Liszt routinely made alternate versions of many of his works, especially piano works. Sometimes his second efforts featured few changes, but more often than not they were significantly different and not necessarily a revision of the original, but a new work fashioned from its materials. That is the case with La Lugubre gondola II, a composition whose approximately seven-minute length is nearly double that of the First and whose main theme mirrors only parts of the original while offering several quite different variants. Both works are masterful and extremely gloomy, the original (1882) having been inspired by Liszt's premonition that Richard Wagner, his son-in-law despite their similar ages, would suddenly die in Venice and have a funeral procession on a gondola on the city's waterways. In fact, he did die shortly afterward in Venice and have such a funeral. The second Lugubre gondola is in 4/4 meter, whereas the original is in 6/8; yet both convey a sort of rocking, flotational sense in the accompaniment. The theme in the First gloomily descends and closes with a turn; it initially appears in the Second in a variant and when it returns to a semblance of the original guise, it quickens and distorts the little turn at the end. While a few passages in the Second are virtually identical, its character is stormier, its writing far-less sparse, and its expressive manner richer.

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This is the first of the two pieces usually listed as La lugubre gondola (The Lugubrious [funeral] gondola). It is one of several works Liszt wrote relating to the death of Wagner (1813-1883), who was his son-in-law, but only two years his junior. Liszt wrote that near the end of 1882, while staying with Wagner in Venice, he had a premonition that Wagner would die there and that his body would thus be born be a funeral gondola through the streets. Wagner, in fact, did die in Venice the following February. The first Lugubrious gondola is one of Liszt's darkest, most morbid piano works, coming at a time in his career when his keyboard compositions were turning barren in their writing, bleak in mood, and showing little of the virtuosity for which he had become so famous. The piece has barcarolle-like features, but the rocking accompanying figure in the left hand is gloomy and desolate, while the theme imparts an ethereal lonesomeness in its descending, dark phrases. Its mood is not sad as much as utterly depressing, bordering on despair in its feeling of loss. This is a deep composition with highly imaginative harmonies and a deft, vivid sense for mood. Lasting about five minutes, it is one of the composer's inventive efforts from his last years.

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