On September 22 at 3 p.m., the exhibition “I dive deeper and deeper into Dante’s dark forest…” will open in the Liszt Art Gallery in Kápolnásnyék. The quote is not accidental: Ferenc Liszt’s letter to Joseph Autran in 1845 sparks the composer’s interest in Dante’s poetry. The exhibition is organized by the Carpathian Basin People’s College of Arts and the Liszt Ferenc Memorial Museum and Research Center, which shows the extent to which Ferenc Liszt was occupied throughout his life by Dante’s poetry, especially the Divine Comedy. The organizers put it this way: “He was not alone in this; the 19th century art world was fond of the medieval poet. I wonder why there was so much interest in Dante in this era? What kind of music is played in Dante’s Hell, according to Ferenc Liszt? How did this deeply Catholic composer imagine the journey to the afterlife? What would it have been like if the extraordinary multimedia performance, combining music and diorama images, that Liszt planned for the premiere of the Dante symphony was realized?”
The organizers of the exhibition also sought answers to these questions. The series of tableaus formulated along this line of thought provides an insight into Liszt’s compositional plans related to Dante, and also introduces the viewer to influences that influenced the composer’s thoughts. “Furthermore, just as Liszt strove to connect music, literature, and visual arts, this exhibition examines Dante-related works of the 19th century (domestic and international) art world through a few specific examples. Buonaventura Genelli’s Divine Comedy illustrations, which were very dear to Liszt, run along the tableaus as friezes. These stories and images, even if they do not measure up to the music-talking reliefs of the mountain of Purgatory, may still trigger the viewer’s imagination and introduce them to the infinitely rich world of Dante and Liszt,” says the exhibition description. At the opening in Kápolnásnyék, Eszter Rodics, president of the Carpathian Basin Folk College of Arts, will give a welcome speech, Teréz Mihályi will complete the event with a poem by Benedikta, and Johanna Verő with a flute.
