Franz Liszt

Early life

The earliest known male ancestor of Franz Liszt is his great-grandfather, Sebastian List, who as one of the thousands of German-speaking migrant serfs entered Hungary from Lower Austria in the first half of the 18th century, and died in 1793 in Rajka, Moson County. Liszt's venerable grandfather was an overseer on several Esterházy estates, he could play the piano, violin and organ. The Liszt clan dispersed throughout Austria and Hungary and gradually lost touch with one another.

Franz Liszt was born to an Austrian mother Marie Anna Lager and a Hungarian father Adam Liszt on October 22, 1811, in the village of Raiding (Hungarian: Doborján) in Sopron County, Kingdom of Hungary, (today the village is in Austria). His father played the piano, violin, cello, and guitar, was in the services of Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy and knew Haydn, Hummel and Beethoven personally. At age six, Franz began listening attentively to his father's piano playing as well as to show an interest in both sacred and gypsy music. Adam began teaching Franz the piano at age seven and Franz began composing in an elementary manner when he was eight. He appeared in concerts at Sopron and Pozsony (present day Bratislava) in October and November 1820 at age 9. After these concerts, a group of Hungarian magnates offered to finance Franz's musical education abroad.

In Vienna, Liszt received piano lessons from Carl Czerny, who in his own youth had been a student of Beethoven and Hummel. He also received lessons in composition from Antonio Salieri, who was then music director of the Viennese court. His public debut in Vienna on December 1, 1822, at a concert at the "Landständischer Saal," was a great success. He was greeted in Austrian and Hungarian aristocratic circles and also met Beethoven and Schubert. In spring 1823, when the one year's leave of absence came to an end, Adam Liszt asked Prince Esterházy in vain for two more years. Adam Liszt therefore took his leave of the Prince's services. At the end of April 1823, the family for the last time returned to Hungary. At end of May 1823, the family went to Vienna again.

Towards the end of 1823 or early 1824 Liszt's first published composition appeared in print, a Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli (now S. 147), which was Variation 24 in Part II of Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. This anthology, commissioned by Diabelli, included 50 variations on his waltz by 50 different composers (Part II), Part I being taken up by Beethoven's 33 variations on the same theme, which are now better known as the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120.

After his father's death Liszt returned to Paris; for the next five years he was to live with his mother in a small apartment. He gave up touring. To earn money, Liszt gave lessons in piano playing and composition, often from early morning until late at night. His students were scattered across the city and he often had to cross long distances. Because of this, Liszt kept uncertain hours and also took up smoking and drinking—all habits he would continue throughout his life.

The following year he fell in love with one of his pupils, Caroline de Saint-Cricq, the daughter of Charles X's minister of commerce. However, her father insisted that the affair be broken off. Liszt again fell ill (there was even an obituary notice of him printed in a Paris newspaper), and he underwent a long period of religious doubts and pessimism. He again stated a wish to join the Church but was dissuaded this time by his mother. He had many discussions with the Abbé de Lamennais, who acted as his spiritual father, and also with Chrétien Urhan, a German-born violinist who introduced him to the Saint-Simonists. Urhan also wrote music that was anti-classical and highly subjective, with titles such as Elle et moi, La Salvation angélique and Les Regrets, and may have whetted the young Liszt's taste for musical romanticism. Equally important for Liszt was Urhan's earnest championship of Schubert, which may have stimulated his own lifelong devotion to that composer's music.

During this period Liszt read widely to overcome his lack of a general education, and he soon came into contact with many of the leading authors and artists of his day, including Victor Hugo, Lamartine and Heinrich Heine. He composed practically nothing in these years. Nevertheless, the July Revolution of 1830 inspired him to sketch a Revolutionary Symphony based on the events of the "three glorious days," and he took a greater interest in events surrounding him. He met Hector Berlioz on December 4, 1830, the day before the premiere of the Symphonie fantastique. Berlioz's music made a strong impression on Liszt, especially later when he was writing for orchestra. He also inherited from Berlioz the diabolic quality of many of his works.

Paganini

After attending an April 20, 1832 charity concert, for the victims of a Parisian cholera epidemic, by Niccolò Paganini, Liszt became determined to become as great a virtuoso on the piano as Paganini was on the violin. Paris in the 1830s had become the nexus for pianistic activities, with dozens of pianists dedicated to perfection at the keyboard. Some, such as Sigismond Thalberg and Alexander Dreyschock, focused on specific aspects of technique (eg the "three-hand effect" and octaves, respectively). While it was called the "flying trapeze" school of piano playing, this generation also solved some of the most intractable problems of piano technique, raising the general level of performance to previously unimagined heights. Liszt's strength and ability to stand out in this company was in mastering all the aspects of piano technique cultivated singly and assiduously by his rivals.

In 1833 he made transcriptions of several works by Berlioz, including the Symphonie fantastique. His chief motive in doing so, especially with the Symphonie, was to help the poverty-stricken Berlioz, whose symphony remained unknown and unpublished. Liszt bore the expense of publishing the transcription himself and played it many times to help popularise the original score. He was also forming a friendship with a third composer who influenced him, Frédéric Chopin; under his influence Liszt's poetic and romantic side began to develop.

In 1833, Liszt began his relationship with the Countess Marie d'Agoult. In addition to this, at the end of April 1834 he made the acquaintance of Felicité de Lamennais. Under the influence of both, Liszt's creative output exploded. In 1834 Liszt debuted as a mature and original composer with his piano compositions Harmonies poetiques et religieuses and the set of three Apparitions. These were all poetic works which contrasted strongly with the fantasies he had written earlier.

