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Volume I. The virtuoso years: 1811-1847. Liszt and the literature -- Liszt's family background -- Book one. The young prodigy, 1811-1829. Childhood in Hungary. The great comet of 1811 ; Birth in Raiding ; Family hardships ; Childhood sickness ; Mistaken for dead ; His musical awakening ; First piano lessons from Adam Liszt ; Growing up in Hungary ; Influence of church and gypsies ; Adam appeals to Prince Esterhazy ; A first encounter with Czerny: "Nature herself had formed a pianist" ; Debut in Oedenburg ; Triumph in Pressburg and departure for Vienna -- Vienna, 1821-1823. Settling down in Vienna ; Piano lessons with Czerny ; Theoretical studies with Salieri ; Salieri's letter ; "Franzi's" first published composition ; Debut in Vienna's town hall ; The press dub him "Little Hercules" ; Plays in the Vienna Redoutensaal ; The myth of Beethoven's public embrace ; A visit to Beethoven ; A farewell journey to Hungary, May 1823: "I am Hungarian" ; Plays to the Franciscan fathers in the monastery at Pest -- Paris and the first world tours. The tours begin ; Prince Metternich intercedes ; Liszt plays in Munich, Augsburg, Stuttgart, and Strassburg ; Arrival in France ; Friendship with the family Erard ; Cherubini refuses to admit Liszt to the Paris Conservatoire ; Studies with Reicha and Paer instead ; Liszt is taken up by the Paris press: "Le petit Litz" ; Two visits to England, 1824-25 ; A letter from Adam Liszt ; Don Sanche produced in Paris, October 1825 ; Maturing piano style: twelve studies ; A third visit to England, 1827 -- The death of Liszt's father. Adam Liszt dies at Boulogne-sur-Mer ; Adam's burial ; A letter of condolence from Count Amade ; Alone in Boulogne -- Obscurity in Paris. Returns to Paris ; Likens himself to the learned dog Munito ; Supports himself and his mother by teaching ; Falls in love with a pupil, Caroline de Saint-Cricq ; Is rejected by her father ; Suffers a nervous breakdown ; Experiences longing to become a priest ; He is reported dead ; His obituary appears in Le Corsaire, October 23, 1828 ; A meeting with von Lenz ; Friendship with Urhan ; Discovers French literature ; Composes his first operatic fantasy, on La Fiancee -- Book two. The growing virtuoso, 1830-1834. After the July revolution. The last days of Restoration France ; The "Three glorious days" ; A "Revolutionary symphony" ; In the salons of the Faubourg St.-Germain ; More love-affairs: Countess Adele Laprunarede ; Paris is struck by cholera ; "L'Idiote melomane" ; Attends the meetings of the Saint-Simonists ; Visits the Abbe Felicite Lamennais at La Chenaie ; First mature piano works ; Essay "On the position of artists" -- A riot of pianists. Pianists galore ; Some gladiators of the keyboard ; The workshops of Erard and Pleyel ; The Paris Conservatoire as "piano factory" ; The wit of Heine ; The piano catches fire from the opera house -- Paganini. Paganini's virtuosity ; His necromantic personality ; "In league with the Devil" ; The Casino Paganini ; Liszt hears Paganini for the first time ; "And I too am an artist!" ; The Clochette fantasy ; The death and burials of Paganini ; Liszt publishes an obituary of him -- Friends and contemporaries: Berlioz and Chopin. Liszt and Berlioz ; Paganini's gift of 20,000 francs ; Liszt makes a piano arrangement of the Fantastic symphony ; Liszt and Chopin ; Chopin's approach to the keyboard ; L'affaire Pleyel ; Alkan and Hiller -- Enter Marie d'Agoult. Liszt is introduced to Countess Marie d'Agoult ; An account of their first meeting ; Her childhood and family background ; The Flavignys ; An unhappy marriage to Count Charles d'Agoult ; The love-affair with Liszt develops ; Marie visits a clairvoyant ; Liszt and Marie elope to Switzerland -- Book three. The years of pilgrimage, 1835-1839. Elopement to Geneva. A tryst in Basel, June 1835 ; Arrival in Geneva ; At the rue Tabazan ; The first Letters of a Bachelor of Music appear ; Pursued by "Puzzi" Cohen ; Birth of Blandine ; Liszt becomes a professor of piano at the Geneva Conservatoire ; The Annees de pelerinage: "Suisse" ; A picnic at Chamonix ; Liszt plays the organ at Fribourg ; Return to Paris: the Hotel de France ; "An evening with the Gods" -- The lion shakes his mane: Liszt's duel with Thalberg. Thalberg's organs ; His playing ; He releases "Handfuls of pearls" ; The "Three-handed" effect ; The French newspaper war ; Fetis champions Thalberg; Berlioz champions Liszt ; Liszt's opinion of Thalberg's compositions ; His "Duel" with Thalberg in the salon of Princess Belgiojoso ; The Hexameron variations ; Thalberg's later years -- Switzerland and Italy. A visit to Nohant ; Commences his Schubert song transcriptions ; Liszt plays for the weavers of Lyon ; A sojourn by Lake Bellagio ; Birth of Cosima ; A secret police report ; He meets Ricordi and Rossini ; A concert in La Scala ; From Milan to Venice ; Marie d'Agoult falls ill -- After the flood in Hungary, 1838-1939. The Danube overflows its banks ; The inundation of Pest ; Liszt's charity concerts in Vienna ; Raises 24,000 gulden for Hungary ; Love of Hungary is reawakened ; Transcribes more Schubert songs ; Meets his relatives in Vienna ; Returns to Venice ; Quarrels with Marie d'Agoult ; Marie's account in the Memoires questioned ; They move to Lake Lugano ; Liszt's life is threatened in Milan ; Reunited with Blandine ; Birth of Daniel Liszt in Rome ; Offers to raise money for the erection of a Beethoven monument in Bonn ; The Beethoven Committee's reply ; Compositions of the Italian period ; Marie returns to Paris and Liszt proceeds to Vienna -- |
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Volume I (continued) -- Book four. The years of transcendental execution, 1839-1847. Liszt and the keyboard. The modern piano recital is created ; Liszt's feats of memory ; Some bad pianos ; Liszt's decorations ; A letter of protest to the Gazette Musicale ; Liszt and Tsar Nicholas ; Hans Christian Andersen hears Liszt ; Genie oblige! ; A letter to Adolphe Pictet ; Liszt's approach to keyboard technique: fingering, scale-building, octaves, etc. ; The anatomy of Liszt's hand ; The origin of the transcendental and the Paganini studies ; Liszt's expression marks and pedalling ; His preference for Erard pianos; a letter of appreciation to Pierre Erard ; Liszt's interpretation of the classics -- A prodigal returns to Hungary, 1839-1840. Liszt returns to Hungary ; A triumphal reception awaits him in Pest ; The search for Liszt's "Aristocratic descent" ; He is presented with a "Sword of Honour" by leading Hungarian noblemen: his speech of acceptance ; The ceremony is misunderstood beyond Hungary's borders ; Liszt takes up the pen against his critics ; He raises money for a Hungarian