Franz Liszt: life, compositions, and musical legacy

Franz Liszt was born in Raiding, Hungary, in 1811 and was known as one of the "leaders of the Romantic movement in music" (Walker). While Liszt never married, he did have three children with Maire d'Agoult. (Gmoser) it would appear that his public life was first and foremost in the pianist's mind. Indeed, he was a man of great ideas. He was innovative, developing new methods, that Walker maintains were "both imaginative and technical, which left their mark upon his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated some 20th-century ideas and procedures" (Walker). Liszt was a pianist, a composer, and teacher among other things and his influence was far and great.

Liszt is probably most known for his bringing music to the "adoring masses" (Goulding 241). In addition, he also "evolved the method of 'transformation of themes' as part of his revolution in form, made radical experiments in harmony and invented the symphonic poem for orchestra" (Walker). He created modern piano-playing technique and pioneered in harmony and form of piano composition. Goulding notes that on the "orchestral side, his great innovation was the symphonic poem" (241). His ideas were unique and popular and many other composers utilized them.

Schonberg states that Liszt was the "public's pianist... The one who made inarticulate apes of his audiences" (Schonberg 195). But there is no doubt that he was the "greatest piano virtuoso of his time" (Walker) using his "sensational technique and captivating concert personality not only for personal effect but to spread, through his transcriptions, knowledge of other composers' music" (Walker). He taught at Weimar and became "the most influential figure of the New German School dedicated to progress in music" (Walker). Liszt is known to for his technical brilliance, which shines through his music, specially the piano.

Liszt was first a pianist that settled in Europe but later he became "everything - composer, conductor, critic, litterateur, Don Juan, abbe, teacher, symbol, and at the end, the Grand Old Man of Music" (Schonberg 197). His life was not anything if it was not boring. He was a "mover and shaker, a rebel, a womanizer, a man of strong personality and enormous talent who exerted a major influence on nineteenth-century music" (Goulding 241). Goulding also maintains that Liszt was "perhaps the greatest pianist in history and unquestionably the greatest piano showman of all time" (Goulding 241). One of the reasons that he was influential was that he lived for so long, something that allowed him to influence others.

Gmoser asserts that Liszt is known primarily for his Hungarian Rhapsodies but that his symphonic poems are of great significance because of their form. Les Preludes and Hamlet represent the pianist's symphonic poem. (Gmoser 72) Liszt also left his mark on operatic paraphrases for solo piano.

Compared to the other composers, who were writing flashy introductions, Liszt's paraphrases and fantasies on operas were a "bolt of lightening against the flicker of a candle. He threw themes together in a contrapuntal melange; he changed harmonies; he exploited to the utmost every technical resource of his pianistic genius" (Schonberg 204). It seemed that there was no aspect of music in which Liszt could conquer.