In 1835 the countess left her husband and family to join Liszt in Geneva; their daughter Blandine was born there on December 18. Liszt taught at the newly founded Geneva Conservatory, wrote a manual of piano technique (later lost) and contributed essays for the Paris Revue et gazette musicale. In these essays, he argued for the raising of the artist from the status of a servant to a respected member of the community.

For the next four years Liszt and the countess lived together, mainly in Switzerland and Italy, where their daughter, Cosima, was born in Como, with occasional visits to Paris. On May 9, 1839 Liszt and the countess's only son, Daniel, was born, but that autumn relations between them became strained. Liszt heard that plans for a Beethoven monument in Bonn were in danger of collapse for lack of funds, and pledged his support. Doing so meant returning to the life of a touring virtuoso. The countess returned to Paris with the children while Liszt gave six concerts in Vienna then toured Hungary.

Liszt in 1843

For the next eight years Liszt continued to tour Europe; spending holidays with the countess and their children on the island of Nonnenwerth on the Rhine in summers 1841 and 1843. In spring 1844 the couple finally separated. This was Liszt's most brilliant period as a concert pianist. Honours were showered on him and he was adulated everywhere he went. Since Liszt often appeared three or four times a week in concert, it could be safe to assume that he appeared in public well over a thousand times during this eight-year period. Moreover, his great fame as a pianist, which he would continue to enjoy long after he had officially retired from the concert stage, was based mainly on his accomplishments during this time.

After 1842 "Lisztomania" swept across Europe. The reception Liszt enjoyed as a result can only be described as hysterical. Women fought over his silk handkerchiefs and velvet gloves, which they ripped to shreds as souvenirs. Helping fuel this atmosphere was the artist's mesmeric personality and stage presence. Many witnesses later testified that Liszt's playing raised the mood of audiences to a level of mystical ecstasy.

Adding to his reputation was the fact that Liszt gave away much of his proceeds to charity and humanitarian causes. In fact, Liszt had made so much money by his mid-forties that virtually all his performing fees after 1857 went to charity. While his work for the Beethoven monument and the Hungarian National School of Music are well known, he also gave generously to the building fund of Cologne Cathedral, the establishment of a Gymnasium at Dortmund, and the construction of the Leopold Church in Pest. There were also private donations to hospitals, schools and charitable organisations such as the Leipzig Musicians Pension Fund. When he found out about the Great Fire of Hamburg, which raged for three weeks during May 1842 and destroyed much of the city, he gave concerts in aid of the thousands of homeless there.

In February 1847, Liszt played in Kiev. There he met the Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, who dominated most of the rest of his life. She persuaded him to concentrate on composition, which meant giving up his career as a travelling virtuoso. After a tour of the Balkans, Turkey and Russia that summer, Liszt gave his final concert for pay at Elisavetgrad in September. He spent the winter with the princess at her estate in Woronince. By retiring from the concert platform at 35, while still at the height of his powers, Liszt succeeded in keeping the legend of his playing untarnished.

The following year, Liszt took up a long-standing invitation of Grand Duchess 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. He gave lessons to a number of pianists, including the great virtuoso Hans von Bülow, who married Liszt's daughter Cosima in 1857 (before she later married Richard Wagner). He also wrote articles championing Berlioz and Wagner. Finally, Liszt had ample time to compose and during the next 12 years revised or 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.

Princess Carolyne lived with Liszt during his years in Weimar. She eventually wished to marry Liszt, but since she had been previously married and her husband, Russian military officer Prince Nikolaus zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Ludwigsburg (1812–1864), was still alive, she had to convince the Roman Catholic authorities that her marriage to him had been invalid. After huge efforts and a monstrously intricate process, she was temporarily successful (September 1860). It was planned that the couple would marry in Rome, on October 22, 1861, Liszt's 50th birthday. Liszt having arrived in Rome on October 21, 1861, the Princess nevertheless declined, by the late evening, to marry him. It appears that both her husband and the Czar of Russia had managed to quash permission for the marriage at the Vatican. The Russian government also impounded her several estates in the Polish Ukraine, which made her later marriage to anybody unfeasible.

Liszt in Rome

The 1860s were a period of severe catastrophes of Liszt's private life. On December 13, 1859, he had lost his son Daniel, and on September 11, 1862, his daughter Blandine also died. In letters to friends Liszt afterwards announced that he would retreat to a solitary living. He found it at the monastery Madonna del Rosario, just outside Rome, where on June 20, 1863, he took up quarters in a small, Spartan apartment. He had on June 23, 1857, already joined a Franciscan order. On April 25, 1865, he received from Gustav Hohenlohe the tonsure and a first one of the minor orders of the Catholic Church. Three further minor orders followed on July 30, 1865. Until then, Liszt was Porter, Lector, Exorcist, and Acolyte. While Princess Wittgenstein tried to persuade him to proceed in order to become priest, he did not follow her. In his later years he explained that he had wanted to preserve the rest of his freedom.

At some occasions, Liszt took part in Rome's musical life. On March 26, 1863, at a concert at the Palazzo Altieri, he directed a programme of sacred music. The "Seligkeiten" of his "Christus-Oratorio" and his "Cantico del Sol di Francesco d'Assisi", as well as Haydn's "Die Schöpfung" and works by J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Jornelli, Mendelssohn and Palestrina were performed. On January 4, 1866, Liszt directed the "Stabat mater" of his "Christus-Oratorio", and on February 26, 1866, his "Dante Symphony". There were several further occasions of similar kind, but in comparison with the duration of Liszt's stay in Rome, they were exceptions. Bódog Pichler, who visited Liszt in 1864 and asked him for his future plans, had the impression that Rome's musical life was not satisfying for Liszt.

