The name Franz Liszt, in an age fueled by mass media and great musical accessibility, still evokes a sense of wonder among modern musicians. The digital era leads the public to view him in a light that none could have ever imagined during his life in the nineteenth century. Yet the Hungarian virtuoso remains relevant, against all odds, even as he faces the inevitable consumer of fame and significance: time.
Although Liszt’s continued pertinence in a society that has long moved away from classical music as the primary expression of entertainment is beneficial for the survival of an age-old art form, it is not sufficient. Undoubtedly, the media, particularly with the rise of video content creators seeking public attention, ties Liszt’s name to pretension and meaningless displays of technical ability. Franz Liszt’s piano music is indeed among the most challenging in the repertoire, but such challenges disintegrate into a selfish obsession with “showing off” that the mature Liszt would strongly disapprove. Consequently, it is of the highest importance that the new generation corrects this erroneous view. Much of Liszt’s output is unknown today, but in all of his work, there is a logic to every note written. Even in his youth, Liszt’s virtuosic displays had a musical purpose far greater than what most believe today. So, why should Liszt be held in such high regard, and why was he truly much greater than a one-dimensional caricature?
The Importance of Virtuosity
Alas, as is most principal in a composer such as Liszt, virtuosity both encourages and discourages musical study. The topic of virtuosity indeed divides the musical world. Many believe it is necessary, but fail to understand what virtuosity is beyond wiggling your fingers quickly across the keys. Others say it is of no importance and that musical feeling is more important. The reality is that virtuosity is not the death of musicality, but a building block of it. Technical capability is just one facet of a well-rounded virtuoso; deep understanding of musical structure and the ability to express emotion in performance both fall under this concept.
Virtuosity plays a pivotal role in the development of music. The technical breakthroughs made by Liszt and other composers of the time cannot be understated. These innovations led not only to more complex and challenging music but also to improvements in the piano’s mechanism. Humans, as a facet of their curious nature, are always attempting to go beyond the limits of what seems possible. Every year, aspiring athletes try to beat the previous record in their sport. People with unique talents strive to set Guinness World Records, establishing new standards and redefining the capabilities of the human race. The fact that essentially every field of study, no matter how specific, offers some form of competitive opportunity indicates a very normal, very human obsession with being the best. Even historically, people of different cultures, from Ancient Sumer to the Hellenistic Era to the modern age, hold a particular attraction to impossible challenges and the idea of overcoming the insurmountable. Mythology is filled with stories of legendary heroes journeying to find rare treasure, to defeat the greatest of monsters, and to, against all odds, complete the most daunting of tasks. That same wonder and curiosity motivate musicians to play more challenging and complex musical compositions. No matter how much pianists nowadays would like to claim that music is “not about the difficulty or skill but about the art and intellectual values,” the fact remains that technical challenges in the form of keyboard virtuosity both drive the evolution of music and push the restraints that define what is human.
Thus, the world of music can only move forward by innovation, of which virtuosity is essential. Beethoven’s piano sonatas, which were considered technically demanding and virtuosic at the time and still are in many ways, pushed the boundaries of what it meant to be a pianist. Liszt continued this tradition through his music, particularly in works such as the Transcendental Etudes and the Hungarian Rhapsodies. One of Liszt’s greatest “musical descendants” was Ferruccio Busoni, who once again challenged the idea of what was possible on the keyboard with his mighty Op. 39 piano concerto. This giant piece is still considered one of the most challenging works ever written for piano and orchestra, way beyond the more popular Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto or Prokofiev’s Second. Shortly after, Charles Ives firmly showcased the new era of American transcendentalist music with his second “Concord” Sonata, a piece written “with no regard for pianistic difficulty whatsoever,” as described by esteemed concert pianist Marc-André Hamelin.
Sheer bravura, however, is not limited to technical ability alone, as it also includes the ability to express emotion and convey musical structure through performance. Liszt, a master of lyricism, often links poetry and other art forms to his music. Almost every account of his playing emphasizes his musical ability over his fast fingers, revealing the true heart of virtuosity: the unrestricted capacity to produce music.
Why does Liszt Matter?
Naturally, virtuosity is a crucial component of Liszt’s relevance within the piano realm. His music presents not just the obvious technical problems, but also musical ones. Many of his works have complex structures that demand careful thought and attention, while actually making the music speak and breathe is a completely different challenge. However, Liszt’s importance also lies in his breakthroughs in pianistic technique and composition.
The sheer diversity of music within Liszt’s compositional repertoire is absolutely astounding, and no other composer can compare. His pieces from the Années de Pèlerinage are written on a small scale but are deeply rooted in personal experiences and literary connections. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron, for example, inspired the entire Première Année: Suisse album. Harmonies poétiques et religieuses and Glanes de Woronince are two other often-neglected sets of pieces that are essentially devoid of showiness but do not skimp on musical ideas or emotional value. Liszt’s symphonic poems are another textbook example of program music based on literary works. These pieces each last only about 10-20 minutes yet demonstrate the orchestra’s full capabilities. They also showcase Liszt’s skilled use of thematic transformation to create a complete musical narrative that spiritually captures the essence of the source material.
