FRANZ LISZT: BIOGRAPHY, MUSICAL STYLE AND WORKS - ART - 2025

Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) was a prominent Hungarian musician of the 19th century, known for his work as a composer, pianist, teacher, and conductor. Among his most famous works are his symphonic poems, pieces for piano, and compositions of sacred music.

His musical virtuosity was extraordinary. He revolutionized the field of harmony, furthermore, Liszt achieved renown throughout Western society for his talent as a pianist and was one of the most prominent exponents of the New German School.

Franz Liszt, March 1886.

Liszt learned musical notions from a young age from his father, who was a talented piano enthusiast. It was he who passed his knowledge on to young Franz, who proved to be much more than a gifted student.

He began his formal education in Vienna. There he managed, in two years, to create a reputation as a child prodigy, then he was already arranging some pieces. Then the young Liszt moved to Paris, where his fame was almost immediately established and catapulted him throughout Europe.

Religion was another important aspect in his life, as was the charitable spirit, which Liszt always had in mind. He donated almost all his wealth to the church and to works for the benefit of the community, he also performed charity concerts on a regular basis and finally dedicated himself to religious life when he was ordained.

Franz Liszt also put part of his effort to renew the generations of musicians and composers by working as a teacher, he also contributed to the dissemination of the work of those who did not have recognition and fame.

His dynamism when performing gave him a reputation that preceded him. That energy and mastery in executing his work was not free, for he spent a lot of time refining his technique and gaining knowledge from great masters.

Biography

Early years

Liszt Ferenc, the Hungarian form of his name, was born on October 22, 1811, in Raiding, which at that time was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. His father was named Adam Liszt and his mother Anna Lager. From one he obtained the musical vein and from the other the religious commitment.

Liszt's father played piano, violin, cello, and guitar, and rubbed shoulders with personalities from the music scene of his time. Adam Liszt was employed by Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy, another music lover, who had his own orchestra.

Young Franz Liszt received his first piano lessons from his father and quickly acquired enough knowledge to perform a concert at just nine years of age.

Prince Esterházy took an interest in the young man and, after a concert at the nobleman's house, Liszt obtained financial support from five gentlemen (each contributing 600 Austrian florins) to formally continue his musical education.

In Vienna his music theory teacher was Salieri, and his piano teacher was Karl Czerny. Two years after starting its preparation, in 1823 Liszt was finally able to perform a concert for the Viennese public. He was listened to by Beethoven, who predicted a bright future for him.

Paris

He moved to Paris, France, hoping to enter the city's Conservatory, for which he had the recommendation of the Prince de Metternich. What the young musician did not know is that only French students were accepted, so the director himself, Cherubini, informed him.

Although disillusioned, Liszt did not give up his mission of training in the French capital and became a student of Reicha and Päer. He quickly became famous in Parisian music circles, just as he had done before in Vienna.

On March 7, 1824 Liszt gave a concert at the Paris Opera. That presentation was an immediate success for the boy, the press acclaimed him as well as the public. His father commented that he had been called the new Mozart.

He traveled to England, where he made several presentations that provoked the same emotion as in all the places where he had been. When he premiered his opera Don Sancho in 1825, the success was immense.

After traveling in England and France, Franz Liszt found himself fed up with presentations and traveling. It was then that he applied to dedicate himself to religion. His father denied him this possibility, but the boy tried so hard to study the Bible that he ended up ill.

They traveled to Boulogne in 1827 and, while the young man recovered, the father died, a victim of typhoid fever.

Paganini

Liszt's mother was in Austria when her husband passed away. Then she settled with Franz, who was 17 at the time, in Paris.

Since then Liszt began to teach piano in the French capital and fell in love with one of his students, the daughter of the Minister of Commerce.

The father of the young Countess Caroline Saint-Criq, who was a contemporary of Liszt, did not like this romance and forbade it. As a consequence the young man's health again weakened almost to the point of death and he again sought refuge in religion.