Threefold life

Liszt was invited back to Weimar in 1869 to give master classes in piano playing. Two years later he was asked to do the same in Budapest at the Hungarian Music Academy. From then until the end of his life he made regular journeys between Rome, Weimar and Budapest, continuing what he called his "vie trifurquée" or threefold existence. It is estimated that Liszt travelled at least 4000 miles a year during this period in his life—an exceptional figure given his advancing age and the rigours of road and rail in the 1870s.

Last years

On July 2, 1881, Liszt had fallen down the stairs of the Hotel in Weimar. Though friends and colleagues had noted swelling in Liszt's feet and legs when he had arrived in Weimar the previous month, Liszt had up to this point been in reasonably good health, and his body retained the slimness and suppleness of earlier years. The accident, which immobilised him for eight weeks, changed this. A number of ailments manifested—dropsy, asthma, insomnia, a cataract of the left eye and chronic heart disease. The last-mentioned eventually contributed to Liszt's death. He became increasingly plagued with feelings of desolation, despair and death—feelings which he expressed in his works from this period. As he told Lina Ramann, "I carry a deep sadness of the heart which must now and then break out in sound."

He died in Bayreuth, Germany, on July 31, 1886, at age 74, officially as a result of pneumonia which he may have contracted during the Bayreuth Festival hosted by his daughter Cosima. Questions have been posed as to whether medical malpractice played a direct part in Liszt's demise.

Composer Camille Saint-Saëns, an old friend, whom Liszt had once called "the greatest organist in the world" dedicated his Symphony No. 3 "Organ Symphony" to Liszt; it had premiered in London only a few weeks before his death.

Liszt as pianist

Performing style

There are few, if any, good sources that give an impression of how Liszt really sounded from the 1820s. Carl Czerny claimed Liszt was a natural who played according to feeling, and reviews of his concerts especially praise the brilliance, strength and precision in his playing. At least one also mentions his ability to absolutely never change tempo, which may be due to his father's insistence that he practise with a metronome. His repertoire at this time consisted primarily of pieces in the style of the brilliant Viennese school, such as concertos by Hummel and works by his former teacher Czerny, and his concerts often included a chance for the boy to display his prowess in improvisation.

Franz Liszt Fantasizing at the Piano (1840), by Danhauser, commissioned by Conrad Graf. The imagined gathering shows seated Alfred de Musset or Alexandre Dumas, père, George Sand, Franz Liszt, Marie d'Agoult; standing Hector Berlioz or Victor Hugo, Niccolò Paganini, Gioachino Rossini; a bust of Beethoven on the grand piano (a "Graf"), a portrait of Byron on the wall, a statue of Joan of Arc on the far left.

Following the death of Liszt's father in 1827 and his hiatus from the life as a touring virtuoso, it is likely Liszt's playing gradually developed a more personal style. One of the most detailed descriptions of his playing from this time comes from the winter of 1831/1832, during which he was earning a living primarily as a teacher in Paris. Among his pupils were Valerie Boissier, whose mother Caroline kept a careful diary of the lessons. From her we learn that:

"M. Liszt's playing contains abandonment, a liberated feeling, but even when it becomes impetuous and energetic in his fortissimo, it is still without harshness and dryness. He draws from the piano tones that are purer, mellower and stronger than anyone has been able to do; his touch has an indescribable charm. He is the enemy of affected, stilted, contorted expressions. Most of all, he wants truth in musical sentiment, and so he makes a psychological study of his emotions in order to convey them as they are. Thus, a strong expression is often followed by a sense of fatigue and dejection, a kind of coldness, because this is the way nature works."

Possibly influenced by Paganini's showmanship, once Liszt began focusing on his career as a pianist again his emotionally vivid presentations of the music were rarely limited to mere sound. His facial expression and gestures at the piano would reflect what he played, for which he was sometimes mocked in the press. Also noted was the extravagant liberties he could take with the text of a score at this time. Berlioz tells us how Liszt would add cadenzas, tremolos and trills when playing the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and created a dramatic scene by changing the tempo between Largo and Presto. In his Baccalaureus letter to George Sand from the beginning of 1837, Liszt admitted that he had done so for the purpose of gaining applause, and promised to follow both the letter and the spirit of a score from now on. It has been debated to what extent he realized his promise, however. By July 1840 the British newspaper The Times could still report

"His performance commenced with Händel's Fugue in E minor, which was played by Liszt with an avoidance of everything approaching to meretricious ornament, and indeed scarcely any additions, except a multitude of ingeniously contrived and appropriate harmonies, casting a glow of colour over the beauties of the composition, and infusing into it a spirit which from no other hand it ever received."

Repertoire

During his years as a travelling virtuoso Liszt performed an enormous amount of music throughout Europe, but his core repertoire always centered around his own compositions, paraphrases and transcriptions. Studying Liszt's German concerts between 1840 and 1845, the five most frequently-played pieces were the Grand Galop chromatique, Schubert's Erlkönig (in Liszt's transcription), Réminiscences de Don Juan, Réminiscences de Robert le Diable, and Réminiscences de Lucia de Lammermoor. Among the works by other composers we find compositions like Weber's Aufforderung zum Tanz, Chopin Mazurkas, Études by composers like Moscheles, Chopin and Hiller, but also major works by Beethoven, Weber and Hummel, and from time to time even selections of Bach, Händel and Scarlatti.

