FRANZ'S

By Dihelson Mendonca
 
 

C onsidered by many as the greatest pianist of all time, Liszt represents the romantic expression by himself. His style of life, his many lovers, his  friendships... he was one of the first proponents of the orchestral tone poem, was an unparalleled keyboard virtuoso and a supremely talented and innovative composer.  He was also renowned as a mercurial personality and bandit of love; in short, like the flamboyant violinist Niccolo Paganini, Liszt lived the Romantic ideal to the hilt.

Ferenc Liszt was born in Raiding, Hungary in 1811, and began to study the piano at the age of six. He exhibited unusual talent on the instrument, and gave a number of successful concerts while still a child. After continuing his piano studies with the help of Hungarian nobility, he moved with his family to Vienna, where he studied with Carl Czerny and the now-infamous Antonio Salieri. He made more concert appearances, and audiences took to his passionate and technically immaculate playing. Next was Paris, where, at the age of 16, he decided to take up long-term residence. In Paris, he met the greatest exponents of romantic period as Frederic Chopin, Berlioz, Mendelsonn, and many poets and writers. Liszt's house was always the place for reunions of some of the greatest intellectuals of the 19th century. Painters like Delacroix, writers like Victor Hugo were frequently with him. Paris, was in 19th century, considered the "center of the world". Intelectual and artistic. A kind of New York of that days... Europe, as a whole, was passing for profound social, economic and politics changes, and Liszt , as many other artists of his time, took an active position in these movements.  A sincere friend, Liszt knew as a few, to help other musicians in difficulties. He often played the music of his contemporary, and was one of the greatest Beethoven's music enthusiasts. Indeed, Liszt was one of responsible for the construction of the Beethoven's monument, by raising funds, playing throughout europe. Liszt was a deep admirer of Chopin's music and his piano abilities.( Chopin once said that he would like to have that Liszt ability to play his own studies ). Liszt knew to express himself as few persons, and often wrote articles for the "Gazette Muzicale de Paris" .He also wrote a Chopin's Biography called "Chopin's Life".

Liszt's fame as a piano virtuoso grew early; in 1831 he was lucky enough to see the violinist Paganini in performance, and that experience (Paganini's gifts on the violin were so breathtaking that many people believed he was in league with the devil) made a profound impact on the young pianist; he resolved to apply Paganini's showmanship and pyrotechnics to the piano, and in so doing revolutionized the piano as a virtuosic instrument.But later he himself got even more directed to bring this virtuosism to more pure musical expression. Chopin himself didn't like early Liszt's compositions, because Liszt was mainly a virtuosistic player. But Chopin didn't live sufficient to hear Liszt's great last works... Liszt's life reads a bit like a chapter out of Don Juan. Flamboyant in dress and manner, he carried out innumerable minor love affairs and two major  ones - first with the Countess Marie d'Agoult, and later with the Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who worked with him while he was Court Music Director at Weimar. At the age of 48, after living the high life for three decades, he suddenly entered the priesthood, thereafter splitting his musical activities between Rome, Weimar and Budapest; he was conferred the religious title of Abbé in 1866 by Pope Pius IX. Wherever he went, even in later years, he was surrounded by throngs of admirers, imitators and hangers-on. One might think that all of this adulation and personality-worship would color Liszt's approach to the music that had vaulted him to such overwhelming fame. But this never happened; rather, Liszt always adhered strictly to his core musical values, and considered the directions of the composer the ultimate authority in interpretation. He revered composers from Beethoven to Berlioz to Wagner, and always tried to expand upon their work to create new musical forms. And he succeeded...his transcriptions of orchestral works for the piano  (Schumann's Widmung, Verdi's Rigoletto and Aida, Beethoven's symphonies and Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique are only a few) led to a completely new style of piano composition, and his orchestral tone poems, written mostly during his stint at Weimar, are revolutionary in their use of harmonic progression and programmatic elements.

Liszt is perhaps best-known, however, for his piano music, and much of it is utterly magnificent. His monumental one-movement Sonata in B minor (1853) is one of the masterpieces of instrumental solo music, and his numerous tone poems, showpieces and smaller works for piano are brilliant examples of a restless, Romantic imagination, informed but quite removed from the rigor of Classical forms. One of his best known works are the Hungarian Rhapsodies, Annes de Pelegrinations, ( a suite) ,His Piano Concert in Eb, three Liebstraums, Valses oubliees, Mephisto Waltzes, and his famous orchestral work, Les Preludes. Liszt's work is vast, and his compositions are often very difficult to play. He wrote his Etudes de execution Transcendental hoping to developing new horizonts for the piano.And he knew as no other person how to make this. Liszt 's friendship with Richard Wagner, was a great page in his life. He admired Wagner's music, and once said that "Richard Wagner was the greatest composer of the 19th century and perhaps of all centuries! ". Liszt died at the age of 75, one of the longest life in terms of classical composers, His last words while he was dying was: "Tristao" , referring to the music of Wagner, "Tristao and Isolde".