Franz Liszt: The Modern Pianist
Who exactly is Franz Liszt? He is called the Priest of the Piano, The Wizard of the Piano, the Great Technician, the Prophet, even a Freak of Nature! Yes, he could and did match every name stated but Liszt is nothing short of a genius and a musical giant among the many composers of the past! Among the many composers, none have come to the point of making a mark in every genre of music as Liszt accomplished. The question is: How exactly did Franz Liszt enhance the world of music as we know it? Liszt accomplished this through his ingenious musical innovations and through diligent work of specific pianistic innovations.
Franz Joseph Liszt was born in the town of Raiding, Hungary in the year 1811 to Adam Liszt and Maria Anna Lager. Liszt’s father Adam Liszt was a musician and played the Esterhazy orchestra. He played cello, piano, violin and sang bass. Liszt started to show signs of his musical genius at the early age of six. Adam Liszt wrote in one of his journals:”After his vaccination, a period commenced in which the boy had to struggle alternately with nervous pains and fever, which more than once impelled his life. On one occasion, during his second or third year, we thought him dead and ordered his coffin made. This agitated condition lasted until his sixth year. In that same year he heard me play Rie’s Concerto in C-sharp minor. Franz, bending over piano, was completely absorbed. In the evening, coming in from a short walk in the garden, he sang the theme of the concerto. We made him sang it again. He did not know what he was singing. That was the first indication of his genius.” Franz’s father began to give him lessons at the piano in which Franz showed phenomenal progress. He was able to impr...
... middle of paper ...
...ns have earned him a spot in musical history that is truly unmatched or unparalleled by any composer before or after him. He is and will forever be considered the greatest pianist and one of the greatest musical minds to walk the face of the earth. Not everything Liszt has accomplished can be attained in a college scholastic paper or even books one can suspect. It is safe to say that the legacy of the great Franz Liszt will continue to live on in the world of music now and for tomorrow’s generation.
Works Cited
Gibbs, Christopher Howard, and Dana Gooley. Franz Liszt and His World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Walker, Alan. Franz Liszt, The Virtuoso Years, 1811-1847. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983.
Walker, Alan. Franz Liszt: The Man and His Music. New York: Taplinger Pub. Co., 1970.
Sitwell, Sacheverell. Liszt. New York: Dover Publications, 1967.
Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a cosmopolitan European composer and piano virtuoso of the Romantic era. Although it was his place of birth, Liszt spent most of his formative years away from Hungary, though he returned to his homeland many times over the course of his life. Liszt’s allegiance to Hungary can be found in many of his compositions through the Hungarian-Gypsy folk idiom verbunkos; however, most analyses of his “Hungarian” music are oversimplified and exoticist because of a nationalist perspective. Shay Loya, a contemporary Lisztian scholar, asserts that focusing on Liszt’s “Hungarian” works from a purely nationalistic perspective “obscures the real extent of the verbunkos idiom in Liszt’s compositions as well as the complex interaction of that idiom with other topics and styles, and ultimately with other expressions of identity.” With this in consideration, I intend to use a transcultural approach to analyze the influence of verbunkos idiom in the music of Franz Liszt. Liszt incorporated the verbunkos idiom into “Hungarian” works, along with works that were not nationally allied, to further both Romantic and Modernist ideals in his music.
It was not only until the spring of that year that he for first time left Hamburg professionally. He undertook a tour with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Remenyi for the purpose of introducing himself and his works. At Gottingen they gave a concert in which the young pianist made a deep impression upon the musicians present. He and Remenyi were to play Beethoven?s Kreutzer sonata, but at the last moment it was discovered that the piano was half a tone too low.
Janice B. Stockigt, Jan Dismas Zelenka, 1679 – 1745: A Bohemian Musician at the Court of Dresden (Oxford, 2000)
Susskind, Pamela. "Clara Schumann." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie and George Grove. 1980. Print.
This is the second volume of Richard Taruskin's historical work, and it highlights composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He examines the progression of different styles and eras of music.
The fact that his contemporaries gave him many awards proves that he was one of the greatest composers of his time. Still, the strongest point in proving his greatness is that fact that he was able to adapt to the changes around him. By his own admission, "...an entirely new public for music had grown up around the radio and phonograph. It made no sense to ignore them and to continue writing as if they did not exist. I felt that it was worth the effort to see if I couldn't say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms." His success in changing to the times speaks volumes about his ingenuity. Many people have an extremely difficult time dealing with
This site, based on a television presentation by the PBS, gives further information on Chopin. In contains a transcript of the television presentation, a chronology of major events in Chopin’s life, interviews with Chopin’s grandson, David Chopin and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese of Emory University, and shares links on the author.
The brilliant composer Clara Schumann was born as Clara Josephine Wieck on 13 September 1819. Even before her birth, her destiny was to become a famous musician. Her father, Friedrich Wieck, was a piano teacher and music dealer, while her mother, Marianne Wieck, was a soprano and a concert pianist and her family was very musically gifted. Her father, Friedrich, wanted to prove to the world that his teaching methods could produce a famous pianist, so he decided, before Clara’s birth, that she would become that pianist. Clara’s father’s wish came true, as his daughter ended up becoming a child prodigy and one of the most famous female composers of her time.
Schubert's instrumental works show development over a long period of time, but some of his greatest songs were composed before he was 20 years old. In Schubert's songs the literary and musical elements are perfectly balanced, composed on the same intellectual and emotional level. Although Schubert composed strophic songs throughout his career, he did not follow set patterns but exploited bold and free forms when the text demanded it. Except for his early training as a child, Schubert the composer, was largely untrained and self-taught. His gift of being able to create melodies that contained both easy naturalness and sophisticated twists at the same time was unprecedented for his time. On this quality rests the reputation that music history finally gave Schubert.
Newman, Ernest “Bach, Johann Sebastian.” The International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, 1985, 11th Edition, pp. 102-108
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 535-625. Print.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1985.
Danson, Lawrence. The Harmonies of The Merchant of Venice. Great Britain: Yale University Press, 1978. Print.
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Heritage of American Literature. Ed. James E. Miller. Vol 2. Austin: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.487.Print.
As a youth he reluctantly studied law, as much bore by it as Schumann had been, and even became a petty clerk in the Ministry of Justice. But in his early twenties he rebelled, and against his family's wishes had the courage to throw himself into the study of music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He was a ready improviser, playing well for dancing and had a naturally rich sense of harmony, but was so little schooled as to be astonished when a cousin told him it was possible to modulate form any key to another. He went frequently to the Italian operas which at that time almost monopolized the Russian stage, and laid t...