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| Birth Name(s) : Franz Liszt |
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Full Franz Liszt Biography
Franz Liszt (Hungarian: Liszt Ferenc; pronounced /lɪst/, in English: list) (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer of the Romantic period. He was a renowned performer throughout Europe during the 19th century, noted especially for his showmanship and great skill with the piano. Today, he is considered to be one of the greatest pianists in history. Liszt is frequently credited with re-defining piano playing itself, and his influence is still visible today, both through his compositions and his legacy as a teacher. He is credited with the invention of the symphonic poem, as well as the modern solo piano recital, in which his virtuosity won him approval by composers and performers alike.
Many of his piano compositions have entered the standard repertoire, including the Hungarian Rhapsodies, Transcendental Etudes (Études d'exécution transcendante), Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), the Piano Sonata in B minor, and two piano concertos. He also made many piano transcriptions of operas, famous symphonies, Paganini Caprices (some of the most demanding works of the violin repertoire in his day), and Schubert lieder. Many of his piano compositions are among the most technically challenging in the repertoire. Liszt was also a composer of lieder and choral music, of symphonic poems and other orchestral works. He also wrote for the organ, and his compositions for that instrument are lauded and well-established in the organ repertoire.
Liszt left Vienna in 1823 to travel. On April 20, 1832, he attended a concert by the virtuoso violinist Paganini and became suddenly determined to become as great a virtuoso on the piano as Paganini was on the violin. He often took to seclusion in his room, and was heard practicing for over five hours a day. In 1832-34 he wrote the Grande Fantaisie de Bravoure sur La Clochette de Paganini ("Grand Bravura Fantasy on Paganini's La Campanella").
Liszt was a prolific composer. Most of his music is for the piano and much of it requires formidable technique. His thoroughly revised masterwork, Années de Pèlerinage ("Years of Pilgrimage") arguably includes his most provocative and stirring pieces. This set of three suites ranges from the pure virtuosity of the Suisse Orage (Storm) to the subtle and imaginative visualizations of artworks by Michaelangelo and Raphael in the second set. Années contains some pieces which are loose transcriptions of Liszt's own earlier compositions; the first "year" recreates his early pieces of Album d'un voyageur, while the second book includes a resetting of his own song transcriptions once separately published as Tre sonetti di Petrarca ("Three sonnets of Petrarch"). The relative obscurity of the vast majority of his works may be explained by the immense number of pieces he composed. In his most famous and virtuosic works, he is the archetypal Romantic composer. Liszt pioneered the technique of thematic transformation, a method of development which was related to both the existing variation technique and to the new use of the leitmotif by Richard Wagner. Liszt was the first to perform a symphonic poem, although an unperformed piece by César Franck that is sometimes counted as a symphonic poem predates Liszt's first symphonic poem. Nevertheless, Liszt is generally accepted as the real inventor of the symphonic poem. A symphonic poem is a single-movement orchestral work usually based on a literary work or a character sketch. Liszt's inspiration came from classical literature, including "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne," based on a Victor Hugo poem of the same title, and "Les Préludes" from Lamartine. Other pieces are based on works by Lord Byron, Goethe and Dante. Liszt's symphonic poems represent his ideal and philosophy of "The Music of the Future", in which music and art and literature would all join together in a grand synthesis. Although the symphonic poems were generally successes, they were often criticised by those who preferred the traditional absolute music as exemplified by Johannes Brahms.
The third category, music of death, contains pieces where Liszt raised grief to high art. Memorials, elegies, funerals and other aspects of the grieving process find their place in this music. Again, a sampling of titles in this grouping:
- Funeral March for Emperor Maximilian
- Seven Hungarian Historical Portraits
- Széchenyi Isván (Lament)
- Eötvös Jôzsef
- Vörösmarty Mihály
- Teleki László (Funeral Music)
- Deák Ferenc
- Petõfi Sándor (In Memory of)
- Monsoni Mihály (Funeral Music)
- Funeral Prelude and Funeral March
- Elegy in Memory of Mme Mouchanoff
- Und wir dacten der Toten (And We Thought of the Dead)
Liszt's recitals traversed the European continent from the Urals to Ireland. He would often play before as many as three thousand people. He was the first solo pianist to play entire programmes from memory, and the first to play with the piano at right angles to the platform, with its lid open, reflecting sound across the auditorium. |
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