Venezia e Napoli

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Venezia e Napoli ("Venice and Naples") - Searle 162 - are three character pieces for piano solo composed by Franz Liszt in 1859. They were published as 1861 as a supplement to the second year of Années de pèlerinage , partly as a revision of works with the same name composed around 1840.

The Gondoliera takes up the Venetian folk song “La bionda in gondoletta” by Giovanni Battista Peruchini (1784–1870): A gentleman invites a young woman on a romantic gondola ride - with clear ulterior motives. The sight of the beloved, lulled to sleep by the waves, leads him back on the path of virtue - he does not have the heart to wake her up.

The Canzone quotes Gioachino Rossini's opera “ Othello ”. Immediately before Othello appears to kill Desdemona, a gondolier's song can be heard in the background, referring to a verse from Dante's “ Divina comedia ”: “Nessun maggior dolore / che ricordarsi del tempo felice / ne la miseria” (“No greater Pain as remembering happy serene times in adversity ”).

It concludes with a virtuoso tarantella based on two themes by the composer and musicologist Guillaume-Louis Cottrau (1797–1847). A “Canzone napoletana” - a Neapolitan folk song garnished with numerous virtuoso ornaments and playings - is introduced as the middle section .

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