Most of the concerts at this time were shared with other artists, and as a result Liszt also often accompanied singers, participated in chamber music, or performed works with an orchestra in addition to his own solo part. Frequently played works include Weber's Konzertstück, Beethoven's Emperor Concerto and Choral Fantasy, and Liszt's reworking of the Hexameron for piano and orchestra. His chamber music repertoire included Hummel's Septet, Beethoven's Archduke Trio and Kreutzer Sonata, and a large selection of songs by composers like Rossini, Donizetti, Beethoven and especially Schubert. At some concerts Liszt could not find musicians to share the program with, and consequently was among the first to give solo piano recitals in the modern sense of the word. The term was coined by the publisher Frederick Beale, who suggested it for Liszt's concert at the Hanover Square Rooms in London on June 9 1840, even though Liszt had given concerts all by himself already by March 1839.

Musical works of Franz Liszt

Liszt was a prolific composer. Most of his music is for the piano and much of it requires formidable technique. His thoroughly revised masterwork, Années de Pèlerinage ("Years of Pilgrimage") includes arguably his most provocative and stirring pieces. This set of three suites ranges from the virtuosity of the Suisse Orage (Storm) to the subtle and imaginative visualisations of artworks by Michelangelo 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 di 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.

In his most famous and virtuosic 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.

Liszt's piano works are usually divided into two classes. On the one hand, there are "original works", and on the other hand "transcriptions", "paraphrases" or "fantasies" on works by other composers. Examples for the first class are works such as the piece Harmonies poétiques et religieuses of May 1833 and the Piano Sonata in B minor. Liszt's transcriptions of Schubert songs, his fantasies on operatic melodies, and his piano arrangements of symphonies by Berlioz and Beethoven are examples for the second class. As special case, Liszt also made piano arrangements of own instrumental and vocal works. Examples of this kind are the arrangement of the second movement "Gretchen" of his Faust Symphony and the first "Mephisto Waltz" as well as the "Liebesträume No. 3" and the two volumes of his "Buch der Lieder".

Liszt's composing music on music, being taken as such, was nothing new. Nevertheless, Liszt invested a particular kind of creativity. Instead of just overtaking original melodies and harmonies, he ameliorated them. In case of his fantasies and transcriptions in Italian style, there was a problem which was by Wagner addressed as "Klappern im Geschirr der Perioden". Composers such as Bellini and Donizetti knew that certain forms, usually periods of eight measures, were to be filled with music. Occasionally, while the first half of a period was composed with inspiration, the second half was added with mechanical routine. Liszt corrected this by modifying the melody, the bass and —in cases— the harmonies.

Many of Liszt's results were remarkable. The Sonnambula-fantasy for example, a concert piece full of charming melodies, could certainly not have been composed either by Bellini or by Liszt alone. Outstanding examples are also the Rigoletto-Paraphrase and the Faust-Walzer. The most delicate harmonies in parts of those pieces were not invented by Verdi and Gounod, but by Liszt. Hans von Bülow admitted, that Liszt's transcription of his Dante Sonett "Tanto gentile" was much more refined than the original he himself had composed.

Liszt was the second pianist (after Kalkbrenner) to transcribe Beethoven's symphonies for the piano. He usually performed them for audiences that would probably never have an opportunity to hear the orchestral version.

Original songs

Franz Liszt composed about six dozen original songs with piano accompaniment. In most cases the lyrics were in German or French, but there are also some songs in Italian and Hungarian and one song in English. Liszt began with the song "Angiolin dal biondo crin" in 1839, and by 1844 had composed about two dozen songs. Some of them had been published as single pieces. In addition, there was an 1843–1844 series "Buch der Lieder". The series had been projected for three volumes, consisting of six songs each, but only two volumes appeared.

Although Liszt's early songs are seldom sung, they show him in much better light than works such as the paraphrase "Gaudeamus igitur" and the Galop after Bulhakow, both composed in 1843. The transcriptions of the two volumes of the "Buch der Lieder" can be counted among Liszt's finest piano works. However, the contemporaries had much to criticise with regard to the style of the songs. Further critical remarks can be found in Peter Raabe's Liszts Schaffen.

Today, Liszt's songs are nearly entirely forgotten. As an exception, most frequently the song "Ich möchte hingehen" is cited. It is because of a single bar, most resembling the opening motif of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. While it is commonly claimed that Liszt wrote that motif ten years before Wagner started work on his masterpiece, it has turned out that this is not true: the original version of "Ich möchte hingehn" was composed in 1844 or 1845. There are four manuscripts, and only a single one, a copy by August Conradi, contains the said bar with the Tristan motif. It is on a paste-over in Liszt's hand. Since in the second half of 1858 Liszt was preparing his songs for publication, and he just at that time received the first act of Wagner's Tristan, it is most likely that the version on the paste-over was a quotation from Wagner. This is not to say, the motif was originally invented by Wagner. An earlier example can be found in bar 100 of Liszt's Ballade No.2 in B minor for piano, composed in 1853.

Programme music

Liszt, in some of his works, supported the idea of programme music – that is, music intended to evoke extra-musical ideas. By contrast, absolute music (a radical new idea in the 19th century world of music) stands for itself and is intended to be appreciated without any particular reference to the outside world.

Liszt's own point of view regarding programme music can for the time of his youth be taken from the preface of the Album d'un voyageur (1837). According to this, a landscape could evoke a certain kind of mood. Since a piece of music could also evoke a mood, a mysterious resemblance with the landscape could be imagined. In this sense the music would not paint the landscape, but it would match the landscape in a third category, the mood.

