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Franz Liszt Biography

Hungarian Ferenc Liszt

(1811 - 1886)

Related Works

Orchestral music
1854 Faust Symphony
1856 Dante Symphony

Symphonic poems
1849, rev. 1854 Tasso
1854 Les préludes
1857 Hunnenschlacht (The Slaughter of the Huns)
1858 Hamlet
Piano concertos
1849 No.1 in E♭
1849 No.2 in A
1849 Totentanz for piano and orchestra
Piano music
1836 Album d'un voyageur (Traveller's Album), 3 books
1837–77 Années de Pélerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), 3 books
1848 Italie
1849 3 Etudes de Concert
1849–63 Deux Etudes de Concert: Waldesrauchen, Gnomenreigen
1849–86 Twenty Hungarian Rhapsodies
1850 6 Consolations
1851 Transcendental Studies
1853 Sonata, B minor
1866 Deux Légendes
1881 Mephisto Waltz No.2
Ballades
Studies
Transcriptions
Choral music
1862 The Legend of St Elizabeth
1863 Psalm XIII
1867 Christus
1867 Hungarian Coronation Mass
Songs
Secular choral music

» More

(born October 22, 1811, Raiding, Hungary—died July 31, 1886, Bayreuth, Germany) Hungarian piano virtuoso and composer. Among his many notable compositions are his 12 symphonic poems, two (completed) piano concerti, several sacred choral works, and a great variety of solo piano pieces.

Youth and early training

Liszt's father, Ádám Liszt, was an official in the service of Prince Nicolas Eszterházy, whose palace in Eisenstadt was frequented by many celebrated musicians. Ádám Liszt was a talented amateur musician who played the cello in the court concerts. By the time Franz was five years old he was already attracted to the piano and was soon given lessons by his father. He began to show interest in both church and Gypsy music. He developed into a religious child, also because of the influence of his father, who during his youth had spent two years in the Franciscan order.

Franz began to compose at the age of eight. When only nine he made his first public appearance as a concert pianist at Sopron and Pozsony (now Bratislava, Slovakia). His playing so impressed the local Hungarian magnates that they put up the money to pay for his musical education for the next six years. Ádám obtained leave of absence from his post and took Franz to Vienna, where he had piano lessons with Carl Czerny, a composer and pianist who had been a pupil of Ludwig van Beethoven, and studied composition with Antonio Salieri, the musical director at the Viennese court. He gave several concerts in Vienna, with great success. The legend that Beethoven attended one of Liszt's concerts and kissed the prodigy on the forehead is considered apocryphal—but Liszt certainly met Beethoven.

Liszt moved with his family to Paris in 1823, giving concerts in Germany on the way. He was refused admission to the Paris Conservatoire because he was a foreigner; instead, he studied with Anton Reicha, a theorist who had been a pupil of Joseph Haydn's brother Michael, and Ferdinando Paer, the director of the Théâtre-Italien in Paris and a composer of light operas. Liszt's Paris debut on March 7, 1824, was sensational. Other concerts quickly followed, as well as a visit to London in June. He toured England again the following year, playing for George IV at Windsor Castle and also visiting Manchester, where his New Grand Overture was performed for the first time. This piece was used as the overture to his one-act opera Don Sanche, which was performed at the Paris Opéra on October 17, 1825. In 1826 he toured France and Switzerland, returning to England again in the following year. Suffering from nervous exhaustion, Liszt expressed a desire to become a priest. His father took him to Boulogne to take seabaths to improve his health; there Ádám died of typhoid fever. Liszt returned to Paris and sent for his mother to join him; she had gone back to the Austrian province of Styria during his tours.