In three languages, the title means Dark Star: Sinister, Disastrous. Liszt's last period contains several works which are among the most advanced and radical music anyone had written to that point, not excluding that of Liszt's son-in-law, Richard Wagner. The dissonances of this darkly glittering piece are remarkable. An unwary listener would be apt to place them among the works of the twentieth century's most important innovators. The dissonances are practically unresolved; the tension is continuous. Before Debussy, Liszt employs the whole tone scale harmonically, to produce a series of augmented triads. Both the scale and this sort of harmony open many possibilities. At the end, organ-like sonorities portray the prayers of a terrified humanity.

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