In July 1854 Liszt wrote his essay about Berlioz and the Harold-Symphony that stated that not all music was programme music. If, in the heat of a debate, a person would go so far as to claim the contrary, it would be better to put all ideas of programme music aside. But it would be possible to take means like harmony, modulation, rhythm, instrumentation and others in order to let a musical motif endure a fate. In any case, a program should only be added to a piece of music if it was necessarily needed for an adequate understanding of that piece.

Still later, in a letter to Marie d'Agoult of November 15, 1864, Liszt wrote:

"Without any reserve I completely subscribe the rule of which you so kindly want to remind me, that those musical works which are in a general sense following a programme must take effect on imagination and emotion, independent of any programme. In other words: All beautiful music must be first rate and always satisfy the absolute rules of music which are not to be violated or prescribed".

Symphonic poems

A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in one movement in which some extramusical program provides a narrative or illustrative element. This program may come from a poem, a story or novel, a painting, or another source. The term was first applied by Liszt to his 13 one-movement orchestral works in this vein. They were not pure symphonic movements in the classical sense because they dealt with descriptive subjects taken from mythology, Romantic literature, recent history or imaginative fantasy. In other words, these works were programmatic rather than abstract. The form was a direct product of Romanticism which encouraged literary, pictorial and dramatic associations in music. It developed into an important form of program music in the second half of the 19th century.

The first 12 symphonic poems were composed in the decade 1848–58 (though some use material conceived earlier); one other, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe (From the Cradle to the Grave), followed in 1882. Liszt's intent, according to Hugh MacDonald in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980), was for these single-movement works "to display the traditional logic of symphonic thought." That logic, embodied in sonata form as musical development, was traditionally the unfolding of latent possibilities in given themes in rhythm, melody and harmony, either in part or in their entirety, as they were allowed to combine, separate and contrast with one another. To the resulting sense of struggle Beethoven added an intensity of feeling and the involvement of his audiences in that feeling, beginning from the Eroica Symphony to use the elements of the craft of music—melody, bass, counterpoint, rhythm and harmony—in a new synthesis of elements toward this end.

Liszt attempted in the symphonic poem to extend this revitalization of the nature of musical discourse and add to it the Romantic ideal of reconciling classical formal principles to external literary concepts. To this end, he combined elements of overture and symphony with descriptive elements, approaching symphonic first movements in form and scale. While showing extremely creative amendments to sonata form, Liszt used compositional devices such as cyclic form, motifs and thematic transformation to lend these works added coherence. Their composition proved daunting, requiring a continual process of creative experimentation that included many stages of composition, rehearsal and revision to reach a version where different parts of the musical form seemed balanced.

Late works

With some works from the end of the Weimar years Liszt drifted more and more away from the musical taste of his time. An early example is the melodrama "Der traurige Mönch" ("The sad monk") after a poem by Nikolaus Lenau, composed in the beginning of October 1860. While in the 19th century harmonies were usually considered as major or minor triads to which dissonances could be added, Liszt took the augmented triad as central chord.

More examples can be found in the third volume of Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage. "Les Jeux d'Eaux à la Villa d'Este" ("The Fountains of the Villa d'Este"), composed in September 1877, foreshadows the impressionism of pieces on similar subjects by Debussy and Ravel. However, other pieces such as the "Marche funèbre, En mémoire de Maximilian I, Empereur du Mexique" ("Funeral march, In memory of Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico") composed in 1867 are without stylistic parallel in the 19th and 20th centuries.

At a later stage Liszt experimented with "forbidden" things such as parallel 5ths in the "Csárdás macabre" and atonality in the Bagatelle sans tonalité ("Bagatelle without Tonality"). In the last part of his "2de Valse oubliée" ("2nd Forgotten waltz") Liszt composed that he could not find a lyrical melody.[clarification needed] Pieces like the "2nd Mephisto-Waltz" are shocking with nearly endless repetitions of short motives. Also characteristic are the "Via crucis" of 1878, as well as Unstern!, Nuages Gris, and the two works entitled La lugubre gondola of the 1880s.

Literary works

Besides his musical works, Liszt wrote essays about many subjects. Most important for an understanding of his development is the article series "De la situation des artistes" ("On the situation of the artists") which 1835 was published in the Parisian Gazette musicale. In winter 1835–36, during Liszt's stay in Geneva, about half a dozen further essays followed. One of them which should have been published under the name "Emm Prym" was about Liszt's own works. It was sent to Maurice Schlesinger, editor of the Gazette musicale. Schlesinger, however, following an advice of Berlioz, did not publish it. In the beginning of 1837, Liszt published a review of some piano works of Sigismond Thalberg. The review evoked a huge scandal. Liszt also published a series of writings titled "Baccalaureus letters", ending in 1841.

During the Weimar years, Liszt wrote a series of essays about operas, leading from Gluck to Wagner. Besides, Liszt wrote essays about Berlioz and the symphony "Harold in Italy", Robert and Clara Schumann, John Field's nocturnes, songs of Robert Franz, a planned Goethe foundation at Weimar, and other subjects. In addition to these essays, Liszt wrote a book about Chopin as well as a book about the Gypsies and their music in Hungary.

While all of those literary works were published under Liszt's name, it is not quite clear which parts of them he had written himself. It is known from his letters that during the time of his youth there had been collaboration with Marie d'Agoult. During the Weimar years it was the Princess Wittgenstein who helped him. In most cases the manuscripts have disappeared so that it is difficult to decide which of Liszt's literary works actually were works of his own. However, until the end of his life it was Liszt's point of view that it was he who was responsible for the contents of those literary works.