National Conservatory of music ; He revisits the Franciscan monks in Pest ; He receives the freedom of the city of Oedenburg ; Liszt sees again his birthplace in Raiding ; A visit to the gypsies; he describes their encampment ; The Hungarian Rhapsodies are born ; The case of "Josi" Sarai, the gypsy violinist -- The world tours I: Prague, Leipzig, and London, 1840-1841. At Prague ; A report in Bohemia ; Meets Robert Schumann in Dresden ; Concerts in the Leipzig Gewandhaus ; Schumann's reviews in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik ; Musical lie in Leipzig ; Encounters with Mendelssohn ; Back in Paris ; A visit to London, May-June 1840 ; Makes history with his "Piano recitals" ; A report in The Times ; Liszt tours Britain with John Orlando Parry ; The Parry diaries ; Louis Lavenu, Liszt's English impresario, goes bankrupt -- The world tours II: Berlin and St. Petersburg, 1841-1842. Liszt appoints Gaetano Belloni as his manager ; Friendship with Prince Felix Lichnowsky ; On the island of Nonnenwerth ; Liszt becomes a freemason ; A triumph in Berlin ; "Lisztomania" ; First visits to St. Petersburg and Moscow ; Stasov's reminiscences ; The Moscow gypsies ; Meets Glinka and Adolf Henselt ; The Gretry festival in Brussels ; Invested with the cross of the lion of Belgium ; A cool reception in Paris -- Marie d'Agoult becomes "Daniel Stern": Nelida versus Guermann. Marie d'Agoult rehabilitates herself in Paris ; Her rapprochement with the Flavigny family and Charles d'Agoult ; The emergence of "Daniel Stern" ; Girardin and La Presse ; Marie's changing relationship with Liszt ; Lola Montez ; The birth of the novel Nelida ; Liszt's attitude towards that book ; The final rupture with Liszt, April-May 1844 ; Liszt's tour of the Spanish Peninsula ; He meets Caroline d'Artigaux in Pau ; His concerts in Madrid, Seville, and Lisbon ; He proposes marriage to Valentine de Cessiat -- The Beethoven monument unveiled in Bonn, 1845. Problems in Bonn ; Getting ready for the Beethoven festival ; Liszt demands an auditorium ; Of mice and men ; Some criticism from Schindler ; Queen Victoria arrives to see Beethoven's statue unveiled ; A ceremony in the sun ; A drunken brawl in the Golden Star ; Liszt is attacked for his handling of the festival -- The world tours III: Transylvania, Russia, and Turkey, 1846-1847. The curse of Mazeppa ; Taken ill in Cologne ; Returns to Hungary and stays with Antal Augusz in Szekszard ; Liszt tours Transylvania ; The "King of the gypsies" ; Receives the freedom of the city of Arad ; Two weeks in Bucharest ; A last sojourn in Russia ; Meets Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein ; Travels to Constantinople and plays before Sultan Abdul Medjid Khan ; Last concerts in Odessa and Elisabetgrad ; Retires from the concert platform -- Appendix. Catalogue of works which Liszt played in public, 1838-48, compiled by himself. |
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Volume two. The Weimar years, 1848-1861. A giant in Lilliput -- Book one. New beginnings, 1847-1848. Enter Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein. The character of Carolyne Iwanowska ; Her childhood in the Ukraine ; Her relationship with her mother and father ; Her marriage to Prince Nicholas von Sayn-Wittgenstein ; The death of her father, Peter Iwanowsky ; Carolyne inherits a fortune ; The chateau Woronince ; Liszt meets Carolyne in Kiev, February 1847 ; He visits her in Woronince ; He is introduced to her daughter, Princess Marie, and her husband, Prince Nicholas -- The journeys of the Princess, 1847-1848. Chronicles of an adventure ; A winter journey ; A sojourn in St. Petersburg ; She hears the music of Berlioz ; Growing love for Liszt ; Carolyne and Liszt meet again in Odessa, July 1847 ; Liszt gives his "farewell" concert in Elisabetgrad, September 1847 ; The lovers of Woronince ; Glanes de Woronince ; Liszt sets out for Weimar ; Carolyne leaves for Kiev to sell her estates ; Farewell to the Ukraine ; Liszt and Carolyne are re-united at Kryzanowicz -- Funerailles, 1848-1849. The seeds of the '48 revolutions ; The awakening of Hungarian nationalism ; Szechenyi, Kossuth, and Batthyany ; The Hungarian war of independence ; The evacuation of Pest ; The victories of General Artur Gorgey ; The Hungarian Declaration of Independence ; Pest re-taken ; The Russian intervention, June 1849 ; The surrender at Vilagos ; Batthyany executed ; Kossuth goes into exile ; Liszt and Carolyne travel to Vienna and Eisenstadt ; A visit to Father Albach ; Liszt's attitude to the war of independence ; Heine's poem against Liszt, Im Oktober 1849 ; Funerailles, October 1849 ; Liszt and Carolyne take up residence in Weimar -- The Altenburg. A history of the Altenburg ; The ownership of the house ; A description of its interior ; The household staff ; Liszt's domestic routine ; Social life at the Altenburg ; Carolyne's difficulties with the Weimar Court ; Her liaison with Liszt criticized ; Liszt in trouble with the law: "The Weimarers are all donkeys" ; The Altenburg becomes a Mecca for modern music -- Book two. Court and Kapellmeister, 1848-1853. Music at the court of Weimar. Weimar in the time of Grand Duke Carl August ; "The Athens of the North" ; Goethe and Schiller ; Liszt's first visit to Weimar, November 1841 ; He becomes Weimar's Kapellmeister in extraordinary, November 1842 ; His fledgling attempts at conducting ; The poor state of the Weimar orchestra and opera house ; Liszt's struggles with the bureaucracy ; His relations with Hereditary Grand Duke Carl Alexander -- The years of struggle I, 1849-1852. Liszt and Wagner ; Wagner and the Dresden insurrection, May 1849 ; Liszt performs Tannhauser and takes up Wagner's cause ; The Goethe festival, August 1849 ; The Herder festival, August, 1850 ; Liszt gives the world premiere of Wagner's Lohengrin ; He proposes a Goethe foundation in Weimar ; Wagner's critique of that idea ; Hans Christian Andersen visits Weimar ; Liszt and the "black-cloaked witch" ; Liszt on the Weimar podium -- The years of struggle II, 1849-1853. Liszt takes stock of his position ; He conducts Beethoven's ninth at the Ballenstedt festival ; A visit to Braunschweig ; The illness of Princess Carolyne ; Her treatments at Bad Eilsen ; An encounter with Clara Schumann ; Prince Nicholas visits Weimar ; He and Carolyne draw up a property settlement ; Carolyne's dispute with Tsar Nicholas I ; Princess Marie is confirmed in Weimar ; Anna Liszt visits Weimar ; Liszt's piano compositions of the early Weimar years ; He revises the pieces of his Glanzzeit ; Liszt and the piano sonata in B minor and its dedication to Schumann ; Liszt and the Weimar organists ; He studies the music of J.S. Bach ; "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam" ; The