Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt was born on 22 October 1811 at Raiding (Doborján in Hungarian), a village in the Kingdom of Hungary, now in Austria. His father, Adam, was a steward to the Esterházy princes and an amateur cellist who had even played in Haydn’s orchestra. He taught piano to his son, whose gifts were astonishing. At nine Franz gave his first concert. Amazed Hungarian nobles funded his studies: in 1822 the family moved to Vienna.

In Vienna he studied piano with Carl Czerny, a former pupil of Beethoven, and composition with Antonio Salieri. According to a famous anecdote, Beethoven kissed him on the forehead after a concert. In 1823 the family moved to Paris, but the Conservatoire refused the young prodigy because he was a foreigner. Liszt then toured France, England and Switzerland and composed a little opera, Don Sanche. In 1827 his father’s death left him alone with his mother; he earned his living by teaching.

In 1832 he heard Paganini in Paris and resolved to become “the Paganini of the piano”. He practised for hours every day to invent a new technique that could make the piano sing like an orchestra. He befriended Chopin, Berlioz — whose Symphonie fantastique he transcribed for piano — George Sand and Lamartine. In 1835 he left for Switzerland and then Italy with Countess Marie d’Agoult, who had left her husband for him. They had three children, including Cosima, Wagner’s future wife. These travels gave rise to the Années de pèlerinage.

From 1839 to 1847 Liszt made triumphant tours throughout Europe, from Lisbon to Constantinople, from Ireland to Russia. He gave more than a thousand concerts. He invented the solo piano recital, playing alone for an entire concert from memory, and placed the piano side-on so the audience could see his face. His charisma caused hysteria: women fainted and fought over his gloves or locks of hair. The poet Heinrich Heine coined the word “Lisztomania”. Liszt gave much of his earnings to charity.

In 1847, aged thirty-six, he gave up his virtuoso career. With Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein he settled in Weimar, where he became Kapellmeister. There he conducted works by modern composers, premiered his friend Wagner’s Lohengrin in 1850, and composed his great works: the Sonata in B minor (1853), the Liebesträume, the Transcendental Études, the Faust Symphony and twelve symphonic poems, including Les Préludes (1854). He thus invented the symphonic poem, an orchestral work that tells a story or depicts a scene.

In 1861 he moved to Rome hoping to marry the princess, but the pope refused to annul her first marriage. Liszt turned to religion: in 1865 he received minor orders and took clerical dress, hence his nickname “Abbé Liszt”. He composed oratorios and sacred music. In his last years he divided his time between Rome, Weimar and Budapest, where from 1875 he presided over the Academy of Music he had helped to found.

A generous teacher, he gave free lessons to hundreds of pupils from all over the world. His late piano works, such as La lugubre gondola and the Bagatelle without Tonality, are astonishingly modern and foreshadow twentieth-century music. In July 1886 he went to Bayreuth to attend the festival run by his daughter Cosima, Wagner’s widow. He caught a chill there and died on 31 July 1886, aged seventy-four. He is buried in Bayreuth.