Franz listz1/16/2024 Liszt never had another piano lesson.ĭespite this early setback, Liszt remained based in Paris during the early 1830s (Chopin also settled there at this time), and became romantically involved with the Countess Marie d’Agoult (alias married popular novelist, “Daniel Stern”), who went on to have three children by him, including Cosima, who was destined to became both Hans von Bülow’s and, later, Wagner’s wife. Yet unbelievably, Luigi Cherubini, director of the Paris Conservatoire, refused him entry on the official grounds that he was a “foreign national” – in fact, Cherubini had an aversion to infant prodigies. Ignaz Moscheles, himself a front-rank virtuoso, wrote excitedly: “In its power and mastery of every difficulty, Liszt’s playing surpasses anything previously heard.” By the age of 12 he could play virtually anything at sight, and had won the enthusiastic approval of Beethoven when the young boy had played him his Archduke piano trio from memory, with the missing violin and cello parts incorporated as he went along. ![]() Liszt’s early progress was the stuff of legend. Its strings vibrated to my emotions, and its keys obeyed my every caprice.” “I confided to it all my desires, my dreams, my sorrows. “My piano is the repository of all that stirred my nature in the impassioned days of my youth,” Liszt once confessed. He devised the leitmotif technique that Wagner used to mesmerising effect in his epic operas, while many of the novel textures we now associate with the Impressionism of Debussy and Ravel were in fact invented by Liszt. He created the orchestral symphonic poem, and as one of the first great modern conductors no longer content merely to beat time, he employed a vast repertoire of subtle and passionate gestures that revealed the music’s heart and soul. Most mortals would have been more than happy to leave it at that, yet in addition to his colossal achievements as a virtuoso pianist, Liszt also composed in excess of 100 original titles for his instrument, many of which subdivide into sets of half a dozen pieces and more. He was also a keen supporter of new music, and did much to establish the rising Nationalist schools in Russia and Bohemia, as well as encouraging the likes of Berlioz, Grieg and, most notably, Wagner. Orchestral concerts were still comparatively rare in the pre-gramophone age, so Liszt set about arranging many symphonic scores for solo piano (most famously Beethoven’s nine symphonies), in addition to composing countless sets of virtuoso fantasias on themes from operas, both popular and obscure. He virtually invented the piano recital as we know it, ensuring that the ordinary man in the street got to hear music that was normally the exclusive preserve of the educated classes. In a radical departure from his earlier compositional styles, many of Liszt's later works also feature experiments in atonality, foreshadowing the serialist movement of the 20th century.Yet he was more than a mere musical showman. Liszt has also been regarded as a forefather of Impressionism in music, with his Années de pèlerinage, often regarded as his masterwork, featuring many impressionistic qualities. Among Liszt's musical contributions were the symphonic poem, developing thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form, and radical innovations in harmony. He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work that influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated 20th-century ideas and trends. ![]() Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School ( German: Neudeutsche Schule). During this period and into his later life, Liszt was a friend, musical promoter and benefactor to many composers of his time, including Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan, César Franck, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Ole Bull, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka, and Alexander Borodin. In what has now been dubbed " Lisztomania", he rose to a degree of stardom and popularity among the public not experienced by the virtuosos who preceded him - whereas earlier performers mostly served the upper class, Liszt attracted a more general audience. In these years, Liszt developed a reputation for his powerful performances as well as his physical attractiveness. ![]() Regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time, he toured Europe during the 1830s and 1840s, often playing for charity. ![]() Liszt first gained renown during the early nineteenth century for his virtuoso skill as a pianist. Bayreuth, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire
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