The painting which inspired this piece of music is also sometimes called the Sposalizio - for it, see Sposalizio (painting).

Sposalizio is the title of the first piece in Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

's Deuxième Année de Pèlerinage: Italie

Années de Pèlerinage

Années de pèlerinage is a set of three suites by Franz Liszt for solo piano. Liszt's complete musical style is evident in this masterwork, which ranges from virtuosic fireworks to sincerely moving emotional statements. His musical maturity can be seen evolving through his experience and travel...

(Second year of Pilgrimage: Italy), published in 1858. The composition starts out with a simple pentatonic melody, which transforms itself into a complex musical architecture. The melody then transforms itself into a type of wedding march, which continually embellishes itself to lead up to the grand climax, which contains crashing octaves into a loud finish. The composition ends quietly.
Franz Liszt composed Sposalizio, which translates into "Marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

", from Italian, after being inspired from Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

's painting The Marriage of the Virgin

The Marriage of the Virgin (Raphael)

The Marriage of the Virgin, also known as Lo Sposalizio, is an oil painting by Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael. Completed in 1504 for a Franciscan church in Città di Castello, the painting depicts a marriage ceremony between Mary and Joseph...

. This was quite common for much of the works contained in his Années de Pèlerinage.
Although the fast octaves can be somewhat challenging, the piece departs from the virtuosic fireworks that were trademarks of some of his earlier works.