In 1831 he attended a Paganini concert and there he was amazed by the talents of the musician, who became the example of what he wanted to be one day.

To achieve the mastery he yearned for, Franz Liszt worked days and nights practicing exercises on the piano. He affirmed that this was the only way to achieve the goal he had set himself: to become a Paganini of the piano.

Maria d'Agoult

When Franz Liszt was 22 years old he met Marie de Flavigny, Countess d'Agoult. She was six years older, married, and had children. However, none of this stopped her and Liszt from falling in love and escaping together to Genoa, where they stayed for six years.

Three children of the couple were born there: Blandine (1835), Cósima (1837) and Daniel (1839). At that time Liszt dedicated himself to expanding his knowledge of art, philosophy and architecture. In addition, he taught at the new Conservatory of Genoa.

The year his last child was born, Liszt's relationship with the Countess d'Agoult was deteriorating, so they decided to separate. Liszt claimed that many gaps in education and social status existed between them that made them incompatible.

When he returned to Paris, Liszt found that his position as a piano virtuoso had been taken from him in his absence and now everyone was cheering Sigismund Thalberg, an Austrian. This unleashed in Franz Liszt an instinct for competition to prove that he was still the best, despite the time he was absent.

A concert was held in which it was decided who would win the title of the piano king through a duel in which both artists performed their own pieces, and Liszt was the winner. Berlioz proclaimed him as the pianist of the future.

Tours

From 1840 Franz Liszt began a hectic concert season that took him to tour all of Europe. Everywhere there was talk of his excellent execution, in addition, of his personality that dazzled the public.

At that time Liszt used to spend Christmas with the Countess d'Agoult and her three children on the island of Nonnenwerth, until in 1844 he definitively separated from her.

That was a brilliant time in the career of Liszt, who wrote his Trois Études de Concert between 1845 and 1849. During his eight years on tour, he performed in concert about three or four times a week, and some say that in this time he made about a thousand presentations.

In 1842 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Königsberg. Despite this, he never held the title, which was a very important recognition at the time as there were no precedents.

Additionally, Liszt decided to donate almost all of his income to charity, which fueled his reputation as a philanthropist. He donated resources for the construction of cathedrals, schools, gyms, hospitals and charities. In 1842 he held concerts to collect funds for the victims of the Great Hamburg Fire.

Weimar

In 1847 Franz Liszt met Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittegnstein. She was married, but in an unhappy marriage, so the musician and she went to the Pope to mediate a marriage dissolution and to be able to remarry. This request was denied.

A year later Liszt decided to put touring aside and settled in Weimar, where he was appointed conductor of the Grand Duke of Weimar's orchestra. There the princess followed him and they made a home together.

While residing in Weimar he devoted himself to composition and his position as director. In addition, he used that platform to promote unknown composers by performing their works. Among the new talents Liszt nurtured was Wagner.

Since Wagner's visit to Weimar in 1849, the friendship between Liszt and him was immediate. Liszt became one of its great defenders when no one believed in its potential.

When he came into contact with the orchestra, he was inspired to create a new form which he called a symphonic poem. At this time he wrote Années de p èlerinage, his 12 symphonic poems, piano studies and symphonies such as Dante or Faust.

In 1859 Liszt resigned his position as conductor of the orchestra and then left the city, since he could never finalize his marriage with Princess Carolyne.

Rome

Liszt's only male child, Daniel, died at age 20 in December 1859. Later, his eldest daughter, Blandine, died in 1862 at the age of 26, leading Liszt into a time of isolation and sadness.

In 1857, Cósima, the only living daughter of Franz Liszt, married a former ward of her father named Hans von Bülow. Later, she began a relationship with Richard Wagner that broke the friendship between him and Liszt. The couple married in 1870 and remained together until Wagner passed away in 1883.

