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7. Liszt, Franz (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886). He was taught
the piano by his father, establishing himself as a remarkable concert
artist by the age of 12. In Paris he studied theory and composition; he
wrote an opera and bravura piano pieces and undertook tours in France,
Switzerland and England before ill-health and religious doubt made him
reassess his career. Intellectual growth came through literature, and the
urge to create through hearing opera and especially Paganini, whose
spectacular effects Liszt eagerly transferred to the piano in original
works.
He gave concerts in Paris, maintaining his legendary reputation, and
published some essays, but was active chiefly as a composer. To help
raise funds for the Bonn Beethoven monument, he resumed the life of
a travelling virtuoso (1839–1847); he was adulated everywhere, from
Ireland to Turkey, Portugal to Russia. In 1848 he took up a full-time
conducting post at the Weimar court, where, living with the Princess
Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, he wrote or revised most of the major
works for which he is known, conducted new operas by Wagner, Berlioz
and Verdi and became the figurehead of the “New German school”.
In 1861–1869 he lived mainly in Rome, writing religious works; from
1870 he journeyed regularly between Rome, Weimar and Budapest. He
remained active as a teacher and performer to the end of his life.
Liszt’s personality appears contradictory in its combination of
romantic abstraction and otherworldliness with a cynical diabolism
and elegant, worldly manners. But though he had a restless intellect,
he also was ceaselessly creative, seeking the new in music. He helped
others generously, as a conductor, arranger, pianist or writer, and
took artistic and personal risks in doing so. The greatest pianist of his
time, he composed some of the most difficult piano music ever written
(e.g. the
Transcendental Studies) and had an extraordinarily
broad repertory, from Scarlatti onwards; he invented the modern piano
recital.
Piano works naturally make up the greater part of Liszt’s output.
Liszt invented the term “symphonic poem” for orchestral works that
did not obey traditional forms strictly and were based generally on a
literary or pictorial idea such as
Mazeppa or the three-movement
Faust
Symphony.
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