.

Timashev Recital Hall
Columbus, OH

GUEST ARTIST
Ryan Behan, piano
 

PROGRAM

Années de pèlerinage — Deuxième année: Italie

(“Years of Pilgrimage — Second Year: Italy" )

Franz Liszt (1811–1886)

Sposalizio

Il penseroso

Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa

Sonetto 47 del Petrarca

Sonetto 104 del Petrarca

Sonetto 123 del Petrarca

Après une lecture du Dante: Fantasia Quasi Sonata  

Notes

Liszt’s Deuxième année: Italie reflects his profound engagement with Italian art — painting, sculpture and poetry. Begun in 1838 and with some pieces later revised, the finished cycle withheld from publication until 1858, these pieces occupy a central place in the history of piano literature. As pianist and writer Alfred Brendel observes, this cycle does not describe landscapes but instead “focuses on works of art and literature” — art inspiring art — translating visual and poetic ideas into a musical language of remarkable psychological depth. As scholars such as Alan Walker have observed, these years were decisive in shaping Liszt’s artistic identity: Italy offered him not simply inspiration, but a philosophical and aesthetic reorientation.

Sposalizio, inspired by Raphael’s "Betrothal of the Virgin" which hangs in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, unfolds with luminous calm and architectural clarity. Its opening motif — gentle, pentatonic and seemingly improvised — gradually becomes the work’s guiding spiritual presence, creating a sense of modesty, humility, awe and wonder. The harmonic language is unusually forward-looking, suggesting colors and sonorities that would strongly influence Debussy.

In Il penseroso, Liszt turns to Michelangelo’s sculpture on the tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence. Walker writes “an aura of foreboding hangs over this composition, which exploits the sepulchral tones of the extreme bass register of the piano.” Liszt associated the piece with Michelangelo’s poem "The Speech of Night," whose lines resonate deeply with the music’s inward stillness: “I am grateful to be asleep, and more grateful to be made of stone. While injustice and shame endure, being unable to see or hear for me is a great blessing, so do not wake me — speak softly!” The personal significance of the work for Liszt is underscored by his wish that it be performed, in an expanded orchestral version, at his own funeral — a wish that was never realized.

The Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa, a later addition to the set, provides a moment of lightness. Brendel describes it as “a carefree marching song” whose references are threefold: to Salvator Rosa, the adventurer-poet, whose words proclaim constancy amid wandering; to Rosa, the painter, whose self-portrait bears a striking resemblance to Liszt himself; and, somewhat unwittingly, to Giovanni Bononcini, the composer of the tune. As Brendel points out, this is “the only arrangement of somebody else’s music within the set.”

The three Petrarch Sonnets are free piano transcriptions of songs Liszt composed before 1839 and later reworked during his Weimar years. In Sonetto 47, Petrarch blesses the moment when Laura first looked upon him, despite the suffering it would bring — “the longing, the pain, the tears, and the ‘resonance of sighs,’” as Brendel summarizes. Sonetto 104 explores love’s contradictions — its “freezing glow,” its “seeing blindness,” and its “weeping laughter.” Brendel notes that Liszt’s response to this sequence of oxymorons is “intensely powerful,” sustained almost entirely at a high level of intensity, until the closing epilogue yields to resignation: “This is what you, my mistress, have done to me.” Sonetto 123 ascends into an unearthly realm, portraying Laura as an angelic presence whose tenderness can “soften stones and stop rivers.” Brendel writes that its final measures “seem to conclude all conclusions,” bringing the first six pieces of the cycle to a state of hushed finality.

The cycle culminates in Après une lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata, inspired by Dante’s Comedia in which Dante journeys through the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise (later referred to as his Divine Comedy), whose title Liszt borrowed from a poem by Victor Hugo beginning, “The poet who paints Hell paints his own life.” Brendel draws attention to the tritone relationship between the key of the preceding Sonetto 123 and the Dante Sonata — diabolus in musica — a symbol reinforced by the work’s opening theme, itself built on tritones. It is easy to hear one of the most famous lines in literature echoed here at the gate of the Inferno: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

What follows is a vast musical vision of damnation, a call to repent, and to reach salvation. Brendel notes that its subtitle, Fantasia quasi Sonata (a twist of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata called Sonata quasi una Fantasia), signals a radical freedom of form — one that “relates to familiar structures while calling them into question, tearing them apart, or amalgamating several at once.” Not until the B-minor Sonata would Liszt again achieve such a compelling fusion of psychological narrative and structural unity. 

About the Artist

Ryan Behan, associate professor of piano and director of keyboard studies at the University of Indianapolis, has performed throughout the US, in Europe and China, with radio broadcasts on ORF (Austria), BBC, and NPR. Performance highlights include appearing as concerto soloist with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, performances of Franz Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage: Italie; recital appearances with the Indianapolis Quartet; and collaborations with sopranos Sumi Jo at the Mozarteum and Jolana Slavíková at the Salzburg Festival. 

Behan's 2024 debut solo album of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage — Première année: Suisse has been described as “…awesome, a magisterial traversal of this cycle. A first-rate pianist, unusually thoughtful; with insight and balance, he makes music even in the stormy, virtuosic passages of Orage and Vallée d’Obermann…able to coax delicate shades from the piano with a rich and pellucid tone…one of the great collections of Romantic piano music in a superb performance.” — Fanfare Magazine. 

An active collaborative artist, Behan previously released the album L’adieu (2018) with mezzo-soprano Katherine Rohrer, featuring songs by Louis Aubert, Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, and Robert Schumann on Blue Griffin Recordings, to critical acclaim.

With a strong profile throughout the Midwest, Behan serves as co-director of the Franz Liszt International Piano Festival and Competition (Columbus, OH) and as president of the Indianapolis Chapter of the American Liszt Society. He has served as keyboardist with the Indianapolis Symphony and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, is active as a competition adjudicator, and presents master classes, concerts, and guest lectures throughout the US. Internationally, he has guest lectured at the Akademisches Gymnasium (Vienna) and the Universität Mozarteum (Salzburg) on US composers from the mid-19th century to the present day and on the praxis of Franz Liszt, integrating technical and pedagogical perspectives into his music. At the Mozarteum International Summer Academy, he has served as piano instructor for the Lied courses of baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, coached chamber music alongside Heinrich Schiff, Zakhar Bron, Michael Frischenschlager, and Umberto Clerici, and coached Lied with opera legend Grace Bumbry.

At the University of Indianapolis, Behan teaches Applied Piano, Collaborative Piano, Piano Pedagogy and Literature, and Keyboard Skills, and leads the study abroad program “Music, Art, and Creative Culture” to Italy, Hungary, and Austria. Through a holistic approach to teaching, rooted in establishing a healthy, natural technique with musical interpretation informed by each student’s own inner voice, he seeks both professional and personal fulfillment for his students, helping them to be who they are — and to be that well. He holds degrees from Bowling Green State University, the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, and The Ohio State University; he was a student of Jerome Rose, Imre Rohmann, and Caroline Hong; he also studied with Leslie Howard at the International Keyboard Institute in NYC and with James Tocco in Cincinnati. 

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