Villa D'Este

While composing at Lake Como this summer, my host Floraleda Sacchi was performing a concert, which gave me a little time to explore Villa D'Este. What you say, Villa D'Este is not at Lake Como, it is in Tivoli:

Fountains of Villa D'Este, Tivoli

Or if you are from Floral Park New York, you might say it is on Jericho Turnpike and serves an awesome steak:

Here's the beef

And although you would both be right, there is indeed a splendid, no, magnificent Villa at Lago di Como, the glorious Villa D'Este:

Villa D'Este, Lago di Como

So to set the record straight, Franz Liszt did not actually compose Années de Pèlerinage, Troisième Année: Les Jeux d'Eaux à la Villa d'Este at Lake Como in 1887, rather in Tivoli. Here it is played beautifully by Claudio Arrau:



However, F.L. did indeed spend months at Lake Como, filled with feelings of romance and inspiration, and awaiting the birth of Cosima.  According to Alan Walker's "Franz Liszt: The virtuoso years, 1811-1847" FL and his lady Marie often went out on the lake in the evenings, fishing by torchlight!

So it was not hard to have a drink in front of the Villa, imagining the great composer, then to wander those magnificent colinas behind, up to the top of the property. There was the vista, the glistening water, the boats gliding across the surface, the tall trees. They all sang melodies to me.