Franz Liszt – Universal History

Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He began his career at the age of nine playing for magnates in a still courtly world, and ended it as an example of the romantic, independent and aristocratic artist of a bourgeois and capitalist era. His life was a constant pilgrimage through Europe, whose reality he knew very closely, and in the same way that the overthrow of Charles X of France and the revolution of 1830 inspired a symphony in him, in 1867 he would not hesitate to compose a mass for the coronation Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph as King of Hungary.

Birth and childhood of Franz Liszt

Son of Maria Anna Lager, a former waitress from Vienna, and the Hungarian Adam Liszt, mayor and amateur musician in the service of the same Magyar aristocrat, Duke Miklós Esterházy whose private composer had been Haydn, Franz Liszt was born on October 22, 1811 in the small town of Doborján, which today belongs to Austria under the name of Raiding..

Beginnings of Franz Liszt in music

At the age of six, the future composer, whose original name was Ferenc (his last name Liszt means ‘flour’ in Hungarian), began to show an interest in music, so his father introduced him to learning the piano. At the age of eight little Franz began to compose and at nine he gave his first public performance in Pressburg (now Bratislava) for Hungarian nobles, who were so impressed by his concert that they decided to pay him for six years of studies.. Adam Liszt assumed the role of Leopold Mozart, the father of Wolfgang Amadeus, and in 1822 he settled in Vienna with his son. The first concert was a resounding success; the second gave rise to the legend according to which Beethoven, after hearing it, went up on stage and gave him a kiss of consecration.

Franz Liszt settles in France

In 1823 the Liszt family traveled to Paris: the director of the conservatory, the Italian Luigi Cherubini, did not admit the boy to his institution on the pretext that he was a foreigner. But now no trick could prevent the astonishing rise of this young man, who quickly conquered Paris and then half of Europe. In 1827 the death of his father prompted him to stop touring and earn a living in the capital of France by giving piano lessons.. The following year the adolescent artist fell in love with one of his students, the daughter of Count Saint-Cricq, Charles X’s Minister of Commerce, for which he was immediately fired. The sensitive young man suffered such a crisis that he became seriously ill. Later, in a usual romantic gesture, he decided to become a priest, but both his mother and his confessor dissuaded him. He slowly returned to Parisian artistic life, where he became friends with, among others, Chopin, Weber, Heine, Berlioz, Victor Hugo, George Sand, Alfred de Musset. A Paganini concert piqued his subdued interest in technique, of which—thanks in part to his unusually long fingers—he became the greatest virtuoso pianist of all time.

Franz Liszt and his relationship with Countess Marie d’Agoult

Despite his shyness and his penchant for religious mysticism, Liszt also had his exhibitionist and worldly side: he was an acclaimed artist and, moreover, an exceptionally handsome man. Countess Marie d’Agoult, who would be his companion for many years, described him this way after their first meeting: “Over-height and slender of figure, he had a pale face with sea-green eyes that gleamed with rapid movements like flames from a bonfire…”. In 1835 the countess left her husband to join the pianist. Between constant concert tours, they lived seasons in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. The stormy relationship with the countess, from which three children were born (Blaudine, 1835; Cosima, 1837, and Daniel, 1839), came to an end in 1844. Liszt was at the peak of his career, full of successes and honors. , and among his lovers were the famous dancer Lola Montes and Marie Duplessis, the model of The Lady of the Camellias. At that time he composed years of pilgrimage, one of his first important works, and in 1842 he was appointed Kapellmeister in Weimar. During the fifteen years that he would hold the position, he would compose works such as the mass of great, faust symphony, dante symphony and piano concerto, no. 1.

Franz Liszt and his relationship with Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein

In 1847, at a concert in kyiv, he met Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, who would be his second and final companion. She convinced him to abandon his concert career and dedicate himself solely to composition.. In 1848 he settled in Weimar as court conductor. There he began his most productive period, surrounded by controversy, both for his own artistic innovations and for his open support of the “revolutionary” Wagner. He, too, did not look favorably on his coexistence with the princess, officially married. In 1861 the couple traveled to Rome waiting for her to obtain the pope’s dispensation with a view to a later marriage, but at the last moment the request was rejected. Liszt spent the next eight years in Rome dedicating himself to religious music.

Death of Franz Liszt

In 1868 he withdrew to study theology and came to receive the minor orders of the Church and wear an abbot’s habit that would eventually become legendary because due to its prolonged use it would become distinctive of the composer.
The last two decades of his life were spent in three cities that symbolically mark the different traits of his character: Rome, his religious refuge; Budapest, his contact with his homeland and also with gypsy music, so given to sensationalism (Hungarian folklore, on the other hand, did not attract his attention), and Weimar, where he developed his activity as a composer. His musical language paved the way not only for Wagner, but also for the atonal revolution of the 20th century. Until the last moment he maintained his curiosity, his ability to learn. Despite his failing health, in the summer of 1886 he attended the Bayreuth festival, where pneumonia soon broke out. He died alone, on the night of July 31, as his daughter Cosima, Wagner’s widow, was busy with the festival-tribute that was to be held in honor of her exalted husband..