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Biography Liszt was born in the village of Doborján, near Sopron, Hungary, in what was then the Austrian Empire (Doborján is now Raiding in Austria after the Treaty of Trianon of 1920). His baptism record is in Latin and lists his first name as Franciscus. The Hungarian variant Ferenc is often used, though Liszt never used this himself. Franz was a weak and sickly child, and was surrounded from his early childhood with music. His father, who worked at the court of Count 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. Liszt displayed incredible talent at a young age, easily sight-reading multiple staves at once. His father gave him his first music lessons when he was six years old. Local aristocrats noticed his talent and enabled him to travel to Vienna and later to Paris with his family. As a result, Liszt never fully learned Hungarian; 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). In Vienna he was taught by Beethoven's student Carl Czerny, the only 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 men into rivals. He was a lifelong friend of Camille Saint-Saëns, and the latter dedicated his Symphony #3 in C Minor to Liszt. On April 13, 1823, Liszt gave a concert. An account of the episode can be found in the separate article "Liszt and Beethoven". Years of Pilgrimage
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 and in A, 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 B-A-C-H (later arranged for solo piano). In 1851 he published a revised version of the 1838 Etudes d'Execution Transcendante d'apres Paganini, now titled Grandes Etudes de Paganini (Grand etudes after Paganini), the most famous and challenging of which is La Campanella (The Bell), a study in octaves, shakes (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 gratis, 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 of 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. Musical style and influence The majority of Liszt's piano compositions reflect his advanced virtuosity; however he was a prolific composer, and wrote works at several levels of difficulty, some being accessible to intermediate- (and even beginner-) level pianists. Abschied (Farewell) and Nuages Gris are examples of this less virtuosic style, as are at least some of the six Consolations. In his most popular and advanced works, he is the archetypal Romantic composer. Liszt pioneered the technique of thematic transformation, a method of development which was related to both the existing variation technique and to the new use of the leitmotif by Richard Wagner. He also largely invented the symphonic poem, or tone poem, in a series of single-movement orchestral works composed in the 1840s and 1850s. His poems all came from classical literature, including "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne," based on a Victor Hugo poem of the same title, and "Les preludes" from Lamartine. Liszt's "First Mephisto Waltz" was based on Lenau's Faust, and he composed a second waltz from the poem in 1881. Other pieces are based on works by Lord Byron, Goethe and Dante. Liszt's symphonic poems, although successes, were criticised because they were not Absolute music. His transcriptions met with less criticism. As a transcriber of even the most unlikely and complicated orchestral works, he created piano arrangements which stood on their own merits; many other pianist-composers followed his example. While his Hungarian Rhapsodies are widely recognized, his understanding of form, expression and use of virtuosity for musical effect are more apparent elsewhere. Later works of the composer such as Bagatelle sans tonalité ("Bagatelle without Tonality") foreshadow composers who would further explore the modern concept of atonality. His thoroughly revised masterwork, Années de Pèlerinage ("Years of Pilgrimage"), arguably includes his most provocative and stirring pieces. This set of three suites ranges from the pure virtuosity of the Suisse Orage (Storm) to the subtle and imaginative visualizations of artworks by Michaelangelo and Raphael in the second set. Années contains some pieces which are loose transcriptions of Liszt's own earlier compositions; the first "year" recreates his early pieces of Album d'un voyageur, while the second book includes a resetting of his own song transcriptions once separately published as Tre sonetti del Petrarca ("Three sonnets of Petrarch"). The relative obscurity of the vast majority of his works may be explained by the immense number of pieces he composed. To Franz Liszt's honor, he helped found the Liszt School of Music Weimar *, which bears his name. Besides the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, a music school and a concert hall is also named after him. His piano works have always been well represented in concert programs and recordings by pianists throughout the world. Many of his works have been recorded a multitude of times. However the only pianist who has recorded his entire pianistic oeuvre is the Australian Leslie Howard. This massive undertaking included a number of premiere recordings. Liszts virtuosity and technical reforms Liszt's playing was described as theatrical and showy, and all those who saw him perform were stunned at his unrivaled mastery over the keyboard. Perhaps the best indication of Liszt's piano-playing abilities comes from his Transcendental and Paganini Studies, written in 1838-39, and described by Schumann as "playable at the most, by ten or twelve players in the world". To play these pieces, a pianist must connect with the piano as an extension of his own body (Walker, 1987). Liszt claimed to have spent ten or twelve hours each day practicing scales, arpeggios, trills and repeated notes to improve his technique and endurance. All of these piano techniques were frequently applied in his compositions, often resulting in music of extreme technical difficulty (his Transcendental Etude No.5 "Feux follets" is an example). He would challenge himself and his immaculate fingering by presenting random problems to his playing. During the 1830s and 1840s — the years of Liszt's "transcendental execution" — he revolutionized piano technique in almost every sector. Figures like Rubinstein, Paderewski and Rachmaninoff turned to Liszt's music to discover the laws which govern the keyboard. While revolutionary and famously spectacular, Liszt's playing was not only flash and acrobatics. He also was reported to have played with a depth and nobility of feeling that would move sturdy men to tears. Piano recital The term "recital" was first used by Liszt at his concert in London of June 9, 1840, although the term had been suggested to him by the publisher Frederick Beale, and his career model is still followed by performing artists to this day. Liszt's recitals traversed the European continent from the Urals to Ireland. He would often play before as many as three thousand people. He was the first solo pianist to play entire programmes from memory, and the first to play with the piano at right angles to the platform, with its lid open, reflecting sound across the auditorium. Noted works Ballade No. 1 in Des-dur Note: Although Liszt provided opus numbers for his works during his lifetime, these are rarely used today. Instead, his works are usually identified using one of two different cataloging schemes: Literary Works He wrote about many subjects, such as: a necrology of Paganini; the position of music in Italy; Robert and Clara Schumann; Chopin; Robert Franz; Beethoven's "Fidelio"; Mendelssohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Foundation at Weimar; Wagner's Lohengrin and Tannhäuser; the music of the Hungarian gypsies; John Field's nocturnes; Berlioz's "Harold in Italy"; and much more. His letters and musical essays are published in 6 volumes. Some literary works that appeared under his name were written with the aid of Marie d'Agoult and Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein; one or two revisions were left to Caroline von Sayn-Wittgenstein in Liszt's last years. However, a work only he could have written himself is a "Manual of Pianoforte Technique" for the Geneva Conservatoire. This has never seen the light of day, but there is no reason to believe it never existed. In fact, it was probably a technical manual for use of student pianists. It was mentioned in a letter to his mother probably dating from November, 1835 and the history of the work has been detailed by Robert Bory. It is now considered a lost work. It would provide an invaluable insight into the playing style of probably the greatest pianist who ever lived. See also Media Sheet Music Further reading | |||||||||||
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