Most biographers agree that Liszt started emerging as a mature composer in the early 1830s. Some of these encounters had a major influence on the young pianist, including his meeting with another piano prodigy from Central Europe, a certain Frédéric Chopin but also Hector Berlioz, whose Symphonie fantastique Liszt would later transcribe for piano and, most importantly, Paganini, whose diabolical skills at the violin Liszt set out to emulate at the piano. That’s when he composed the Symphonie Révolutionnaire (which has remained unfinished) and came in contact with all the leading and most prominent intellectual and artistic figures of his time in Paris: Victor Hugo, Balzac, Delacroix, Heinrich Heine or Lamartine (Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses are based on a collection of his poems). The state of depression he was in was so profound that a French newspaper even ran his obituary, believing he was dead.Īs his mother would later famously say, he was then “saved by the guns”: when the 1830 revolution broke out in Paris, the young pianist came out of his solitude to take part, head-on, in the historic events unfolding in the French capital. In the late 1820s, he stopped touring, only giving piano lessons while spending most of his time at church and reading religious books. Depressed, ill from nervous exhaustion, the sensational 16-year-old pianist went through a deep personal and spiritual crisis: tired of being displayed and flaunted like a trophy-child all across Europe, Liszt seriously considered abandoning music altogether to become a priest. The death of his father in 1827 was a terrible blow for the young Liszt, whose mental state quickly deteriorated. His religious aspirations, nonetheless, only grew stronger in the next few years. Still convinced of his religious calling, he had entered the Paris Seminary in the early 1820s, although his parents eventually convinced him to focus on his musical career. Celebrated by the entire Parisian high-society, Liszt started touring across Europe, including in France, Switzerland and England, where he played for George IV at Windsor Castle.īut a storm was brewing on the horizon. Although he was rejected from the Paris Conservatoire, which didn’t accept foreign students at the time, he quickly took the French capital by storm: in the mid-1820s, his debut in Paris, the cultural capital of Europe, if not the world, was a major turning point. The young prodigy continued his education and started performing all over Europe, including in Germany and Paris, where he settled with his family. “Saved by the guns”įrom that point forward, Liszt’s career skyrocketed. Franz Liszt went on, with his family, to study in Vienna, receiving piano lessons from Carl Czerny, a former pupil of Beethoven himself, and Antonio Salieri. Legend has it – although most historians have dismissed the episode as pure fiction – that Beethoven himself attended one of his recitals when Liszt was 11 and, at the end, gave him a kiss to bestow his benediction on the young prodigy.Īs soon as Liszt started giving public piano recitals, he made such an impression on the local Hungarian magnates that – as was his father’s ploy – they agreed to pay for his scholarship for him to pursue his musical education and training. A true child prodigy, he started composing at the age of 8, gave his first public recital at 9 and created his first opera, Don Sanche, at the age of 13. Their father-son relationship has often been compared to the one between Leopold Mozart and a certain Wolfgang Amadeus, half a century before, and Adam Liszt quickly became something of an impresario for his own son, whom he saw destined to become one of the greatest artists of his time.Ī very religious child, Liszt was fond of and simultaneously attracted by sacred music and gypsy folk tunes, two contradicting influences that stayed with him his entire life. That was the first indication of his genius”, his father later wrote. In the evening he sang the theme of the concerto. Franz, bending over the piano, listened, completely absorbed. “When he was six, he heard me play Ries’s Concerto in C-sharp minor at the piano. Young Liszt started playing the piano at an early age, influenced and trained by his own father, an amateur musician and cello player working at the service of Prince Nicolas Eszterhazy. But who is the man lying behind this powerful and enigmatic figure, whose own musical legacy has been a matter of debate and controversy long after his death? Franz Liszt, the child prodigyįranz Liszt was born Liszt Ferenc to parents Adam and Anna Liszt in 1811 in Doborjan (modern-day Raiding, in Austria), at the time located in the Kingdom of Hungary and part of the Austrian Empire. Budapest, Hungary – The quintessential Romantic musician and artist, Hungarian-born Franz Liszt was arguably the most brilliant piano virtuoso of his time and among the most celebrated composers of the 19th century.
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