3 - Liszt and the twentieth century

Summary

Introduction: the problem of Liszt

At the turn of the nineteenth century, less than two decades after his death, Franz Liszt's claims to immortality seemed built on rather shaky ground. True, his name remained associated with the greatest career of pianistic virtuosity of all times, yet that type of notoriety was in many ways antithetical to a place within the pantheon of music history. Of his musical works beyond those for the piano, only the two concertos, Les Préludes and the Faust Symphony were being performed at the time in Europe and North America with any regularity, and it was primarily popular piano works like the Liebesträume and the Hungarian Rhapsodies that appeared in anthologies of piano music.

This marginal position for Liszt is all the more surprising since during his lifetime, above all before his departure from the concert stage in 1847, he was one of the best-known musical personalities in Europe, indeed, a leading figure within the culture of the times. Publication figures provide concrete evidence for his tremendous popularity during the 1840s (see below, ‘Publishing’), as do reports in the newspapers about the raging ‘Lisztomania’ in his concert cities. In later years, Liszt's lingering notoriety as performer ensured that his activities would attract interest in the musical and daily press.