FRANZ LISZT

A Small Boy With Big Hands

I was born in 1811 in Doborján, a village in Hungary that is now part of Austria, where my father Adam worked as a land steward for the Esterházy family and had even met Joseph Haydn. I played my first public concert at nine, and it went so well that more invitations followed right away. My family then took me to Vienna to study piano with Carl Czerny and composition with Antonio Salieri, and in December 1823 we moved on to Paris, where the story goes that Beethoven had already kissed me on the forehead, though historians argue about how much of that is legend.

The Night a Violinist Ruined My Evenings

In April 1832 I went to a concert in Paris and heard Niccolo Paganini play the violin, and I walked out determined to do the same thing on the piano. I practiced like a man possessed, and before long audiences were reacting to me the way people now react to pop stars. In 1844 the poet Heinrich Heine gave it a name, Lisztomania, because ladies were fainting and fighting over my gloves. I should add that the piano recital as we know it, with one performer alone on stage playing for the whole evening, owes a good deal to those years.

A Respectable Job in Weimar

In 1848 I gave up the touring life and settled in Weimar as Kapellmeister, which meant I was in charge of the music at the court. Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein lived with me there, and she kept me at my desk with great determination. That desk produced thirteen symphonic poems, which are orchestral pieces that tell a story or paint a picture without a single word being sung. People often say I invented the term, but someone used the German word years earlier for a piano piece, so I only get credit for building the orchestral version into a real genre.

The Rhapsody Everybody Already Knows

If you only listen to one piece of mine, make it the Hungarian Rhapsody No 2. It was published in 1851 as one of the first two of what became nineteen Hungarian Rhapsodies, all inspired by the tunes and dances I grew up hearing. It begins slowly and darkly, like someone slowly clearing his throat before a long story, and then it breaks into a dance that keeps getting faster and wilder. By the end the pianist is working very hard, and the audience usually cheers before the last chord has stopped ringing.

The Celebrity Who Became an Abbé

Life was not all applause, and my father's unexpected death in 1827 had already taught me how suddenly things can change. My relationship with Countess Marie d'Agoult began in 1833, and we had three children, Blandine, Cosima and Daniel. Then in 1865 I surprised everyone by receiving the tonsure and the four minor orders of the Catholic Church, and I became known as Abbé Liszt. Picture the most famous pianist in Europe walking around in a black cassock, and you will understand why my friends did not know what to say.

Three Cities and One Bad Staircase

In 1861 I moved to Rome, and from there I kept travelling between cities, teaching and conducting wherever I was needed. In 1875 the Budapest Academy of Music opened, and I was honoured to be its first president. In 1881 I fell down a staircase in Weimar and was stuck in bed for weeks, which for a man who never sat still was almost harder than the fall itself. I died on 31 July 1886 in Bayreuth at the age of 74, officially of pneumonia.

What I Left Behind

My daughter Cosima married the conductor Hans von Bülow and later, in 1870, Richard Wagner, so my family tree has some famous branches. The symphonic poems opened a path that later composers followed, using an orchestra to tell a story in a single movement. I also gave lessons without asking for money and helped younger musicians get their work heard. Today a pianist who plays with real daring, and an audience that goes quiet to listen, are both part of what I handed on.

A Little Something for You

What I most want to give you is the feeling of being swept along by music, even if you have never heard a note of it before. You do not need to know any rules or names, and you do not need to sit up straight. Just press play on the Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 and let it carry you from that slow, brooding opening into the whirl of the dance. If your heart beats a little faster by the end, then I have done my job.