Années de pèlerinage (French for Years of Pilgrimage) (S.160, S.161, S.162, S.163) is a set of three suites for solo piano by Franz Liszt.
[1] Années de pèlerinage is widely considered as the masterwork and summation of Liszt's musical style.
Liszt clearly places these compositions in line with the Romantic literature of his time, prefacing most pieces with a literary passage from writers such as Schiller, Byron or Senancour, and, in an introduction to the entire work, writing: Having recently travelled to many new countries, through different settings and places consecrated by history and poetry; having felt that the phenomena of nature and their attendant sights did not pass before my eyes as pointless images but stirred deep emotions in my soul, and that between us a vague but immediate relationship had established itself, an undefined but real rapport, an inexplicable but undeniable communication, I have tried to portray in music a few of my strongest sensations and most lively impressions.
Edition Peters publishes the complete score, with the first volume of the trilogy "Suisse" published together with the "Trois Morceaux suisses" for the first time, in line with the composer's original intention to combine all his Swiss-inspired character pieces into a single volume.
The musical journey is supported by the inclusion of historical illustrations of the scenes and landscapes that inspired the composer.
Haruki Murakami's novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013) centers on the movement "Le Mal du pays," and derives its title from the Années.