first "Berlioz week" ; More Wagner: Der fliegende Hollander, Tannhauser, and Lohengrin ; Liszt complains to Carl Alexander about his working conditions ; The death of Carl Friedrich intervenes ; Carl Alexander ascends the throne: "The word must now become the deed" -- A gathering of eagles. Liszt and his pupils ; The "Altenburg eagles" ; Hans von Bulow and his special relationship to Liszt ; An account of Bulow's personality ; Carl Tausig arrives in Weimar ; His lessons with Liszt and his subsequent career ; "The boys": Karl Klindworth, Hans von Bronsart, William Mason, and Dionys Pruckner ; An account of their masterclasses with Liszt ; Mason's diary ; Cornelius takes up residence at the Altenburg ; The "twenty-one steps" ; Julius Reubke and Alexander Ritter ; Ritter's championship of the new music -- The Raff case. Liszt meets Raff in Basel, 1845 ; Together in the Rhineland ; Raff arrives in Weimar, January 1850 ; He goes to jail for debt ; Raff's claim to be Liszt's "collaborator" ; His correspondence with Kunigunde Heinrich ; The Raff question today ; William Mason on Tasso ; Princess Carolyne on Raff -- Liebestraum. Agnes Street-Klindworth arrives in Weimar ; La Mara's account of her re-examined ; Her connection with Liszt ; Her family background and her role in the espionage network run by her father, Georg Klindworth ; The uncensored letters of Liszt to Agnes reveal his emotional attachment to her ; Their trysts in Cologne and Berlin, 1855 ; Agnes's relationship with Ferdinand Lassalle ; They are trailed by the secret police ; The death of their daughter Fernande ; Princess Carolyne and the aftermath of the Agnes affair ; Agnes dies in Paris in 1906 -- Book three. The years of maturity, 1853-1857. Growing achievements, 1853-1855. The Altenburg matinees ; The "Society of Murls" ; Brahms at the Altenburg ; Liszt visits Wagner in Zurich ; The Karlsruhe festival ; Liszt and the Murls visit Wagner in Basel ; Wagner reads them the Nibelungen poem ; Liszt's sojourn in Paris ; He is re-united with his three children ; Liszt's deepening relationship with Wagner ; The latter's impecunity ; The nature of Liszt's material and artistic help ; Liszt's attempts to secure Wagner's amnesty ; Hoffman von Fallersleben takes up residence in Weimar ; The Rotterdam music festival, 1854 ; Meetings with Anton Rubinstein ; George Eliot at the Altenburg ; Her "Three months in Weimar" ; Liszt founds the Neu-Weimar-Verein ; Its constitution and membership ; The second "Berlioz week," February 1855 ; A banquet for Berlioz ; Deteriorating relations with Rubinstein ; The thirty-third Lower Rhine festival in Dusseldorf ; Another encounter with Clara Schumann ; Liszt and America ; The inauguration of the Merseburg organ, September 1855 ; Liszt conducts in Brunswick ; Liszt conducts in Berlin ; His thirteenth psalm ; The Berlin production of Tannhauser ; Lengthening shadows -- Liszt the conductor. His rehearsal methods considered ; Comparison with other conductors ; The low quality of European orchestras in general ; The outcast "profession" of musician ; Liszt's reforms on the podium ; He directs the Karlsruhe festival and attracts criticism ; He replies with his "Manifesto" on conducting ; Liszt's conducting career reviewed ; His failures in Leipzig and Dresden ; Liszt's legacy -- Liszt and the orchestra. The general reception of Liszt's orchestral works ; His Weimar output ; The origins of the symphonic poem ; Liszt and "programme music" ; The role of the prefaces in the understanding of the symphonic poems, and Carolyne's literary contribution ; The prophetic nature of the orchestral works ; The "metamorphosis of themes" technique ; Liszt's quest for orchestral colour ; His treatment of the various instruments ; The influence on him of the Weimar virtuosi: Nabich, Joachim, Cossmann, and Eyth ; The structure of the symphonic poems ; Liszt and cuts ; Some "Cuffs for cowardly ears" ; Liszt, Goethe, and the Faust symphony ; The influence of Liszt on later composers -- |
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Volume two (continued). The war of the Romantics. Seeds of dissension ; Leipzig versus Weimar ; The changing role of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik ; The growing hostility of the Schumanns ; Joachim and Brahms join the Schumann camp ; The "Manifesto" of Brahms and Joachim against the New German school ; The role of Wagner in the "war" ; His accounts in Mein Leben ; The impact of Das Judenthum in der Musik (1850) ; The aesthetic issues of the "war" ; Programme music versus absolute music ; The emergence of Hanslick ; Hanslick's book Vom Musikalisch-Schonen (1854) ; Brendel and Bronsart as champions of the New German school ; Richard Pohl as "Hoplit" ; The "war" in perspective -- The scribe of Weimar. Liszt as author ; His writings compared with those of Berlioz and Wagner ; The authenticity of Liszt's articles questioned ; A review of the Liszt holographs ; Liszt's view of himself as an author ; Marie Wittgenstein's eye-witness testimony ; Liszt's books on Chopin and Des Bohemiens considered ; The controversy surrounding Des Bohemiens: Magyar or Gypsy music? ; Simonffy's protest ; Bartok's defence of Liszt ; The Jewish question raised in Des Bohemiens ; Liszt's theoretical picture of music as it emerges from his writings ; The artist as priest: "the bearer of the beautiful" ; Liszt's view of the critic ; His criticism of criticism ; "Whence does the critic derive his authority" ; Liszt's reply -- Vienna, Gran, and Aachen, 1856-1857. Liszt directs the Mozart centenary festival in Vienna, January 1856 ; Hanslick's hostility towards Liszt ; Sojourns in Prague and Dresden ; Berlioz directs his Damnation of Faust in Weimar ; Johanna Wagner comes to Weimar ; Marie Lipsius meets Liszt ; She hears him play ; Liszt conducts Beethoven's ninth at Magdeburg ; He returns to Hungary and conducts his "Gran" Mass, August 31, 1856 ; He meets Cardinal Scitovszky, Augusz, Festetics, and other dignitaries in Hungary ; He is feted in Pest ; Conducts his Hungaria in the Pest national theatre ; The "Gran" Mass performed in Prague ; Liszt visits Wagner in Zurich, October 1856 ; He plays the Faust and Dante symphonies on the piano to Wagner, and parts of Walkure ; Wagner and Liszt share the direction of a concert in St. Gallen ; Liszt's performance of the Hammerklavier sonata ; Liszt and Carolyne fall ill in Zurich ; Wagner's open letter on "Liszt's symphonic poems" ; Liszt's illness persists: he seeks medical opinion ; Bulow premieres the B-minor piano sonata in Berlin, January 1857 ; The failure of Mazeppa in Leipzig, February 1857 ; Liszt directs the thirty-fifth Lower Rhine festival in Aachen ; Hiller mounts a public demonstration