Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a great Hungarian musician and composer, maybe the best pianist of all times, who left an impressive legacy of hundreds of compositions and arrangements. He showed unbelievable talent at a very early age and this to great content marked his life.
Here are some interesting facts about Franz Liszt:
A child prodigy
His grandfather and father were multi-instrumentalists. Franz’s father Adam started to teach his son to play the piano when he was seven years old and he started making simple compositions only a year after.
By the age of nine, he was already so good he could perform in concerts. At eleven his first composition was published and he wrote his first (and only) opera at thirteen years.
Several wealthy people offered to sponsor his private education and his father Adam decided to leave service at Prince Esterhazy (he was his secretary) to focus all his energy on developing son’s talents.
Franz got lessons from several great music teachers including Antonio Salieri, the great rival of another prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Although young Liszt’s talent was widely recognized and appreciated, his attempt to enroll in Paris conservatory was denied because he was a foreigner. His father died when Franz was fifteen and this was a huge trauma for the teenager.
He lived in Paris in a small apartment with his mother for the next few years. Franz earned money with teaching piano and composition. He sometimes worked from early morning to late night.
He started drinking and smoking, what accompanied him for the rest of his life. He also met many great names of classical music (which was contemporary at those times). When Franz Liszt played with Niccolo Paganini, he decided to become such virtuoso on the piano as Paganini on the violin.
He learned and improved the technique from the best players of the time, who perfected the playing of this instrument. One of them was Frederic Chopin, another superb piano player and composer. He also transcribed Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique to popularize it through performances and help the destitute composer to finally publish now famous composition.
Private life
When he was 22, he met Comtesse Marie d’Agoult, a French writer who was then married to Comte d’Agoult and already had two kids. Franz and Marie lived together for four years and had three children in this period.
They never married and due to his increasing obligations with touring slowly estranged. However, they spent the holidays for the next few years together until in 1844 they finally ended their relationship.
This is also the time of so-called Lisztmania, with screaming and fainting women at his concerts. Majority of his earning had gone for different charity projects.
His playing skills were so outrageous, cartoonists portrayed him with four hands. He also made several influential friendships. Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein was definitely one of the most influential persons in his life, convincing him to stop touring and focus on composing only.
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia invited him to visit and stay at Weimar, where he became a conductor, wrote many of his most important musical pieces and started a friendship with Richard Wagner which lasted to the end of Wagner’s life.
Liszt’s daughter Cosima even married Richard in 1870 and as one of his most important inspirations became the greatest promoter of his works after his death.
Meanwhile, Liszt tried to marry Carolyne, but their attempt failed due to the incompletion of her divorce papers. Two of his children died in a span of three years and he retreated to a monastery at Rome.
For the rest of his life, he spent most of time conducting, inventing new musical forms and traveling from Rome to Budapest and Weimar. In July 1881 he fell down the stairs and never fully recovered. About four weeks and a series of medical complications later he died of pneumonia.
Although Liszt authored about 400 compositions and made around 900 arrangements, this is probably his most famous piece of music:
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 was so hugely popular the author eventually became fed up with it and stopped performing it. As we can say it is written not only as a piece to listen, it is very attractive to perform as well.
Some other pieces are known by very spectacular and demanding techniques like long left-hand intervals and hand crossings. Before we stray too far into the details, we’ll just say good-by and thanks, Franz Liszt!
