LISZT, FRANZ

Romanticist musician whose artistic achievements substantially influenced music history, b. Raiding (Doborján), Hungary, Oct. 22, 1811; d. Bayreuth, Germany; July 31, 1886. His father, Adam, administrator of an Esterházy estate and a skilled music amateur, was presumably of Hungarian descent; his mother, Anna (Laager) Liszt, was of Austrian-German background. Although physically frail, the boy genius was playing in public at nine. His first and most important teachers were Carl Czerny (piano) and Antonio Salieri (theory) in Vienna; later he studied composition and counterpoint with F. Paër and A. Reicha in Paris. His prodigious talent and winning manners made him society's darling, and his father exploited him, though not excessively, in England and on the Continent. Franz produced an opera, Don Sanche, in Paris in 1825; it was not successful and he never wrote another, although he figured factorially in operatic history, particularly vis-à-vis Richard wagner, as conductor, producer, and promoter. In 1827, upon the death of his father, he began teaching piano in Paris. In 1830 he met berlioz, whom he championed, and in 1831 he heard the violinist Paganini, whose virtuosity changed his whole concept of pianism. In 1832 he met chopin and was strongly influenced by his musical style. From 1839 to 1847 he toured all Europe in concert, acknowledged the greatest of all pianists (albeit something of a showman).

As a youth Liszt had at times desired to enter the priesthood but had been dissuaded by his father. In the 1830s he fell in love with Countess Marie d'Agoult (the writer "Daniel Stern") and became the father of three children: Blandine; Cosima, later Wagner's wife and widow; and Daniel. In 1848 he settled with the Polish princess Carolyne Von Sayn-Wittgenstein in Weimar, where for 12 years he served the court as Kapellmeister and produced his major orchestral works. He had hoped to marry the princess in Rome on his 50th birthday, but the union was forbidden by the Church when her existing marriage could not be dissolved. In 1865 he took minor orders from Cardinal Hohenlohe at the Vatican and was thenceforth known as the "Abbé" Liszt. In 1875 he became president of the New Academy of Music in Budapest and thereafter divided his time among Budapest, Rome, and Weimar, as elder statesman in the world of art.

Liszt was one of the great creators and innovators of 19th-century music. He expanded its expressiveness, organized new forms, justified new sources of inspiration, illumined the value of nationalism, and set the pattern of present-day concert life. He wrote a vast amount of original music, some utilizing Hungarian elements and, in later years, dissonance and atonality pointing to 20th-century idioms. His keyboard pieces are daringly emotional and chromatic, if sometimes overly sentimental. He originated the "symphonic poem" and made opulent transcriptions of songs and opera airs. Less familiar is his sacred music; yet he wrote an impressive amount, nonliturgical but of an uncommonly high quality and consonant with his fundamental piety. Two massive oratorios (Die Legende von der heiligen Elisabeth and Christus ) head the list, which includes several Masses, psalms, part-songs, and other religious settings.

His essay "On the Church Music of the Future" (1834), with its thesis of "humanistic religious music," inspired Wagner's later interest in church music, and its exemplification in Liszt's own music led to Wagner's Parsifal as well as to a Lisztian type of instrumental church composition. Moreover, he took a lively interest in the reform objectives of the caecilian movement and corresponded with its leader, F. X. Witt, over the creation of the Kirchenmusikschule in Regensburg. His many books (some of them probably the work of Marie d'Agoult and Princess Carolyne) reflect his broad interest in literature, philosophy, and social reform. During the early 20th century Liszt's music fell into critical disfavor along with the whole corpus of romanticist expression. The current reappraisal of romanticism has, however, returned his work to the honorable place among the scholars that it had never lost in the popular reckoning.

Bibliography: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. l. ramann, 6 v. in 7 (Leipzig 1881–99); Briefe, ed. la mara (i. m. lipsius), 8 v. (Leipzig 1893–1905); "Vierzehn Original Briefe Liszts an Witt," Musica Sacra 46 (1913) 289–295. e. newman, The Man Liszt (New York 1935). r. hill, Liszt (New York 1949). h. searle, The Music of Liszt (London 1954). w. beckett, Liszt (New York 1956). s. sitwell, Liszt (rev. ed. New York 1956). h. engel, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. f. blume (Kassel-Basel 1949–) 8:964–988. k. g. fellerer, The History of Catholic Church Music, tr. f. a. brunner (Baltimore 1961). r. woodward, The Large Sacred Choral Works of Franz Liszt (Doctoral diss. microfilm; U. of Illinois 1964). w. widmann, "Witt und Liszt-Wagner," Caecilienvereinsorgan 65 (1934) 192–195. j. m. baker, "The Limits of Tonality in the Late Music of Franz Liszt," Journal of Music Theory 34 (1990) 145–173. s. gut, "Le profane et le religieux dans les différentes versions de l'Ave Maria de Franz Liszt," Revue de Musicologie 76 (1990) 95–102. j. kanski, "Problem formy w sonacie h-moll F. Liszta: Przemiany formy sonatowej w okresie romantyzmu," Studia Muzykologiczne (1955) 276–294. g. kennel, "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen: Franz Liszts Variationen—ein musikalischer Trauerprozeß," Musik und Kirche 69 (1999) 316–325. w. kirsch, "Franz Liszts Requiem für Männerstimmen, " Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 71 (1987) 93–108. v. micznik, "The Absolute Limitations of Programme Music: The Case of Liszt's Die Ideale," Music and Letters 80 (1999) 207–240. r. satyendra, "Conceptualising Expressive Chromaticism in Liszt's Music," Music Analysis 16 (1997) 219–252. d. schmidt, "Liszt und die Gegenwart: Versuch einer theoretischen Schlußfolgerung aus der Lektüre dreier Analysen zum Klavierstück Unstern!, " Musiktheorie 11 (1996) 241–252. l. r. todd, "The 'Unwelcome Guest' Regaled: Franz Liszt and the Augmented Triad," 19th Century Music 12 (1988) 93–115.

[e. n. waters]