All the major piano composers who follow Liszt learned from him, whether they were aware of it or not. ''Even if you don't play his music, he's central to the piano repertory. ''One can't really progress far in the piano without coming across the name and fame of Franz Liszt,'' he said. Liszt's importance was evident to him right from the start. Writing the program notes for the radio announcers, he discovered that there was need for a good biography in English.
#1700S MUSIC PRODIGY PLAYED SYMPHONY MEMORY HEARD ONCE SERIES#
When asked to put on a complete series of Liszt's piano music, he first estimated that it could be done in 20 major recitals of two hours each but quickly realized that this would only scratch the surface. Walker, a pianist and musicologist, first took up the cause as a music producer at the BBC in London in the 1960's. But to blame Liszt for this, as many of his contemporaries did, is rather like blaming Niagara Falls for the suicides.'' The ladies fell over themselves to get close to him, and he was always very fond of female company. ''Everyone concentrated on the razzmatazz, turning Liszt into a kind of Elvis Presley of the 19th century. ''I felt that Liszt had not only not been well served by his biographers in the past, but in fact he had been very badly served,'' Mr. Not only did his dogged research correct numerous, mostly damaging preconceptions about Liszt, but his cogent musical analyses made the case for the importance of the music. If anyone could help me understand - and perhaps overcome - my prejudice, it might be Mr. The series is designed and narrated by Alan Walker, whose biography of Liszt, running to around 1,700 pages (the last of the three volumes was published in 1996), has been widely hailed as a groundbreaking work of scholarship. Performances by five pianists - among them, Marc-Andre Hamelin and Steven Mayer - will be given context by an accompanying biographical narrative and readings from Liszt's letters. And while I hold that biographical considerations ought not affect my assessment of a composer's works (otherwise, who could stomach Wagner's music?), in the case of Liszt, they had.Ī three-concert series, ''The Romantic Piano: Aspects of Liszt,'' beginning on Saturday at the 92nd Street Y, seems tailor-made for us open-minded Lisztophobes. My musical curiosity aroused, I have come to suspect that my wholesale rejection of Liszt is based on prejudices about the man himself. A recording of the ''Faust Symphony'' with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein on Deutsche Grammophon, acquired last month, became a favorite, heard repeatedly over several days. A snippet of his oratorio ''Christus,'' broadcast on the radio, inspired me to seek it out and hear it again for the first time in 20 years. 1.)īut in the last few years when I've heard, or even overheard, Liszt's music - especially his symphonic and late works - I've felt the tug of a great intelligence.
(Oh, please, spare me yet another unmusical rendition of the ''Mephisto Waltz'' No. Here's the piano music: all flying fingers and crossing hands and empty virtuosity, thorny thickets of 32nd-notes that sound of fury signifying nothing.
Here's the man: a strutting, manipulative, priapic rock star for the Romantics, with a sexual magnetism that set off what the poet Heinrich Heine dubbed Lisztomania, a condition in which swooning female fans collected his cigar butts to secrete in their cleavages. Why this widespread repugnance? When it comes to Liszt, there are damning common perceptions. Meanwhile, I took comfort in the results of highly unscientific surveys (conversations with musical friends and colleagues) that proved I was not alone in my affliction. Stubbornly, I held out against Lisztophiliacs (all, inevitably, had-been pianists) who tried to convert me. I ignored Liszt recordings by Martha Argerich, Claudio Arrau and Jorge Bolet, all of whose work I admired in other repertory. It just doesn't appeal to me, I told myself. Though I've occasionally admired a piece by Franz Liszt, I have avoided his music for decades whenever possible.
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