Liszt also worked until at least 1885 on a treatise for modern harmony. Pianist Arthur Friedheim, who also served as Liszt's personal secretary, remembered seeing it among Liszt's papers at Weimar. Liszt told Friedheim that the time was not yet ripe to publish the manuscript, titled Sketches for a Harmony of the Future. Unfortunately, this treatise has been lost.

Legacy

Liszt was one of the most noted teachers of the 19th century. This part of his career commenced after his father's death in August 1827. For the purpose of earning his own and his mother's living, Liszt gave lessons in composition and piano playing. According to a letter to Monsieur de Mancy on December 23, 1829, he was so full of lessons that each day, from half-past eight in the morning till 10 at night, he had scarcely breathing time. Most of Liszt's students of this period were amateurs, but there were also some who made a professional career. An example of the first kind is Valerie Boissier, the later Comtesse de Gasparin. Examples of the second kind are Pierre Wolff and Hermann Cohen. During winter 1835–36 they were Liszt's colleagues at the Conservatoire at Geneva. Wolff then went to Saint Petersburg.

Cohen, who from George Sand received the nickname "Puzzi", developed into a very successful pianist. Of Jewish origin, he was baptized on August 28, 1847. On this day he experienced what he called an "apparition" of Christ, Mary and the saints in an "ecstasy of love". A year later he became novice of a Carmelite convent. When on October 7, 1850, he was professed, he took the name Père Augstin-Marie du Très Saint Sacrament ("Pater Augustin-Mary of the Holiest Sacrament"). On April 19, 1851, he was ordained as priest. In spring 1862 he met Liszt in Rome. After colloquies with Pater Augustin, Liszt decided that he would himself become ecclesiastic.

During the years of his tours Liszt gave only few lessons. Examples of students from this period are Johann Nepumuk Dunkl and Wilhelm von Lenz. Dunkl received lessons from Liszt during winter 1839–40. He had introduced himself by playing Thalberg's Fantasy Op. 6 on melodies from Meyerbeer's opera "Robert le diable". Liszt later called him a "Halbschüler" ("half-student"). Lenz, from St. Petersburg, had met Liszt already at the end of 1828. In summer 1842 he was in Paris again where he received further lessons from Liszt. He was merely an amateur with a repertoire of pieces such as Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9/2. In spring 1844, in Dresden, Liszt met the young Hans von Bülow, his later son in law. Bülow's repertoire included Thalberg's Fantasy "La Donna del Lago" Op. 40 and Liszt's Sonnambula-Fantasy.

Later students

Since Liszt had settled in Weimar, the number of those who received lessons from him was steadily increasing. Until his death in 1886 there would have been several hundred people who in some sense may have been regarded as his students. August Göllerich published a voluminous catalogue of them. In a note he added the remark that he had taken the connotation "student" in its widest sense. As consequence, his catalogue includes names of pianists, violinists, cellists, harpists, organists, composers, conductors, singers and even writers. Another catalogue was prepared by Carl Lachmund. In Lachmund's catalogue his own wife's name, missing in Göllerich's catalogue, is included. She had successfully persuaded Liszt to listen to her playing the harp. After she had played a single piece, without Liszt saying a word about it, she was nominated as Liszt's student by her husband.

In 1886 a similar catalogue would have been much longer, including names such as Eugen d'Albert, Walter Bache, Carl Lachmund, Moriz Rosenthal, Emil Sauer, Alexander Siloti, Conrad Ansorge, William Dayas, August Göllerich, Bernhard Stavenhagen, August Stradal, István Thomán and others.

Nohl's catalogue was by far not complete, and this even when the restriction to the period since the Weimar years is neglected. Of Liszt's Hungarian students, for example, only Antal Siposs and Ilonka Ravasz were mentioned. Siposs had become Liszt's student in 1858 in Weimar, after Liszt had heard him playing at a concert and invited him. In 1861 Siposs returned to Budapest, where in 1875 he founded a music school. Ilonka Ravasz was since winter 1875–76 one of Liszt's most gifted students at the newly founded Royal Academy for Music at Budapest. Astonishingly, the names of Aladár Juhász and Károly Aggházy are missing in Nohl's catalogue, although both had been among Liszt's favourite students at the Hungarian Academy.

Also missing are the names of Agnes Street-Klindworth and Olga Janina. Agnes Street-Klindworth had in 1853 arrived in Weimar, where she received lessons in piano playing from Liszt and lessons in composition from Peter Cornelius. Until 1861 she was Liszt's secret mistress. Olga Janina had joined the circle around Liszt in 1869 in Rome. According to Liszt's impression, she had rare and admirable musical talents. In his presence, she performed his piano concertos in E-flat and A Major as well as further examples of his works.

Unfortunately, Olga Janina fell in love with Liszt. They had a short affair, until in spring 1871 —on Liszt's initiative— they separated. Olga went to America, but in spring 1873 returned to Budapest. In a telegram to Liszt she had announced that she would kill him. After three adventurous days together with Liszt in an apartment in Budapest she left. Together with Liszt's student Franz Servais she first went to Belgium where she gave concerts which were brilliant successes. She then, together with Servais, went to Italy.

During the 1870s Olga Janina wrote several scandalous books about Liszt, among them the novel Souvenirs d'une Cosaque, published under the pseudonym "Robert Franz". In Göllerich's catalogue of Liszt's students she is registered as "Janina, Olga, Gräfin (Marquise Cezano) (Genf)". Thus she may have changed her name and moved to Geneva. Taking the preface of her Souvenirs d'üne Cosaque literally, she had first moved from Italy to Paris where she had lived in poverty. The last paragraph of the preface can be read as a dedication to Liszt.