against him ; Liszt seeks a water-cure in Aachen -- Book four. Gathering storms, 1857-1861. Liszt and his children. Their early life with Anna Liszt in Paris ; Their letters to Liszt ; Blandine and Cosima are enrolled at Madame Bernard's boarding-school ; A reunion with Marie d'Agoult ; Childhood confessions and fatherly admonitions ; Enter Madame Patersi, "the great instructress" ; The rigour of their daily life under Patersi ; Fresh encounters with Marie d'Agoult ; They visit La Maison Rose ; Liszt comes to Paris, October 1853 ; Of dowries and suitors ; A trip to Brussels ; "Two hours in a carriage" ; "A wet rag" ; Liszt removes his daughters to Berlin, summer 1855 ; A mother's fury, a father's scorn ; Life in Berlin with the Bulows ; Cosima and Hans von Bulow fall in love ; Strained relations with Franziska von Bulow ; Cosima and Hans are married ; They visit Wagner in Zurich ; Bulow sight-reads Rheingold and Walkure ; Blandine meets Emile Ollivier ; They marry in Florence ; Emile quarrels with Marie d'Agoult ; A description of the Olliviers' salon in Paris ; Ollivier purchases La Moutte ; Liszt gives his daughters a dowry ; Daniel Liszt's early childhood in Paris ; Begins his classical studies, age six ; He is admitted to the Lycee Bonaparte ; Wins the Prix d'Honneur (1856) ; Dinner with Marshal Pelissier ; Daniel's visits to the Altenburg ; Growing attachment to his father ; The clergy or the law? ; Daniel pursues jurisprudence in Vienna -- The death of Daniel Liszt. Daniel is installed in Vienna ; His university studies ; Friendship with Tausig ; Growing acquaintance with his father's music ; The "Gran" Mass in Vienna, the symphonic poems in Prague ; Daniel visits Cosima in Berlin ; He complains of sickness ; Tuberculosis diagnosed ; The end approaches ; He dies in Cosima's arms ; Liszt's description of Daniel's last hours and the funeral ceremony ; "Blessed are the dead" -- Of triumph and tragedy, 1857-1859. The Carl August centenary festival ; The Goethe-Schiller monument unveiled ; The Faust symphony has its premiere ; Dingelstedt makes trouble ; Des Meisters Bannerschaft ; The failure of the Dante symphony in Dresden ; Sivori plays in Weimar ; Liszt conducts in Prague, Vienna, and Pest ; Liszt is admitted as a "confrater" of St. Francis, April 1858 ; Cornelius and The Barber of Bagdad ; The fiasco of The Barber ; Liszt steps down from the Weimar podium ; The aftermath ; Letters to the press ; The attitude of Carl Alexander ; Wagner asks for money ; Liszt receives an Austrian knighthood ; The Handel centenary ; The Tonkunstler-Versammlung meets in Leipzig ; Maria Pawlowna dies in Weimar ; "Today old Weimar is buried in that coffin" -- Of marriage and divorce. Suitors for the hand of Princess Marie ; The link between Marie's marriage and Carolyne's divorce ; The Iwanowsky fortune ; Okraszewsky offers to arrange Carolyne's Russian annulment for 70,000 roubles ; Marie marries Prince Konstantin Hohenlohe ; Carolyne journeys to Paris ; Okraszewsky returns to Weimar with Carolyne's annulment ; The bishop of Fulda suspends it ; Carolyne goes to Rome and appeals to the Vatican ; The Hohenlohes and the Wittgensteins become her adversaries ; Carolyne's first audience with Pius IX ; The College of Cardinals upholds Carolyne's annulment -- Liszt makes a testament and leaves Weimar, 1860-1861. Liszt petitions Carl Alexander to help Carolyne secure her annulment ; Tsar Alexander is asked to influence the Russian delegation in Rome ; Weimar starts to honour Liszt ; He receives the freedom of the city of Weimar ; Liszt draws up his will ; Completes six of his most important operatic paraphrases, on works by Verdi, Wagner, and Gounod ; Cosima gives birth to Daniela and falls ill ; Carolyne's annulment moves forward ; Liszt goes to Vienna, where he is confronted by Gustav Hohenlohe and the nuncio to Vienna ; Liszt in Paris ; An evening at the Lamartines' ; He meets Napoleon III, who elevates him to the rank of Commander of the Legion of Honour ; He sees Marie d'Agoult again ; He visits Wagner, to whom he plays the B-A-C-H prelude and fugue ; The Liszt-Wagner friendship in decline ; The Tonkunstler-Versammlung meets in Weimar ; Liszt closes down the Altenburg and departs for Rome -- Appendix I. The wills of Liszt and Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein -- Appendix II. The Vatican's marriage-file on Liszt and Carolyne Iwanowska -- Appendix III. Daniel Liszt's birth certificate. |
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Volume three. The final years: 1861-1886. Franz Liszt: King Lear of music -- Book one. From Weimar to Rome 1861-1865. A thwarted marriage. Liszt says farewell to Weimar and sets out for Rome ; He arrives in the Eternal City on October, 20, where he is reunited with Princess Carolyne after a separation of eighteen months ; Their wedding is planned for October 22, his fiftieth birthday, but it is abruptly cancelled on the eve of the ceremony by order of the president of the Holy Congregation, Cardinal Caterini ; Aftershocks and recriminations ; Carolyne blames "scheming Russian intrigues" ; The role of Gustav Hohenlohe in the thwarted marriage considered ; Carolyne takes up permanent residence in Rome, and lives at Via del Babuino 89 ; Liszt moves to Via Felice 113, uncertain what to do and where to go -- The eternal city. Liszt explores Rome's architecture: the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel, the Forum, and the Baths of Diocletian ; He laments the lack of public concerts and describes Rome as a "musical wilderness" ; He acquires two new pupils: Giovanni Sgambati and Walter Bache ; He strikes up friendships with important clerics, including Monsignor Francesco Nardi ; His compositions include the two concert studies Waldesrauschen and Gnomenreigen and the "Weinen, Klagen" variations -- The death of Blandine, 1862. Blandine gives birth to Daniel ; Post-natal complications ; The treatments of Dr. Charles Isnard ; The death of Blandine, September 11, 1862 ; Ollivier visits Liszt in Rome ; Ollivier returns to La Moutte and falls ill ; After seven years he takes a second wife, Marie-Therese Gravier -- The Madonna del Rosario, 1863-1865. Liszt withdraws to the Madonna del Rosario ; A description of the monastery ; He is visited by Pius IX and a clerical entourage on July 11, 1863 ; Pius sings Bellini and Liszt accompanies ; Liszt composes his two Franciscan legends in the monastery ; Among his callers are Walter Bache, Eduard Remenyi, and the diplomat Kurd von Schlozer ; Liszt completes his Beethoven symphony transcriptions ; At the pope's request Liszt plays in Rome at a charity concert for Peter's Pence ; The pope invites him to his summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo ; He attends the Tonkunstler-Versammlung festival at Karlsruhe ; He visits Cosima and Hans von Bulow at Starnberg Lake ; The growing turmoil between Cosima, Hans and Wagner ; Cosima confides to Liszt that her marriage to Hans is about to collapse ; Liszt takes Cosima with him on his travels to Germany to keep her away from Wagner ; Liszt's first return to Weimar since leaving the city ; He meets Carl Alexander, who vainly tries to persuade him to return to the city ; Liszt and Cosima travel to Paris and thence to Saint-Tropez where they visit Blandine's grave ; Liszt celebrates his fifty-third birthday at the Madonna del Rosario -- Book two. The Abbe Liszt, 1865-1869. Liszt enters the lower orders, 1865. Liszt receives the tonsure on April 25 ; He is admitted to holy orders on July 30 ; The reactions of his contemporaries ; He moves into Hohenlohe's private quarters in the Vatican ; He plays for Pius IX on the twentieth anniversary of the pontiff's coronation ; Accompanied by Cosima and Hans von Bulow, he visits Hungary and conducts his St. Elisabeth, wearing a cassock for the first time in public ; The trio travels to Gran, where Liszt plays for Cardinal Scitovszky ; From there they go to Szekszard where Liszt stays as a guest of Baron Augusz ; After a short trip to Venice Liszt returns to the Vatican ; Resumes work on his oratorio Christus -- Paris and the "Gran" Mass, 1866. Death of Liszt's mother ; Emile Ollivier delivers the funeral oration ; Sgambati conducts the first performance of the Dante symphony in Rome ; Liszt travels to Paris, where he settles his mother's estate ; He meets many French musicians, including Saint-Saens and Auber, and is "taken up" by Princess Pauline Metternich ; The failure of the "Gran" Mass at its Paris premiere at the church of Saint-Eustache ; Walter Bache's description of the debacle ; The hostility of the press ; Liszt attempts to justify his setting of the mass to d'Ortigue, Berlioz, Damcke, and Kreutzer ; He hears Cesar Franck play the organ ; Napoleon III invites Liszt to the Tuileries ; From Paris to Amsterdam, where he is reunited with Cosima and Hans von Bulow ; A "Liszt festival" is mounted in his honour by the Dutch conductor Herman van Bree ; Bulow gives the world premiere of the Spanish Rhapsody ; Back in Paris Liszt is received at the Tuileries by Empress Eugenie ; He meets Marie d'Agoult on three occasions ; She chooses this moment to re-publish her old novel Nelida ; "Madame d'Agoult gives me no quarter," he writes ; Liszt returns to Rome -- The Cosima-Bulow-Wagner crisis I: the triangle forms, 1865-1867. The Bulows with Wagner in Munich ; Cosima recalls giving birth to her daughter Blandine in Berlin unaided ; Wagner's sumptuous life-style in Munich ; The affair between Cosima and Wagner develops ; The difficult question of Bulow's complicity ; Wagner's relationship with King Ludwig II ; His plans for a music school and a new opera house ; Bulow makes enemies ; The world premiere of Tristan and its attendant woes ; Cosima gives birth to Wagner's daughter Isolde ; The death of Ludwig Schnorr ; Wagner requests more money from the Bavarian treasury ; Bags of coin in a taxicab ; Wagner is banished from Munich ; He moves to Switzerland ; The death of Wagner's wife, Minna ; He leases Triebschen, by Lake Lucerne ; The Bulows join him there ; Of scandal and outrage ; The strange case of Malvina Schnorr ; Cosima gives birth to another Wagner daughter, Eva ; Liszt visits the Bulows at Munich in a desperate bid to save their marriage ; He confronts Wagner at Triebschen ; His arrangement of the "Liebestod" from Tristan -- The Cosima-Bulow-Wagner crisis II: the triangle breaks, 1868-1870. Bulow gives the world premiere of Meistersinger at Munich ; His conflicts with Wagner ; Cosima's continued infidelity ; She deserts Bulow and lives openly with Wagner in Switzerland ; Their life at Triebschen ; Liszt condemns Cosima ; Bulow seeks a Protestant divorce ; Bulow's letter to Claire de Charnace ; Cosima marries Wagner in Lucerne ; Bulow resigns from Munich and embarks on a long concert tour of America ; He suffers a nervous breakdown and becomes suicidal ; Bulow's subsequent conduct towards Cosima and their daughters ; He remarries -- Of kings and castles, 1867. The compromise of 1867: the dual monarchy ; Franz Joseph is crowned King of Hungary ; Liszt's Hungarian Coronation Mass is performed at the ceremony ; He is acclaimed by the public after the coronation ; He re-visits Weimar ; A performance of his St. Elisabeth in the restored Wartburg Castle ; The Paris Exhibition of 1867 ; Inventions galore ; An attempt on Tsar Alexander's life ; The execution of Maximilian I of Mexico ; Chickering wins first prize at the Paris Exhibition for his new grand piano, and he is awarded the Legion of Honour ; The prize-winning piano is later shipped to Liszt in Rome ; Liszt moves to the Santa Francesca Romana ; Among his distinguished visitors are George Grove, the American painter George Healy, Edvard Grieg, and Longfellow ; Liszt sight-reads Grieg's newly composed piano concerto -- Of Cossacks and countesses. Olga Zielinska's family background in Poland ; Her first meeting with Liszt in Rome, 1869 ; Her pathological character examined ; Of drugs and daggers ; She assumes the title of "countess" ; She accompanies Liszt to Budapest, and endures public humiliation while playing Chopin ; Her family fortune collapses, she seeks redress at the gaming tables ; Her threats of suicide ; Liszt's calming letter to Olga, 1871 ; She leaves for America in a vain attempt to start a musical career there, and takes Liszt's Technical Studies with her ; She returns to Budapest, having threatened to kill Liszt ; Her simulated suicide in his apartment ; She leaves for Paris under the threat of police expulsion and plots revenge ; Her novels Souvenirs d'une cosaque and Souvenirs d'une pianist examined, their veracity questioned ; She creates a spectacle on the boulevards of Paris ; Liszt defends himself against Olga's books: his letter to his friends ; Princess Carolyne's reaction to "la cosaque" ; Olga later in life -- |
| Contents |