Building on his musical diversity, Liszt’s own cultural background also contributes to his importance. Liszt was born in Hungary, yet spent much of his youth touring extensively across Europe. Liszt was one of the first touring virtuosos after Paganini. His concerts would arouse excitement and craze, dubbed by Heinrich Heine as “Lisztomania.” These experiences sometimes enabled Liszt to compose music inspired by various locations and cultures. For example, Liszt was educated in Vienna and later moved to Paris to become a piano virtuoso. After many tours across regions such as Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, and even Russia, Liszt settled in the German city of Weimar as Kapellmeister. The extensive catalog of Liszt’s music continues seemingly without end, and the endless variety it offers shows his incredible creativity and genius.
His Impact
Though he was a well-known figure in the early to mid-nineteenth century, Liszt’s fame and impact endured well beyond his touring years. A notable example is Richard Wagner, who directly worked with Liszt to lead “The New German School”, a Romantic style of music that emphasized progressiveness and German musical influences. With Liszt, Wagner would champion more modern and experimental symphonic forms, delving into styles that would later evolve into twentieth-century modern music. Even composers who lived beyond Liszt’s lifetime would study his style of pianism, particularly Sergei Rachmaninoff, who, in fact, could trace a direct pedagogical lineage to Franz Liszt. Liszt’s impact was felt across the entire musical community, branching even to those who held drastically differing views, such as the musically conservative Johannes Brahms. The Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni would become one of Liszt’s greatest advocates, highlighting the importance of his ideas during an era of widespread impressionism. Busoni would also undergo his own technical rebuilding, similar to Liszt’s, which underscores the vitality of Liszt’s approach to the keyboard.
A fascinating and often neglected approach to studying Liszt lies in his social and political life. Since he was once a touring performer whose income was primarily derived from public performances, Liszt was deeply involved in the complexities of both the lower classes and high society. His status in Paris can be likened to that of a modern celebrity; the press and music review journals went wild over his music, performances, and even his scandals. A large percentage of material about Liszt consists of press reviews and writings from the time. Every story about Liszt helped expand his influence, whether it was his fundraising for a new Beethoven statue in Bonn or the controversy surrounding Liszt’s first mistress, Marie d’Agoult.
Liszt also advocated that artists were more significant than royalty. Historically, artists have often served the elite. However, during the Romantic era, the artist-above-royalty concept was popularized alongside the belief that artists were divinely gifted. Such a concept was exacerbated by the fact that music was no longer solely for the private entertainment of high society but had become an art form accessible to a broader public. The rich no longer financially sustained the musicians; everyone did.
Another stepping stone lay in the practical innovations Liszt had brought to the musical world. In particular, Liszt truly pushed the piano to be a solo instrument. The predecessor of the piano, the harpsichord, was viewed as an instrument inferior to the more popular violin and pipe organ. In cases where the harpsichord was a solo instrument, the performance was a small, private affair rather than a grand concert. The harpsichord’s subordination persisted for a significant period as it evolved into the fortepiano and then the modern piano. Liszt elevated the piano to a solo concert instrument by pushing the boundaries of harmonies, notes, and complex rhythms, thereby increasing its popularity and prestige. Indirectly as well, Liszt contributed to the development of the modern piano by endorsing the Erard model. This instrument differed significantly from many of its contemporaries in offering a greater dynamic range and more precise note playing through its double escapement action.
Finally, it is unfortunate that many musicians are unaware that Liszt essentially invented both the piano recital as a performance format and the masterclass as a form of musical education. The piano recital originated from Liszt’s frequent touring, during which he often played his own compositions and performed solo. The primary difference between a recital and a concert is that the former highlights the performer, and Liszt was undoubtedly the highlight of his performances. Liszt also developed the masterclass later in his life, after he stopped touring and performing. During this period, while he served as a piano educator in Weimar, Germany, Liszt pioneered the masterclass as a hands-on pedagogical approach. Masterclasses were also designed to be efficient, tackling and correcting specific problems in a relatively short amount of time. Many accounts describe his approach to this, where his students would lay their music on a desk, and the composer would pick what he wanted to hear.
Liszt the Romantic
Franz Liszt was a true Romantic in the sense that he pioneered a musical style fundamentally Romantic in its values (or at least most would argue). Liszt’s symphonic poems, such as Orpheus and Prometheus, build upon the existing popular programmatic form of music. Popular in the Romantic Age, programmatic music stands in direct contrast to absolute music, an approach to music popular in the Baroque era. Absolute music is the composition of music for art’s sake, while program music is always based upon some existing idea or work. In the case of most Romantic musicians, that work would mostly be one of literary value. Take, for example, Alphonse de Lamartine or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose Harmonies Poétiques et religieuses and Faust, respectively, would influence Liszt’s compositions of the same names. Literature isn’t the only form of art Liszt based his music upon: the Hungarian Rhapsodies were based on Hungarian folk themes, “Romancero Espagnol” (and also the “Spanish Fantasy” and “Spanish Rhapsody”) took inspiration of Iberian dances like the Jota Aragonesa and Fandango, and all versions of “Totentanz” were inspired by the fresco “The Triumph of Death” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the medieval chant “Dies Irae”.
Liszt was an ideal Romantic, and that is why he remains essential throughout the 21st century. Although one could argue that his colleagues (Chopin, Berlioz, Schumann) are equally successful in their own right, it was Liszt’s approach to music and the sheer diversity and scale of his oeuvre that made him unique. It is a spiritual duty for musicians of the next generation to appreciate his efforts and contributions to society. Liszt was treated unjustly by fate, time, and an overwhelmingly exploitative community that used his masterworks as mere popular eye-catchers. The least one can do, as a music-maker, is to recognize without the smog of controversy the genius that was Franz Liszt.