Reflections on LisztIn a series of lively essays that tell us much not only about the phenomenon that was Franz Liszt but also about the musical and cultural life of nineteenth-century Europe, Alan Walker muses on aspects of Liszt's life and work that he was unable to explore in his acclaimed three-volume biography of the great composer and pianist. Topics include Liszt's contributions to the Lied, the lifelong impact of his encounter with Beethoven, his influence on students who became famous in their own right, his accomplishments in transcribing and editing the works of other composers, and his innovative piano technique. One chapter is devoted to the Sonata in B Minor, perhaps Liszt's single most celebrated composition. Walker draws heavily on Liszt's astonishingly large personal correspondence with other composers, critics, pianists, and prominent public figures. All the essays reveal Walker's broad and deep knowledge of Liszt and Romantic music generally and, in some cases, his impatience with contemporary performance practice. |
From inside the book
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... taken to deal with this correspondence would have been far better spent in creating new music. Yet deal with it he did. He wrote from his homes in Weimar, Rome, and Budapest; from hotels, from private residences where he stayed as a ...
... taken place.6 In the first, Beethoven's nephew Karl tells his uncle that the hall was “not full.” In the second, he again tells Beethoven that someone from the Blöchlinger Institute, a private school in Vienna which Karl was attending ...
... taken to Beethoven's lodgings, the only documented occasion when they were in one another's company.13 The most famous description of that private encounter was provided by Liszt to his Hungarian follower, Ilka Horowitz-Barnay. Although ...
... taken place. It was there that the fourteen-year-old Mozart had heard a performance of Allegri's “Miserere” and had then gone back to his lodgings in Rome and written it out from memory. On this particular occasion, Liszt continues, “it ...
... again the Halász lithograph would serve as “proof”of an event that had only ever existed in the imagination of his biographers. 1. NLB, p. 309. 2. NZfM, November 1891, no. 47, p. 503. 3. The first performance had taken place in Weimar a.
Contents
Liszt and the Schubert Song Transcriptions | |
A Study in Declining | |
Three Character Sketches | |
Liszts Sonata in B Minor | |
Liszt and the Lied | |
Liszt as Editor | |
Some Thoughts and Afterthoughts | |
On Music and Musicians | |
An Open Letter to Franz Liszt | |
Sources | |