"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?" Franz Liszts symphonic poem Les Préludes , written in 1854, follows the eponymous text from Alphonse de Lamartines collection of poems Méditations poétiques. It describes the fate of a man torn between the joys of love, a rustic idyll and a fierce struggle the latter serving to frame the work in the hymn-like Andante maestoso sections. Lamartines poem is printed in three languages in the present score.