Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Put this one on your Liszt.

I've been meaning to comment on the 19th century Hungarian piano virtuoso and composer for some time, so here we go.

Most of you have probably heard of Franz Liszt. He was born in 1811 and died in 1896. His parents were Hungarian and Austrian, and his father played piano and cello at the royal Hungarian court, and started teaching his son music at age six. His immense talent was immediately noticed and he was sent, with his parents to Paris and Vienna for further musical study by the Hungarian court. He studied piano under Carl Czerny, who took lessons from Beethoven, and the Beethoven influence shows up clearly in his work.

He is considered quite likely the finest pianist who ever lived, something that is a bit hard for us to judge today since no recordings of his performances survive. His playing was renowned for its' showmanship and flamboyance.

His personal life was fairly unremarkable, other than the fact that he fell in love with a Princess and they planned to marry in 1860. However, she had a civil divorce from an earlier marriage that the Catholic Church wouldn't annul, and the marriage was called off. They remained friends, and he reportedly remained in love with her for the rest of his life. Perhaps that accounts for the stormy, highly emotional character of his compositions, and the many love songs he wrote. His work was highly influential on other Romantic period composers, many of whom were regular attendees at this piano recitals in the capitals of Europe.

Here is a sampling of three fine Liszt pieces that you can listen to for free, or download at low cost from magnatune.com:

http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/groh-Liszt/

Enjoy.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home