Franz liszt biography pianista

Franz Liszt was a charismatic showman with a deeply spiritual personality. He was a spellbinding virtuoso who harboured serious musical ambitions. And he was a kind and generous man whose air of urbanity caused many to distrust him. His musical output ranged from dazzling showpieces to experimental works that continue to challenge audiences. Few other musicians have led such complex lives, earned such spectacular and contradictory reputations, or left such an influential body of work. Liszt showed early promise and made his concerto debut at the age of nine. A year later he moved to Vienna and studied feverishly for 14 months under the composer, pianist and former Beethoven pupil, Carl Czerny. Liszt gained a thorough grounding in piano technique, memorisation and sight-reading, skills for which he would later become legendary. Stories soon circulated about the special aura that he had when performing. When Liszt was not quite 12, he and his father moved to Paris. He was refused entry to the Conservatoire but continued to give concerts and to tour. His father’s sudden death when Liszt was still only 15 affected him deeply. He had already contemplated a religious life, and thoughts of death now brought these ideas into focus. Nevertheless, he needed to give piano lessons to survive. One of his pupils was Caroline de Saint-Cricq, the first of many women with whom he fell in love. By his early 20s Liszt was surrounded by the leading lights of Romanticism. He was personally acquainted with Hector Berlioz, Frédéric Chopin, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Eugène Delacroix and many others. The most decisive influence, however, came from the violinist Nicolò Paganini, who conveyed cathartic expression through his extraordinary technical skills and magnetic stage manner. Paganini’s example inspired Liszt to push piano technique through previously unimagined difficulties and intricacies to attain new brilliance and sonorities. His quest was aided by the improved c

Franz Liszt, Hungarian Ferenc Liszt, (born Oct. 22, 1811, Raiding, Hung.—died July 31, 1886, Bayreuth, Ger.), Hungarian composer and pianist. Encouraged by his father, who was a talented amateur musician, Liszt developed an early interest in music and began composing at age eight.

He studied piano with Karl Czerny and composition with Antonio Salieri in Vienna, making his debut there in 1822. After a Paris success in 1823, he toured Europe, but his father’s early death (1828) and a disastrous love affair led to a desire to give up music for the priesthood. Hearing violinist Niccolò Paganini perform in 1831, Liszt was inspired to develop his own technique to the utmost and to compose his first mature pieces, including the Transcendental Études (1837) and Paganini Études (1839).

An affair with Countess Marie d’Agoult resulted in the birth of his daughter, Cosima (1837–1930), who would marry his friend, the composer Richard Wagner. Liszt’s brilliance and success were at their peak during the 1840s, when he toured Europe as a virtuoso, earning great adulation for his panache and his astounding technique. He ceased concertizing in the late 1840s to devote himself to composition and furthering the work of progressive composers.

In the 1850s he wrote many of his most ambitious works, including A Faust Symphony (1854) and the Piano Sonata in B Minor (1853). In 1865 he took minor Roman Catholic church orders, though he never became a priest. His later output is remarkable in anticipating many 20th-century developments; for instance, his development of chromatic harmony influenced atonal music.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Franz Liszt summary". Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 May. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/summary/Franz-Liszt. Accessed 12 July 2023.

(1811-1886)

Who Was Franz Liszt?

By the time Franz Liszt was 9 years old, he was performing in concert halls. As an adult, he toured extensively throughout Europe. He had an affair and children with Marie díAgoult and later lived with Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. By his death, he had written more than 700 compositions.

Who Was Franz Liszt?

Liszt was born on October 22, 1811, in Raiding, Hungary. His father, Adam, played the cello, as well as several other instruments, and passionately taught Franz how to play piano. By the age of 6, young Liszt was recognized as a child prodigy; by the age of 8, he was composing elementary works; and by the age of 9, he was appearing in concerts. His father worked as a secretary for Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, and, after the boy played for a group of wealthy sponsors, he asked the prince for extended leave so he could devote his time to enriching his son's musical education.

Father and son traveled to Vienna, and Antonio Salieri, Mozart's old rival, quickly became a proponent of Liszt's genius. Upon hearing the boy play at a private home, he offered to train him in composition free of charge. For several months, the young pianist held performances for both musicians and kings. His most impressive talent was his uncanny ability to improvise an original composition from a melody suggested by an audience member. At the age of 12, Liszt traveled with his father to Paris to seek admittance to the Paris Conservatory. The admissions council denied him a place in the school on the grounds that he was a foreigner. His father, ever determined, turned to Ferdinando Paer to teach his son advanced composition. It was during this time that Liszt wrote his first and only opera, Don Sanche.

In 1826, Adam Liszt passed away. The event proved to be extremely traumatic for the 15- year-old Franz Liszt, and it necessitated that he shares their one-bedroom Parisian apartment with his mother. In the years that followed,

Franz Liszt (born Raiding, October 22, 1811; died Bayreuth, July 31, 1886) was a Hungariancomposer and pianist. Liszt (pronounced like “list”) was one of the most influential musicians of the 19 th century. He was the greatest pianist of his time and went on lots of tours through Europe where everyone filled the concert halls to hear him. He wrote a lot of music for piano. Many of his piano pieces were harder to play than anything that had been written before. In this way he developed the technique of piano playing, setting new standards for the future. In his compositions he often used new ideas which sounded very modern in his time. He was very helpful to other composers who lived at that time, helping them to become better known by conducting their works and playing some of their orchestral pieces on the piano.

Early years

Liszt’s father was an official who worked for Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, the same noble family who employed the composer Joseph Haydn. When he was seven his father started to teach him the piano. He was a child prodigy, and within a year or two he was already playing in concerts. He was so promising that some rich Hungarians said they would pay for his music education.

In 1821 his family moved to Vienna. He had piano lessons from Czerny and composition lessons from Salieri. He soon became famous although he was still a young boy, and he met famous musicians like Beethoven and Schubert. Beethoven is supposed to have kissed him on the forehead.

In 1823 his family moved again, this time to Paris. He wanted to go to the Conservatoire to study music but Luigi Cherubini would not let him in because he was a foreigner (i.e. not French). So he studied music theory privately with Reicha and composition with Paer. Soon he was asked to play the piano everywhere in Paris. He travelled to London. On his second visit there in 1825, he played to King George IV at Windsor.

Liszt continued to