Franz Liszt

Author: Oliver Hilmes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300219466
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Book Description
Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was an anomaly. A virtuoso pianist and electrifying showman, he toured extensively throughout the European continent, bringing sold-out audiences to states of ecstasy while courting scandal with his frequent womanizing. Drawing on new, highly revealing documentary sources, including a veritable treasure trove of previously unexamined material on Liszt’s Weimar years, best-selling author Oliver Hilmes shines a spotlight on the extraordinary life and career of this singularly dazzling musical phenomenon. Whereas previous biographies have focused primarily on the composer’s musical contributions, Hilmes showcases Liszt the man in all his many shades and personal reinventions: child prodigy, Romantic eccentric, fervent Catholic, actor, lothario, celebrity, businessman, genius, and extravagant show-off. The author immerses the reader in the intrigues of the nineteenth-century European glitterati (including Liszt’s powerful patrons, the monstrous Wagner clan) while exploring the true, complex face of the artist and the soul of his music. No other Liszt biography in English is as colorful, witty, and compulsively readable, or reveals as much about the true nature of this extraordinary, outrageous talent.

Franz Liszt and His World

Author: Christopher H. Gibbs
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400828619
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 608

Book Description
No nineteenth-century composer had more diverse ties to his contemporary world than Franz Liszt (1811-1886). At various points in his life he made his home in Vienna, Paris, Weimar, Rome, and Budapest. In his roles as keyboard virtuoso, conductor, master teacher, and abbé, he reinvented the concert experience, advanced a progressive agenda for symphonic and dramatic music, rethought the possibilities of church music and the oratorio, and transmitted the foundations of modern pianism. The essays brought together in Franz Liszt and His World advance our understanding of the composer with fresh perspectives and an emphasis on historical contexts. Rainer Kleinertz examines Wagner's enthusiasm for Liszt's symphonic poem Orpheus; Christopher Gibbs discusses Liszt's pathbreaking Viennese concerts of 1838; Dana Gooley assesses Liszt against the backdrop of antivirtuosity polemics; Ryan Minor investigates two cantatas written in honor of Beethoven; Anna Celenza offers new insights about Liszt's experience of Italy; Susan Youens shows how Liszt's songs engage with the modernity of Heinrich Heine's poems; James Deaville looks at how publishers sustained Liszt's popularity; and Leon Botstein explores Liszt's role in the transformation of nineteenth-century preoccupations regarding religion, the nation, and art. Franz Liszt and His World also includes key biographical and critical documents from Liszt's lifetime, which open new windows on how Liszt was viewed by his contemporaries and how he wished to be viewed by posterity. Introductions to and commentaries on these documents are provided by Peter Bloom, José Bowen, James Deaville, Allan Keiler, Rainer Kleinertz, Ralph Locke, Rena Charnin Mueller, and Benjamin Walton.

Technical Exercises (Complete)

Author: Franz Liszt
Publisher: Alfred Music
ISBN: 1457443317
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
This edition is comprised of 86 different technical exercises composed by Liszt during 1868 to 1880. Liszt intended these highly challenging exercises to build greater performance skills in virtuoso pianists. The complete series consists of twelve volumes, each one dealing with a different pianistic problem. This edition has been compiled from the original set to present the exercises in a reasonable length without harming the essence and effectiveness of the original work.

Life of Chopin

Author: Franz Liszt
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1613105460
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description

The Music of Liszt

Author: Humphrey Searle
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486786404
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
The most authoritative English-language study of Liszt's oeuvre, this survey by a noted musicologist examines the works in chronological order. Subjects include romantic pieces, symphonic poems, songs, symphonies, and other compositions.

A Book of Liszts

Author: John Spurling
Publisher: Seagull World Literature
ISBN: 9781906497941
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The extraordinary career of Franz Liszt (1811-86) as a composer, conductor, and virtuoso pianist--whose incomparable skill and personal charisma dazzled audiences all over Europe, from London and Paris to Berlin, Moscow, and even Constantinople--made him the nineteenth-century equivalent of a modern international pop star. In the spirit of Liszt's own innovative compositions and sparkling piano transcriptions of other composers' work, John Spurling here takes up the ambitious task of writing a fictionalized biography of Liszt's life. Liszt himself once said, "My biography is more to be invented than written after the fact," and Spurling's fifteen self-contained chapters--themselves virtuoso performances in a variety of styles from a variety of viewpoints--capture precisely this notion of innovation and creativity. Spurling tells of Liszt's mesmeric effect on audiences, his notorious love affairs with remarkable women, and his fraught friendship with Richard Wagner, who deeply offended Liszt by seducing and eventually marrying his daughter Cosima. Inspired by Spurling's own fascination with Liszt's music, A Book of Liszts is a highly original, imaginative, and multifaceted portrait of a humorous, romantic, and passionate genius whose work and life is still not as well known as it deserves to be.

Reading Franz Liszt

Author: Paul Roberts
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538143356
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Book Description
A look beyond the virtuosity of Romanticism’s piano superstar. Pianist Paul Roberts recasts Franz Liszt as a composer of poetic feeling rather than just a purveyor of technical brilliance. Reading Franz Liszt: Revealing the Poetry behind the Piano Music immerses readers in Liszt’s world through a vivid exploration of his most beloved pieces and the literature that inspired them—from Petrarch’s love poetry to the sensibilities of Byron, Sénancour, Goethe, and others. The origins of artistic inspiration can be obscure. However, for Franz Liszt, literary quotations in his scores provide fascinating insights into the sources of his creative imagination, revealing a breadth of reading that inspired some of the greatest piano music of all time. A knowledge of the writers whom Liszt revered and often quoted at length enriches an understanding and appreciation of his music. Roberts shows how Liszt in his pioneering piano works created a new concept of musical expression comparable to the emotional and dramatic power of the opera and novel. This book leads us into the essence of Liszt’s poetic world, revealing the relevance of his literary inspiration for today’s listeners as well as for performers coming to terms with its expressive demands.

Liszt and Virtuosity

Author: Robert Doran
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1580469396
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 447

Book Description
A new and wide-ranging collection of essays by leading international scholars, exploring the concept and practices of virtuosity in Franz Liszt and his contemporaries.

The Piano Master Classes of Franz Liszt, 1884–1886

Author: Wilhelm Jerger
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253222732
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The diaries of August Göllerich, secretary and student of Franz Liszt, provide a first-hand account of the Master's approach to piano teaching, his preferences and prejudices both musical and social, and his way of encouraging and befriending his students. They contain the mature Liszt's suggestions for interpreting his own works and those of his friend Chopin and of many other composers, offering invaluable advice from the most spectacular pianist of the 19th century. Pianists interested in the history of performance practice and the Romantic era will learn from and take delight in this volume.

Franz Liszt

Author: Alan Walker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Composers
Languages : en
Pages : 626

Book Description