Volume three (continued). Book three. A threefold life begins: Weimar, Budapest, and Rome, 1869-1876. The Hofgartnerei: the return of a legend. Liszt takes up residence in Weimar ; His "Threefold life" begins ; A description of the Hofgartnerei ; Reunited with his old colleagues Lassen, the Schorns, the Mildes, and Pauline Viardot-Garcia ; Liszt's friendship with Baroness Olga von Meyendorff ; The "Starlings" and their musicales ; Liszt starts his piano masterclasses ; The Beethoven festivals of 1870 ; He is shunned by the Vienna organisers ; He mounts a Beethoven celebration in Weimar with Tausig as one of the soloists ; Olga Janina visits Weimar ; The Franco-Prussian War is declared ; Liszt goes to Hungary and is prevented by the military situation in Europe from returning to Rome -- The Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Napoleon III, Emperor of the French ; His nemesis Prince Otto von Bismarck ; Pride and prejudice, contest and confrontation ; The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 ; Emile Ollivier's role: into war "With a light heart" ; The armies of France and Prussia compared ; The French are defeated at Sedan ; A description of the battle ; Napoleon surrenders to Bismarck ; The siege of Paris ; The city is shelled and starved into submission ; The armistice and war reparations ; Release of Napoleon, who settle in England ; Liszt's reaction to the European catastrophe ; Liszt as political spy ; Wagner's jubilation at the outcome of the war: he composes a Kaisermarsch ; Liszt in Hungary ; He participates in the Beethoven festival in Budapest, December 1870 ; Liszt is appointed Royal Hungarian Counsellor ; There is talk of founding a Royal Academy of Music with Liszt as the first president -- The lion of Weimar: Liszt and his pupils. A description of the Weimar masterclasses ; Technique versus inspiration: "Wash your dirty linen at home" ; Comparisons with Breithaupt, Kullak, and Deppe ; Liszt on technique: "Technique should flow from the spirit, not from mechanics" ; An ear-witness account of Liszt's playing ; Liszt's general principles of teaching ; Liszt's classes described by Amy Fay, August Gollerich, and Carl Lachmund, respectively ; Liszt as a sight-reader ; The camaraderie between Liszt and his students ; The Jena "Sausage festival" of 1882 ; Liszt and his American students celebrate the Fourth of July ; His attitude to money ; Charges of sycophantism ; Liszt is indisposed (July 1881) and Bulow decides to "clean out the Augean stables" ; Liszt uses visual imagery and humour in his teaching ; The Weimar town council passes a bye-law restricting the sound of piano practice on pain of a fine -- Excelsior! 1873-1875. Liszt completes Christus ; Wagner and Liszt patch up their quarrel ; The first complete performance of Christus, in Weimar is attended by Wagner and Cosima ; An account of the oratorio ; The reaction of Cosima ; Liszt's Weimar masterclasses are enriched by many new students ; Liszt plays the Hammerklavier ; He conducts the Ninth Symphony ; The Hungarians celebrate Liszt's fiftieth jubilee ; Hanslick on Liszt: "What a remarkable man!" ; Liszt gives a series of charity concerts in Budapest ; Ramann begins work on her "official" biography of Liszt ; Her troubled relationship with Princess Carolyne ; Ramann's biography considered ; Its reception in Engalnd ; Richard and Cosima Wagner join Liszt in Budapest to give fund-raising concerts for the Bayreuth enterprise ; Liszt cuts his finger before playing the Emperor concerto ; The first performance of The Bells of Strasbourg ; This cantata considered ; He visits King Willem III of Holland ; Memorial concert for Mme Mouchanoff ; Charles Stanford hears Liszt play in Leipzig ; Liszt celebrates his sixty-fourth birthday with Princess Carolyne in Rome -- The Royal Academy of Music, 1875. Liszt is named president of the Hungarian Academy of music ; The role of Apponyi ; A committee goes to work ; A building is purchased at Fischplatz 4 ; Liszt appoints the faculty and sets the curriculum ; The academy opens its doors ; Of students and standards ; The faculty workload ; A description of Liszt's apartment ; Liszt and his academy students: some eye-witness accounts ; Liszt's ambivalent attitude toward the academy considered ; The subsequent history of the institution -- The last years of Marie d'Agoult. Marie d'Agoult begins her Memoires ; Her sanitized account of her years with Liszt ; Her mental illnesses considered ; Her treatments at the clinic of Dr. Emile Blanche ; Foretastes of death ; A suicide attempt ; She convalesces at the home of Louis de Ronchaud ; Some observations of Claire de Charnace on her mother: "She wanted to arrange the past" ; The question of Liszt's attitude towards Marie's suicidal nature ; Marie makes Ronchaud her literary executor ; Her career as a writer considered ; Her relationship with her son-in-law Emile Ollivier ; She moves away from Paris during the Franco-Prussian War ; She visits Cosima and Wagner at Triebschen ; Reminisces ; The deaths of her brother, Maurice, and her husband, Charles d'Agoult ; The death and funeral of Marie d'Agoult -- "External weaknesses - interior causes". Carolyne's lifelong ties to Liszt ; Her home in Rome ; Of foibles and fancies ; Her connections with Roman society ; She is acquainted with Pius IX ; Carolyne as a writer ; Her magnum opus considered ; She is placed on the index ; The politics of Rome ; Pius IX is besieged by problems ; The assassination of Pellegrino Rossi ; The rise of Victor Emmanuel and the battles of Magenta and Solferino ; Pius becomes a prisoner within the walls of the Vatican ; Official separation of church and state ; The death of Rosmini and the role of the Jesuits ; Cardinal Hohenlohe and his place in the politics of Rome ; He becomes the target of assassins ; His brother Chlodwig represses the Jesuits in Germany ; The death of Hohenlohe ; Princess Carolyne's turbulent relations with church leaders ; Liszt finds himself in opposition to her on doctrinal matters ; Of quarrels and reconciliations ; The accusations of Carolyne ; Her underlying grievance: his long absences from Rome and from her -- |
| Contents |
Volume three (continued). Book four. De profundis, 1876-1886. Liszt and Bayreuth. The rapprochement between Liszt and Wagner ; They exchange letters, the first in nearly five years ; The Wagners visit Liszt in Weimar, and he visits them in Bayreuth ; Carolyne balks at Liszt's closer relations with "Pagan Bayreuth" ; Becomes a source of friction between them ; Some parallels between Cosima and Carolyne ; Cosima turns Protestant after her marriage to Wagner ; A rift develops between Carolyne and her daughter, Marie ; Liszt takes the daughter's part, thus deepening his own troubles with Carolyne ; Liszt starts attending the Bayreuth festivals; he witnesses all three cycles of The Ring in 1876 ; The background to his epoch-making production ; The soil-turning ceremony of the Festspielhaus ; The wider reception of The Ring ; Kaiser Wilhelm attends the third cycle ; Liszt and Wagner at Wahnfried ; He plays at the soirees there, including the slow movement of the Hammerklavier sonata ; Wagner pays a public tribute to Liszt: "For everything that I have attained I have one person to thank" ; Liszt's benefit concerts for the Bayreuth project ; The festival deficit ; Wagner conducts