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Franz Liszt (Hungarian: Liszt Ferenc; pronounced /lɪst/, in English: list)
(October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer of
the Romantic period. He was a renowned performer throughout Europe during the 19th
century, noted especially for his showmanship and great skill with the piano.
Today, he is considered to be one of the greatest pianists in history, despite the
fact that no recordings of his playing exist. Liszt is frequently credited with
re-defining piano playing itself, and his influence is still visible today, both
through his compositions and his legacy as a teacher. He also contributed greatly
toward the Romantic idiom in general, and he is credited with the creation of the
symphonic poem.
Liszt studied and played at Vienna and Paris and for most of his early adulthood
toured throughout Europe giving concerts. He is credited with the innovation of the
modern piano recital, in which his virtuosity won him approval by composers and
performers alike. His great generosity with both time and money benefited many
people: victims of disasters, orphans, and the many students he taught for free. He
also contributed to the Beethoven memorial fund.
Many of his piano compositions have entered the standard repertoire, including the
Hungarian Rhapsodies, Transcendental Etudes (Études d'exécution transcendante),
Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), the Piano Sonata in B minor, and two
piano concertos. He also made many piano transcriptions of operas, famous
symphonies, Paganini Caprices (some of the most demanding works of the violin
repertoire in his day), and Schubert lieder. Many of his piano compositions are
among the most technically challenging in the repertoire. Liszt was himself a
composer of lieder and choral music, of symphonic poems and other orchestral works.
His compositions for organ are lauded and well-established in the organ
repertoire.
Liszt was born in the village of Doborján, Hungary, (now Raiding, Austria) in the
Habsburg Empire, near Sopron. His Catholic baptism record records his first name as
Franciscus (the latinised version of Franz). His father Adam was a Hungarian
German, and his mother Maria Anna Liszt (née Lager) was Austrian.
Franz was a weak and sickly child, and was surrounded from his early childhood with
music. His father, who worked at the court of Prince Esterházy, was himself a
pianist and cellist (he used to play in Esterházy's summer orchestra in
Eisenstadt); he organized chamber music evenings with amateur musicians from the
surrounding villages, in which his old friends from Eisenstadt occasionally took
part.
His father gave him his first music lessons when he was six years old. Franz
quickly displayed incredible talent, easily sight-reading the most difficult music
he could find, often even reading multiple staves at once. Local aristocrats
noticed his talent and enabled him to travel to Vienna and later to Paris with his
family.
In Vienna he was taught by Beethoven's student Carl Czerny, who proved to be the
only professional piano teacher Liszt ever had. His father had first taken him to
be taught by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, but Hummel's fees were too high. Antonio
Salieri taught him the technique of composition and fostered the young Liszt's
musical taste.
He formed an early friendship with Frédéric Chopin, but later fierce competition
turned the two men into rivals. He was a lifelong friend of Camille Saint-Saëns,
and the latter dedicated his "Organ Symphony" (Symphony No. 3 in C Minor) to
Liszt.
Although he always considered himself a Hungarian, Liszt never became fluent in the
Hungarian language; his later letters and diaries show that he came to regret this
deeply. One letter to his mother begins in faltering Hungarian, and after an
apology continues in French (his preferred language).
On April 13, 1823, Liszt gave a concert at which, according to legend, he impressed
Beethoven to such an extent that he personally congratulated Liszt, kissing him on
the forehead and giving him enthusiastic praise.
 Years of
pilgrimage
Four ages of Franz LisztLiszt left Vienna in 1823 to travel. In Paris, he studied
composition with Ferdinando Paer and Anton Reicha. He stayed at various locations
including, between 1835 and 1836, with Marie-Sophie d' Agoult in an apartment of
the building located in the angle between Rue Tabazan and Rue Etienne-Dumont, off
Place de la Fayette on Rue de la Fayette (posthumously renamed Place Franz Liszt in
his honour). On April 20, 1832, he attended a concert by the virtuoso violinist
Paganini and became motivated to become the greatest pianist of his day. He often
took to seclusion in his room, and was heard practicing for over 5 hours a day. In
1832/34 he wrote the Grande Fantaisie de Bravoure sur La Clochette de Paganini
("Grand Bravura Fantasy on Paganini's La Campanella"). A shorter piece using the
same thematic content was included in the 1838 Etudes d'Execution Transcendante
d'apres Paganini (Studies of Transcendental Execution inspired by Paganini). Also
composed in this period were the 12 Grandes Etudes (Liszt later rewrote these into
the 12 Transcendental Etudes in 1851). From 1835 to 1839 he lived with Marie
d'Agoult and had three children with her: Blandine, Cosima and Daniel.
He fraternized with such noted composers of his time as Frédéric Chopin, Hector
Berlioz, Robert Schumann, and Richard Wagner, who later married Liszt's daughter
Cosima. He was very widely read in philosophy, art and literature and was on
friendly terms with the painter Ingres and the authors Heine, Lamennais, Hans
Christian Andersen, and Baudelaire, who addressed his prose poem "Le thyrse" to
Liszt.
