Franz Liszt

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About Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt’s life proved stranger than romantic fiction and every bit as colorful. Born in 1811 in Hungary, then part of the multiethnic Austrian Empire, he launched his career as virtuoso pianist during childhood and, propelled by an innate flamboyance, astonishing technical command, and the demonic intensity of his playing, spread fan fever—or Lisztomania, as it was named by the poet Heinrich Heine—as he toured Europe. Liszt turned popular operatic tunes into keyboard showpieces charged with technical fireworks, and he composed works, including his Paganini and Transcendental Studies, that left audiences and fellow pianists weak at the knees. Liszt fathered three children by his mistress, the Countess d’Agoult, and formed a lasting relationship with his second great love, Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, while periodically turning to religion as a refuge from earthly pleasures. In 1847, he quit the touring circuit and soon settled in Weimar, where he raised its court orchestra to star status and invented the symphonic poem to advertise its artistry. Living in Rome in the 1860s, the former wild man of music took holy orders and underlined his deep faith with two visionary oratorios, St. Elisabeth and Christus. His late piano pieces, the sublime Nuages gris and Bagatelle sans tonalité among them, point to Debussy’s impressionism and the coming revolution of musical modernism.

HOMETOWN
Raiding
BORN
October 22, 1811
GENRE
Classical

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