(https://www.memecreator.org/template/music-liszt)

Have I ever told you guys how much I love Romantic composers? I really do. Like a lot. As a piano player, I often feel that their music is what I aspire to play because somehow, they can convey so much emotion in just a handful of notes. Especially in the cases of Chopin and Liszt, emotion drives their music forward. I’m so excited to be writing about Liszt (literally my favorite composer of all time) that I’m listening to his music while typing this!

 

Along with Chopin, Liszt is one of the revolutionaries of the Romantic era. He created extremely complex melodies while increasing improvisation and rubato, all of which makes his music even more fascinating. Also, Liszt had uncommonly large hands. And you know what they say about big hands…

 

They can reach insanely difficult fingerings on the piano. (C’mon, mind out of the gutter people.) In fact, Liszt had extremely long fourth fingers which, according to WQXR Radio, “explain his notoriously difficult fingering suggestions,” and he could reach a 13th interval (that’s an octave and a fifth!!) on a piano. I can personally attest to those difficult fingerings, especially as someone with much smaller hands. How am I supposed to play his chords? My foot?! No problem.

 

While his large hands may have made him musically inclined, Liszt’s musical genius was really the key to his success. Like other composers, he was a child prodigy, traveling around Europe with his father to perform at just over ten years old in 1823. Like Chopin, he gave music lessons to the aristocracy of Paris to support himself and his mother. He also made friends with other composers, including Chopin but most notably Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner (who ended up marrying one of his daughters). He worked in Weimar, Germany, accepting a job in service of the Grand Duke and revolutionizing the city’s music institutions.

 

Liszt was one of the most flamboyant performers of his time. According to Classic FM, he started every performance “by ceremoniously removing a pair of white gloves,” which women would later fight over as he threw them into the crowd. He coined the term “recital” for his solo piano-only performances, he was the first to memorize his entire program, and he was the first to move the piano into recital halls to play in front of very large audiences. Not only that, but he also reinvented the art of conducting; his style included the passionate body gestures and tempo rubato (flexible speed of music) that have carried on to today’s performances. Liszt was pretty much a rock star in the world of European music!

 

Liszt had quite a tumultuous love life with royalty. His first wife was a countess, with whom he eloped to Switzerland, had three children, and separated in 1844. His real love affair was with the married yet separated Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein. In 1860, the Vatican granted her a marriage annulment, yet right before her marriage to Liszt, it was revoked by her husband and the Russian Tsar. Liszt and Carolyne were forced to maintain a purely platonic relationship until their deaths.

 

Liszt seemed to live life to the fullest. While traveling around Europe performing, Liszt became an avid Hungarian nationalist (even though he could speak very little Hungarian – he preferred German or French). After hearing of flooding in Hungary, he sponsored ten relief concerts, where all of the proceeds where donated. He also used his concerts to raise money for the Beethoven statue that stands today in Bonn, Germany. Then in 1861, he made a pilgrimage to a monastery near Rome, just casually befriending Pope Pius IX and receiving minor orders in the Catholic Church. This religious journey prompted more sacred compositions until his death in 1886.

 

Liszt composed a great deal of original works, ranging from his famous Hungarian Rhapsodies, musical poems, his Piano Concerto No. 1 that took 26 years to perfect, and his “Years of Pilgrimage” compilation. All of these pieces feature fiendishly tricky melodies where the musician seems to quite literally be flying over the piano keys, from “virtuosic fireworks to painfully emotive slow passages” as Classic FM puts it.

 

My personal favorite – I literally dream of playing this someday – is Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. He blends intense, dark beginning passages with a joyous ending that truly soars. Whenever I hear it, I always wonder how this is being played on a piano by a human being. It sounds out of this world. This tune might also be familiar to fans of Tom and Jerry – the intensity and vigor of the piece are perfect for the cartoon’s witty spats between the cat and mouse.

 

I hope you enjoyed learning about Liszt as much as I enjoy writing about him!

 

Here are some other great pieces by Liszt to check out!

Liebestraum (Love Dream)

Grandes Etudes de Paganini, S.141: No. 3 in G Sharp Minor – “La Campanella” – Liszt’s Etudes on Paganini were inspired by the great violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. These pieces are infamously difficult to play – if you listen you’ll hear why!

 

And of course, here’s our musical meme of the week!

(https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/humour/piano-music-memes/)

 

Here are my references:

“Does Hand Size Matter?” WQXR Radio, New York Public Radio, 2019, www.wqxr.org/story/does-hand-size-matter/.

“Liszt, Franz.” San Francisco Classical Voice, San Francisco Classical Voice, 2019, www.sfcv.org/learn/composer-gallery/liszt-franz.

“Liszt.” Classic FM, Global, 2019, www.classicfm.com/composers/liszt/.

Ross, Daniel. “Liszt’s Piano Music: Where To Start.” Classic FM, Global, 17 Sept. 2012, www.classicfm.com/composers/liszt/guides/liszts-piano-music-where-start/.

Weinberg, Rob. “Franz Liszt and Princess Carolyne Von Sayn-Wittgenstein.” Classic FM, Global, 11 Feb. 2014, www.classicfm.com/discover-music/occasions/valentines-day/greatest-classical-valentines/liszt-carolyne/.