Besides Liszt's master students there was a crowd of those who could at best reach only moderate abilities. In such cases, Liszt's lessons changed nothing. However, also several of Liszt's master students were disappointed about him. An example is Eugen d'Albert, who in the end was on nearly hostile terms with Liszt. The same must be said of Felix Draeseke who had joined the circle around Liszt at Weimar in 1857, and who during the first half of the 1860s had been one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School. In Nohl's catalogue he is not even mentioned. Also Hans von Bülow, since the 1860s, had more and more drifted towards a direction which was not only different from Liszt's, but opposite to it

According to August Stradal, some of Liszt's master students had claimed that Anton Rubinstein was a better teacher than Liszt. It might have been meant as allusion to Emil Sauer, who had in Moscow studied with Nikolai Rubinstein. During a couple of months in summers 1884 and 1885 he studied with Liszt at Weimar. When he arrived for the first time, he already was a virtuoso of strongest calibre who shortly before had made a concert tour through Spain. The question of whether there was any change in his playing after he had studied with Liszt remains open. According to his autobiography Meine Welt, he had found it imposing when Arthur Friedheim was thundering Liszt's Lucrezia-Fantasy. Regarding Liszt's playing a Beethoven Sonata, however, he wrote, Liszt had at least given a good performance as actor. As his opinion, Sauer had told his fellow students that Anton Rubinstein was a greater composer than Liszt. In Sauer's own compositions, a piano concerto, two sonatas, about two and a half dozen Etudes and several concert pieces, no influence of Liszt as composer of the 1880s can be recognized.

Liszt's teaching approach

Liszt offered his students little technical advice, expecting them to "wash their dirty linen at home," as he phrased it. Instead, he focused on musical interpretation with a combination of anecdote, metaphor and wit. He advised one student tapping out the opening chords of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, "Do not chop beefsteak for us." To another who blurred the rhythm in Liszt's Gnomenreigen (usually done by playing the piece too fast in the composer's presence): "There you go, mixing salad again." Liszt also wanted to avoid creating carbon copies of himself; rather, he believed in preserving artistic individuality.

There were some pieces which Liszt famously refused to hear at his masterclasses. Among them were Carl Tausig's transcription of J. S. Bach's organ Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and Chopin's Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor. Liszt also did not like to hear his own Polonaise No. 2 in E Major, as it was overplayed and frequently badly played.

Liszt did not charge for lessons. He was troubled when German newspapers published details of pedagogue Theodor Kullak's will, revealing that Kullak had generated more than one million marks from teaching. "As an artist, you do not rake in a million marks without performing some sacrifice on the altar of Art," Liszt told his biographer Lina Ramann. However, Carl Czerny charged an expensive fee for lessons and even dismissed Stephen Heller when he was unable to afford to pay for his lessons. Interestingly, Liszt spoke very fondly of his former teacher, to whom he dedicated his Transcendental Etudes. He wrote the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, urging Kullak's sons to create an endowment for needy musicians, as Liszt himself frequently did.

In the summer of 1936, Hungarian-French music critic Emil Haraszti published a two-part essay on Liszt, entitled Liszt á Paris in the publication La Revue musicale. In 1937 he published Deux Franciscians: Adam et Franz Liszt and in December of that year published La Probleme Liszt. The essay, which is a deep exploration of the musicality of Liszt, established Haraszti as one of the foremost Liszt scholars of his generation.

Royal Academy of Music at Budapest

Since the early 1860s there were attempts of some of Liszt's Hungarian contemporaries to have him settled with a position in Hungary. In January 1862, in Rome, Liszt received a letter by Baron Gábor Prónay, since 1850 President of a Conservatory in Pest. Baron Prónay offered Liszt the position as President. When in 1867 the Conservatory became "Ungarisches National Konservatorium" ("Hungarian National Conservatory"), Baron Prónay still tried to persuade Liszt to take the leadership. Liszt, however, in letters to Baron Prónay and further ones of his Hungarian contemporaries explained that his career as virtuoso and as conductor had finally ended. If he took a position in Hungary, it would be solely for the purpose of spreading his own compositions, his Oratorios and his symphonic works. Besides, as soon as he left Rome, it was his duty to spend some months of the year in Weimar. The Grand Duc had for several times asked for it.

In 1871 the Hungarian Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy made a new attempt. In a writing of June 4, 1871, to the Hungarian King he demanded an annual rent of 4,000 Gulden and the rank of a "Königlicher Rat" ("Councellor of the King") for Liszt, who in return would permanently settle in Budapest, directing the orchestra of the National Theatre as well as music schools and further musical institutions. With decision of June 13, 1871, the King agreed. By that time there were also plans of the foundation of a Royal Academy for Music at Budapest, of which the Hungarian state should be in charge. The Royal Academy is not to be confused with the National Conservatory which still existed. The National Conservatory, of which the city Budapest was in charge, was until his death in 1875 directed by Baron Prónay. His successor was Count Géza Zichy.

The plan of the foundation of the Royal Academy was in 1871 refused by the Hungarian Parliament, but a year later the Parliament agreed. Liszt was ordered to take part in the foundation. In March 1875 he was nominated as President. According to his wishes, the Academy should have been opened not earlier than in late autumn 1876. However, the Academy was officially opened already on November 14, 1875. Since it was Liszt's opinion that his colleagues Franz Erkel, the director, Kornél Ábrányi and Robert Volkmann could quite well do this job without him, he was absent. He arrived on February 15, 1876, in Budapest. On March 2 he started giving lessons, and on March 30 he left. The main purpose of his coming to Budapest had been a charity concert on March 20 in favour of the victims of a flood.