After his stay in Weimar, Franz Liszt went to Rome, where he began to pursue ecclesiastical studies. The honorary title of abbe he received in 1865, and in 1879 he was consecrated.

At that time Liszt's musical talent was used in religious music, then he created oratorios like Christus and Santa Isabel. Although he did not live permanently in the city, he spent most of his time there for eight years.

In 1869 he traveled to Weimar again. There he taught piano lessons to prominent students from all over the world who wanted to study with him. It is said that his classes were difficult due to the level of demand and the comments he made to his students.

In 1870 he was commissioned, at the request of the emperor, of the direction of a state music academy in Budapest.

Last years

After Liszt's fall in Weimar in 1881, he was immobilized for eight weeks. The composer never fully recovered from the consequences of this accident.

As other conditions emerged, Liszt entered a dark stage, and his feelings were conveyed in the music he composed during this time. He occasionally performed at charity concerts.

Death

Liszt began a tour that took him to London, Budapest, Paris, Weimar and Luxembourg, where he gave his last concert in July 1886. The musician had developed various illnesses in his final years, such as asthma, insomnia, cataracts, and heart problems.

On July 31, 1886 Franz Liszt died in Beirut at the age of 74. The official cause of his death was pneumonia. He was buried in the municipal cemetery of the city, contravening what the composer had wished.

Musical work

Style

From his beginning as a virtuoso, Franz Liszt's favorite instrument was the piano, with it he managed to reveal a cascade of feelings through music for which he could be compared to an acrobat.

Later he was expanding his horizons and experimenting with new works for him such as orchestral, choral, vocal and opera music. Furthermore, when he discovered traditional music, he felt an attraction towards these rhythms that led him to include them in his work.

Liszt was inspired by paintings and poems for his compositions, in which he evoked in sounds the sensations that certain works produced in him, such as the Faust Symphony or the Dante Symphony.

But his great contribution to composition lies in his symphonic poems. In them she explains a story using music, it was also accompanied by a literary program. Between 1848 and 1882 Liszt composed thirteen symphonic poems.

Plays

Opera

- Don Sanche, ou le Château de l'Amour (1824-25).

Sacral corals

- Christus (1855-67).

- Pater noster I (1860).

- Or Roma nobilis (1879).

Secular corals

- Ungaria-Kantate (1848).

- Für Männergesang (1842-60).

Symphonic poems

- No. 1, Ce qu'on understood sur la montagne (1848-49).

- No. 2, Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo (1849).

- No. 3, Les Préludes (1848).

- No. 4, Orpheus (1853-54).

- No. 5, Prometheus (1850).

- No. 6, Mazeppa (1851).

- No. 7, Festklänge (1853).

- No. 8, Héroïde funèbre (1849-50).

- No. 9, Hungary (1854).

- No. 10, Hamlet (1858).

- No. 11, Hunnenschlacht (1856-57).

- No. 12, Die Ideale (1857).

- No. 13, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe (1881-82).

Other orchestral works

- Symphony Faust (1861).

- Dante Symphony (1855-56).

Pianoforte and orchestra

- Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat (1849).

- Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major (1839).

- Piano Concerto No. 3 in E flat (1836-39).

Piano studies

- Études en douze exercices dans tous les tons majeurs et mineurs (1826).

- Douze Grandes Études (1837).

- Grandes Études de Paganini (1851).

- Trois études de concert (1848).

Others

- Hungarian rhapsodies (1846-86).

References

1. En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Franz Liszt. Available at: en.wikipedia.org.
2. Encyclopedia Britannica. (2018). Franz Liszt - Biography, Music, & Facts. Available at: britannica.com.
3. Sandved, K. and Ximénez de Sandoval, F. (1962). The world of music Musical guide. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, SA
4. Nuño, A., Moreno, J. and Pascual, J. (2008). Liszt. Lima: Santillana SA
5. Well, M. (2007). The Little Larousse Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary 2007. 13th ed. Bogotá (Colombia): Printer Colombiana, p.1473.