Franz Liszt
Hungarian Romantic piano titan who invented the symphonic poem
1811
1886
Hungarian
Romantic
Hungarian Rhapsodies, Liebesträum, Piano Sonata in B minor
Early life
Franz Liszt was born on 22 October 1811 in Raiding, in the Kingdom of Hungary (now Austria). His father, Adam Liszt, an amateur musician in the service of the Esterházy family, recognised his son's prodigious talent early and moved the family to Vienna, where the boy studied piano with Carl Czerny and composition with Antonio Salieri. By his early teens Liszt was performing across Europe to rapturous audiences, and after settling in Paris he became the most celebrated pianist of the nineteenth century — audiences responded to his performances with an intensity that the poet Heinrich Heine termed 'Lisztomania.'
Career and major works
Liszt essentially invented the solo piano recital as a public art form, and his virtuosity pushed the technical boundaries of piano playing into previously uncharted territory. His compositions for piano are central to the Romantic repertoire: the twelve Transcendental Études (1851), the Sonata in B minor (1853) — a single-movement work of revolutionary formal design — the Hungarian Rhapsodies, the Années de pèlerinage, and the Liebesträume are all landmarks. Beyond the piano, Liszt created the symphonic poem as a genre, composing thirteen such works including Les Préludes (1854) and Hamlet (1858), as well as the Faust Symphony (1857) and the Dante Symphony (1856). As conductor and music director at Weimar from 1848 to 1861, he championed the music of Wagner, Berlioz, and other progressive composers.
Musical style and legacy
In later life Liszt took minor orders in the Catholic Church and composed a body of visionary late piano works — including Nuages gris and La lugubre gondola — whose spare textures and dissonant harmonies anticipate Debussy and Bartók. His influence on the development of piano technique, orchestral colour, thematic transformation, and harmonic language was immense, touching virtually every significant composer who came after him. He died in Bayreuth on 31 July 1886.