In November 1875, 38 students had passed the entrance examinations. 21 of them wanted to study piano playing, the others composition. Details of the entrance exainations are known from an account by Károly Swoboda (Szabados), one of Liszt's first students at the Royal Academy. According to this, candidates for a piano class had to play a single piano piece of their own choice. It could be a sonata movement by Mozart, Clementi or Beethoven. The candidates then had to sight read an easy further piece. Candidates for a composition class had to reproduce and continue a given melody of 4, 5 or 8 bars, after Volkmann had played it for about half a dozen times to them. Besides, they had to put harmonies to a given bass which was written on a table.

After Liszt had arrived, he selected 8 students for his class for advanced piano playing. To these came Áladár Juhász as the most outstanding one. As exception, he was to study piano playing only with Liszt. The others were matriculated as students of Erkel, since it was him from whom they would receive their lessons during Liszt's absence. Erkel also gave lessons in specific matters of Hungarian music. Volkmann gave lessons in composition and instrumentation. Ábrányi gave lessons in music aesthetics and harmony theory. Liszt had wished that there should have been a class for sacral music, leaded by Franz Xaver Witt. He had also wished that Hans von Bülow should take a position as piano professor. However, neither Witt nor Bülow agreed.

In spite of the conditions under which Liszt had in June 1871 been appointed as "Königlicher Rat", he neither directed the orchestra of the National Theatre, nor did he permanently settle in Hungary. As usual case, he arrived in mid-winter in Budapest. After one or two concerts of his students by the beginning of spring he left. He never took part in the final examinations, which were in summer of every year. Most of his students were still matriculated as students of either Erkel or later Henrik Gobbi. Some of them joined the lessons which he gave in summer in Weimar. In winter, when he was in Budapest, some students of his Weimar circle joined him there.

Judging from the concert programs of Liszt's students at Budapest, the standard resembled that of an advanced masterclass of our days. There was a difference, however, with regard to the repertoire. Most works as played at the concerts were works of composers of the 19th century, and many of the composers are now forgotten. As rare exceptions, occasionally a piece of J. S. Bach or Händel was played. Mozart and Haydn, but also Schubert and Weber, were missing. Of Beethoven only a comparatively small selection of his works was played. In typical cases Liszt himself was merely represented with his transcriptions.

The actual abilities Liszt's students at Budapest and the standard of their playing can only be guessed. Liszt's lessons of winter 1877–78 were in letters to Lina Ramann described by Auguste Rennebaum, herself Liszt's student at the Royal Academy. According to this, there had been some great talents in Liszt's class. However, the abilities of the majority had been very poor. August Stradal, who visited Budapest in 1885 and 1886, took the same point of view. In contrast to this, Deszö Legány claimed, much in Stradal's book was nonsense, taken from Stradal's own fantasy. Legány's own reliability, however, is not beyond doubt since many of his attempts of whitewashing Liszt and —even more— the Hungarian contemporaries are too obvious. Margit Prahács shared and supported Stradal's view. Her quotations from the contemporary Hungarian press show that much of Stradal's critique had been true. Concerning Liszt's relation with his Hungarian contemporaries at the end of his life, for example, in spring 1886 the journal Zenelap wrote:

"It is solely in Budapest, where musicians are wandering on such high clouds that they hardly take notice when Liszt is among them."

In 1873, at the occasion of Liszt's 50th anniversary as performing artist, the city Budapest had installed a "Franz Liszt Stiftung" ("Franz Liszt Foundation"). The foundation was destined to provide stipends of 200 Gulden for three students of the Academy who had shown excellent abilities and especially had achieved progress with regard to Hungarian music. Every year it was Liszt alone who could decide which one of the students should receive the money. He gave the total sum of 600 Gulden either to a single student or to a group of three or more of them, not asking whether they were actually matriculated at the Academy.

It was also Liszt's habit to declare all students who took part in his lessons as his private students. As consequence, nearly none of them paid any charge at the Academy. Since the Academy needed the money, there was a ministerial order of February 13, 1884, according to which all those who took part in Liszt's lessons had to pay an annual charge of 30 Gulden. However, Liszt did not respect this, and in the end the Minister resigned. In fact, the Academy was still the winner, since Liszt gave much money from his taking part in charity concerts.

The lessons in specific matters of Hungarian music turned out as problematic enterprise, since there were different opinions, exactly what Hungarian music actually was. In 1881 a new edition of Liszt's book about the Gypsies and their music in Hungary appeared. According to this, Hungarian music was identical with the music as played by the Hungarian Gypsies. Liszt had also claimed, Semitic people, among them the Gypsies, had no genuine creativity. For this reason, according to Liszt's book, they only adopted melodies from the country where they lived. After the book had appeared, Liszt was in Budapest accused for a presumed spreading of anti-Semitic ideas. In the following year no students at all wanted to be matriculated for lessons in Hungarian music. According to the issue of July 1, 1886, of the journal Zenelap, this subject at the Hungarian Academy had already a long time ago been dropped.

In 1886 there was still no class for sacral music, but there were classes for solo and chorus singing, piano, violin, cello, organ and composition. The number of students had grown to 91 and the number of professors to 14. Since winter 1879–80 the Academy had an own building. In the first floor there was an apartment where since winter 1880–81 Liszt lived during his stays in Budapest. His last stay was from January 30 to March 12, 1886. After Liszt's death Janós Végh, since 1881 vice-president, became president. Not earlier than 40 years later the Academy was renamed as "Franz Liszt Akademie". Until then, due to world war I, Liszt's Europe and also his Hungary had died. As main part, the only connection between Franz Liszt and the "Franz Liszt Akademie" thus was the name.