In 1840-1841 Liszt took part in two tours of the British Isles arranged by the
young musician and conductor Lewis Henry Lavenu, accompanied by Lavenu's
half-brother (and pupil of Sigismond Thalberg) Frank Mori, two female singers, and
John Orlando Parry, a musician, singer and entertainer (who vividly recorded the
tour in his diary). Between August 17 and September 26, they gave 50 concerts
around England some of which had an attendance of 140 or less. The second tour
which encompassed Liverpool, Ireland and Scotland from November 1840- January 1841
attracted even smaller audiences, although Liszt had audiences of more than 1,200
in Dublin. The tour was a financial failure, and Liszt himself lost a large amount
of money.
After 1842, when "Lisztomania" swept across the European continent, Liszt's
recitals were in an overwhelming demand. His admirers praised and courted him, and
ladies reputedly fought over his handkerchiefs and green silk gloves as souvenirs,
which they often ripped to pieces in their struggle. Some of Liszt's contemporaries
saw this kind of worship as vulgar and inappropriate, and eventually came to
despise Liszt because of it.
During the years in which he appeared regularly in public, he was almost
universally acknowledged (even by musical conservatives who disliked his
compositions) as the foremost piano performer. His main rival in public esteem as a
virtuoso was Sigismond Thalberg, who specialized in salon music, especially
operatic fantasies. Thalberg's reputation has faded, and in current opinion, only
Chopin is comparably significant among romantic pianists.
Liszt in Weimar
In 1847, Liszt gave up public performances on the piano and in the following year
finally took up the invitation of Maria Pavlovna of Russia to settle at Weimar,
where he had been appointed Kapellmeister Extraordinaire in 1842, remaining there
until 1861. During this period he acted as conductor at court concerts and on
special occasions at the theatre, gave lessons to a number of pianists, including
the great virtuoso Hans von Bülow, who married Liszt's daughter Cosima in 1857
(before she was married to Wagner). He also wrote articles championing Berlioz and
Wagner, and produced those orchestral and choral pieces upon which his reputation
as a composer mainly rests. His efforts on behalf of Wagner, who was then an exile
in Switzerland, culminated in the first performance of Lohengrin in 1850.
The compositions belonging to the period of his residence at Weimar comprise two
piano concertos, in E flat major and in A major, the Totentanz, the Concerto
pathetique for two pianos, the Piano Sonata in B minor, sundry Etudes, fifteen
Rhapsodies Hongroises, twelve orchestral Poemes symphoniques, Eine Faust Symphonie,
and Eine Symphonie zu Dantes Divina Commedia, the 13th Psalm for tenor solo, chorus
and orchestra, the choruses to Herder's dramatic scenes Prometheus, and the Graner
Fest Messe. Much of Liszt's organ music comes from this period, including the
Prelude and Fugue on the theme B-A-C-H (later arranged for solo piano).
Also in 1847 Liszt met Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. The Princess was an
author, whose major work was published in 16 volumes, each containing over 1,600
pages. Her longwinded writing style had some effect on Liszt himself. His biography
of Chopin and his chronology and analysis of Gypsy music (which later inspired Béla
Bartók) were both written in the Princess's loquacious style. The couple had
intended to marry in 1860, but since the Princess had been previously married and
her husband was still alive, the Roman Catholic authorities would not approve the
wedding, eventually intervening in dramatic fashion only moments before the couple
were to take their vows. Although Liszt and Princess Carolyne remained friends, the
stress of trying to persuade the Church authorities to let them marry, only to have
their efforts eventually be in vain, proved an emotional blow from which neither
completely recovered.
In 1851 he published a revised version of his 1837 Douze Grandes Etudes, now titled
Etudes d'Execution Transcendante, and the following year the Grandes Etudes de
Paganini (Grand etudes after Paganini), the most famous of which is La Campanella
(The Little Bell), a study in octaves, trills and leaps.
In
retirement
Liszt moved to Rome in 1861, in anticipation of his marriage to Princess
Sayn-Wittgenstein. In 1865, he received the tonsure and four Minor Orders of the
Catholic Church (namely, Porter, Lector, Exorcist, and Acolyte). From 1869 onwards,
Abbé Liszt divided his time between Rome, Weimar and Budapest where during the
summer months he continued to receive pupils for free, including Alexander Siloti.
During this time, his relationship with Wagner grew more strained. His daughter
Cosima (see previous section) left Bülow for Wagner in 1869. Devout Catholic that
he was, he was deeply hurt by his daughter's conversion to Protestantism upon her
marriage to Wagner, and for a number of years, Liszt did not correspond with
either, even while championing the music of his new son-in-law. Eventually, they
were reconciled and Liszt subsequently attended the Bayreuth Festival.
From 1876 until his death he also taught for several months every year at the
Hungarian Conservatoire at Budapest. He died in Bayreuth on July 31, 1886 as a
result of pneumonia which he contracted during the Bayreuth Festival hosted by his
daughter Cosima. At first, he was surrounded by some of his more adoring pupils,
including Arthur Friedheim, Siloti and Bernhard Stavenhagen, but they were denied
access to his room by Cosima shortly before his death at 11:30pm. He is buried in
the Bayreuth Friedhof.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Franz
Liszt - Manifesting Generator - Biography