at the Royal Albert Hall in London to pay his debts -- Wanderer eternal, 1876-1881. Liszt the itinerant ; Kellermann on Liszt's composing methods ; Liszt's "Threefold life" continues ; The Danube floods of 1876 ; Liszt gives a charity concert in the Vigado ; Conducts the first performance of his choral prayer To St. Francis of Paola ; His increasingly popular masterclasses in Weimar ; Trips to Dusselfdorf, Loo Castle, Sondershausen, and Bayreuth ; From Bayreuth to Hanover, where he finds Bulow in a suicidal depression ; Liszt's torn emotions ; He plays his St. Francis of Paola walking on the waters for Lina Ramann in Nuremburg ; Returns to Budapest for the winter of 1876-77 ; His busy life as president of the Royal Academy of Music ; He sustains an accident to his right arm, then cuts his left index finger while being shaved ; A Beethoven jubilee in Vienna, 1877, where the young Busoni hears Liszt play the "Emperor" concerto ; From Vienna to Bayreuth, where Wagner gives Liszt a signed copy of his biography, Mein Leben ; At the Tokunstler festival in Hanover ; The conductor Bott falls from the podium and Liszt takes over ; The public versus the private Liszt ; He suffers from melancholia and contemplates suicide ; With the cypresses and fountains of the Villa d'Este ; He composes the third volume of his Annees de pelerinage ; His cordial relations with the Jewish community of Budapest ; He plays the Moonlight sonata to his friends in his home at Fischplatz ; He plays the Kreutzer sonata with Ole Bull ; An anti-Liszt faction emerges in Budapest ; Liszt retaliates by temporarily withdrawing from the city's concert life ; With cousin Eduard in Vienna ; Back to Bayreuth and thence to his masterclasses in Weimar ; He now travels an average of four thousand miles a year in pursuit of his "Threefold life" ; Driven by the needs of others rather than his own ; The Franciscan element in his nature ; At the Paris Exhibition of 1878 ; The Tonkunstler festival at Erfurt ; Moriz Rosenthal and Adele aus der Ohe become his pupils ; Rosenthal recalls his lessons with the master at the Villa d'Este ; Liszt composes his path-breaking Via Crucis ; Cardinal Hohenlohe settles into the Santa Maria Maggiore ; The further quarrels of Liszt and Carolyne ; The river Tisza overflows its banks, disaster at Szeged ; Liszt gives another charity concert for the victims ; Hanslick on Liszt: "What magic still surrounds the elderly man!" ; Liszt conducts his "Gran" Mass ; The death of cousin Eduard ; Liszt is made an honorary canon of Albano ; Famine stalks the regions of Tivoli and the Sabine hills ; Hohenlohe buts on a charity concert which Liszt plays a fantasia on his Ave Maris Stella ; The English cleric Reginald Haweis visits Liszt at Tivoli and hears him play his Angelus! And two Chopin nocturnes ; Liszt meets the American sculptor Moses Ezekiel who produces a widely admired bust of him ; Liszt moves into his apartments in the new Academy of Music, Budapest ; Bulow plays Liszt's music in Budapest and Liszt writes a letter in praise of his former pupil ; Liszt and Geza Zichy raise money for the Hummel monument in Pressburg ; Liszt visits his birthplace in Raiding (April 1881) ; His travels become more extensive: to his "Threefold life" he adds Berlin, Baden-Baden, and Brussels, where the King of the Belgians invests him with the Order of Leopold ; By June 1881, Liszt is showing signs of physical fatigue and the first symptoms of dropsy announce themselves -- Unstern!. Liszt falls down the stairs of the Hofgartnerei, July 1881 ; He is confined to his room for several weeks ; The diagnosis of Dr. Brehme ; The burdens of old age ; Carolyne publishes her revised editions of Des Bohemiens ; The Jewish press reacts ; Liszt is branded a racist and pilloried as "The new Messiah" ; The "Blood trial" of Tiszaeszlar, and its connection to the reception of Des Bohemiens ; Liszt replies to his Jewish critics in the Gazette de Hongrie ; Ramann's dilemma: to translate or not to translate Carolyne's revisions ; Liszt's problems with the Budapest opera-house: the Konigslied affair ; Liszt's cri de coeur: "Everyone is against me" ; He takes to drinking absinthe ; Of dropsy and cataracts ; The death of Liszt's manservant Achille Colonello ; Lina Schmalhausen is charged with shoplifiting ; Scharwenka's lampoon ; The subsequent faith of Schmalhausen ; Liszt enters his twilight years -- |
| Contents |
Volume three (continued). Nuages gris. The world premiere of Parsifal ; Wagner arranges a Liebesmahl for his friends and colleagues ; He plays another public tribute to Liszt ; Liszt composes his transcription of the "March of the holy grail" from Parsifal ; Wagner conducts for the last time ; Liszt is angered by a request for money to commemorate "Sedan day" ; An outing with his pupils to Arnstadt ; The delights of Pfeffermunzschen en route ; Eugene d'Albert makes his debut ; Liszt receives a grand piano from Mason & Risch ; He reciprocates by sending them his portrait in oils by Paul von Joukowsky ; Liszt spends the winter of 1882-83 in Venice with the Wagners ; Siegfried Wagner's memories of his grandfather ; Liszt rails against the music of the local Catholic church: "An obscenity" ; He composes his two "Funeral gondolas" ; Wagner celebrates Cosima's birthday with a concert at the Venice conservatory: his youthful symphony in C major is performed ; Liszt departs Venice and takes his last leave of Wagner ; The death of Wagner ; Cosima accompanies Wagner's body on the long journey back to Bayreuth ; She retreats into total seclusion and refuses to see her father ; Liszt composes his R.W. - Venezia ; He conducts the Good Friday music from Parsifal ; Composes his Am Grave Richard Wagners ; The fate of some of Liszt's later manuscripts ; Lina Schmalhausen offers to sell them to the British museum ; Liszt is asked by Cosima to return all the letters he received from Wagner over the years ; He refuses to comply ; Liszt is stalked by depression and superstition -- The music of Liszt's old age. Liszt as "The father of modern music" ; His late music as autobiography: its connections to his disturbed pathology ; It falls into three categories: retrospection, despair, and death ; Some technical characteristics discussed ; Friedheim of Liszt's "Theory of the harmony of the future" ; The modernity of Nuages gris and Unstern! ; A first performance of the bagatelle without tonality ; Mansfeldt's letter ; Some unusual chord constructions ; The reception of his late pieces ; "I can wait." -- Harmonies du soir, 1881-1885. Liszt moves into the Alibert Hotel, in the heart of Rome ; Visits to the Villa Medici ; The annual festivals of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein at Leipzig (1883) and Weimar (1884) ; Liszt makes his last appearance as a conductor ; Rubinstein and Pachmann play Liszt's music in Budapest ; He attends the Bayreuth Festival of 1884, but Cosima refuses to see him: her "Spectral silence" ; Liszt's health deteriorates, his eyesight fades ; Composes his nineteenth Hungarian rhapsody ; Meets Anton Bruckner in Vienna ; A last farewell to Robert Franz ; The Weimar masterclass of 1885 ; A letter from Hugo Mansfeldt ; The Americans in Weimar once more celebrate the Fourth of July ; From Weimar back to Rome ; Works on St. Stanislas ; An encounter with Claude Debussy ; On New Year's Day, 1886, he declares; "This will be an unlucky year for me" -- Liszt's last visit to England, April 1886. Liszt is invited to England ; His letter to Walter Bache ; He is accompanied across the English Channel by Alexander Mackenzie and Alfred Littleton ; A diversion at Penge ; A warm reception in London, his first visit to the city since 1841 ; His English itinerary traced in detail ; A performance of St. Elisabeth in St. James's Hall ; A visit to the Royal Academy of Music, where a Liszt scholarship is established ; He is invited to Windsor Castle, where he plays for Queen Victoria ; An account of Liszt's visit in Victoria's diary ; Bache puts on a reception at the Grosvenor Gallery ; Liszt is reunited with Joachim ; Some all-Liszt concerts ; He meets the Prince and Princess of Wales ; An encounter with Henry Irving ; In the "Beefsteak room" for supper ; He attends the London recitals of two of his pupils Lamond and Stavenhagen ; His bust is sculpted by Edgar Boehm ; Farewell to England ; From London to Dover and back to France -- Approaching the End. Liszt makes brief detours to Antwerp and Brussels ; He arrives back in Paris, where he stays as a guest of the Munkacsys ; St. Elisabeth is performed at the Trocadero ; His pupils greet him at the Weimar railway station, his first return for more than six months ; Liszt's physical condition causes concern ; He consults Alfred Graefe at Halle and a cataract operation is scheduled for September ; An all-Liszt concert at Sondershausen ; Christus is performed at Weimar's Stadtkirche and Liszt offers advice during rehearsal ; Cosima visits Weimar unexpectedly and begs her father to attend the Bayreuth Festival later in the year ; He serves as a witness at the wedding of his granddaughter Daniela ; Stays at Castle Colpach for a holiday with the Munkacsys ; He gives his last public recital in the Luxembourg Casino, July 19, 1886 ; From Luxembourg he sets out for Bayreuth ; He arrives in Bayreuth with a racking cough and a temperature ; He becomes progressively ill -- The death of Liszt. The last ten days ; The diary of Lina Scmalhausen ; Liszt's symptoms ; A description by Adelheid von Schorn ; He attends a performance of Tristan on July 25 ; He is treated by Dr. Landgraf, who diagnoses pneumonia ; He becomes delirious ; Cosima consults Dr. Fleischer from Erlangen University ; She bans Liszt's pupils from his sickroom ; He is humiliated by his granddaughters and is likened to King Lear ; Liszt suffers a heart-attack: "Luft! Luft!" ; He falls into a coma ; The death of Liszt ; Lina Schmalhausen tends the corpse ; A death-mask is taken by the sculptor Weissbrod ; An unsuccessful attempt to embalm Liszt's body ; His funeral and burial in Bayreuth ; Oration at the graveside ; The reactions of Princess Carolyne ; Schmalhausen returns to view again Liszt's last resting-place -- Aftermath. The struggle over Liszt's remains ; Hungary and Germany argue over possession ; The debate in the Hungarian parliament ; A review of Liszt's own contradictory choices of a last resting-place ; Liszt remains buried in Bayreuth ; His will is contested ; The background to the legal dispute ; Carolyne's power of attorney ; A permanent Liszt museum is opened in Weimar, May 22, 1887 ; The Liszt foundation commences publication of the collected edition, 1907-36 ; A Liszt memorial room is opened in Budapest, 1925 ; La Mara begins the publication of Liszt's Collected Letters ; The reaction of Princess Carolyne to Liszt's death ; Her last days and her death in Rome -- Appendix I. Princess Carolyne's death notice, from the register of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome -- Appendix II. Liszt enters the minor orders of the priesthood: entries from the Liber Ordinationum for 1863-1872, Vicariato di Roma -- Appendix III. Liszt's titles and honours -- Appendix IV. Catalogue of Princess Carolyne's writings. |
| Abstract |
Franz Liszt--child prodigy, virtuoso pianist, co-founder with Chopin and Schumann of the Romantic movement in music--has been the subject of literally hundreds of biographies, but it is only in the last few decades that the importance of Liszt the composer, as opposed to Liszt the Romantic hero, has been recognized. This new perspective has created the need for a fresh, full-scale approach, biographical and critical, to the evaluation of the man and his music. For more than ten years the author, a leading authority on nineteenth-century music and the author of important studies of Chopin and Schumann, has traveled throughout Europe discovering unpublished material in museums and private collections, in the parish registries of tiny villages in Austria and Hungary, and in major archives in Weimar and Budapest, seeking out new information and corroborating or correcting the old. He has left virtually no source unexamined--from the hundreds of contemporary biographies (many of them more fiction than fact) to the scores of memoirs, reminisces, and diaries of his pupils and disciples (the list of his students from his Weimar masterclasses reads like a Burke's Peerage of pianists). The author's efforts have culminated in a study that will stand as definitive for years to come. A feat of impeccable scholarship, it also displays a strong and compelling narrative impulse and a profound understanding of the complicated man Liszt was. |
| Local note | Little-v.1--321602--305131028066Z |
| Local note | Little-v.1--312538--305131038010P |
| Local note | Little-v.2--311924--305131021830R |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. |
| Awards note | James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography (volume 1), 1983. |
| LCCN | 87024459 |
| ISBN | 0801494214 (pbk. ; v. 1 ; alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 9780801494215 (pbk. ; v. 1 ; alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 0801497213 (pbk. ; v. 2 ; alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 9780801497216 (pbk. ; v. 2 ; alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 9780801484537 (pbk. ; v. 3 ; alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 0801484537 (pbk. ; v. 3 ; alk. paper) |
