Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian figure of the Romantic era who worked as a composer, a virtuoso pianist, a conductor, and a teacher. His output, created over more than sixty years, marks him as one of the most productive and impactful composers of his time, and his piano pieces are still frequently played and recorded.

Liszt found early success as a concert pianist, studying under the respected musicians Carl Czerny and Antonio Salieri. He built a strong reputation during European tours in the 1830s and 1840s, noted for both his technical skill and his physical appeal. This fame, called "Lisztomania," brought him a level of public stardom that earlier virtuosos had not reached.

Throughout his life, Liszt acted as a friend, promoter, and financial supporter to many contemporary composers, including Hector Berlioz, Frédéric Chopin, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Richard Wagner. He was the first to use the musical terms "transcription" and "paraphrase," and he played arrangements of other composers' works to help them gain popularity. Alongside Wagner, Liszt was a leading figure in the New German School, a progressive group in the "War of the Romantics" that explored programmatic music and harmonic innovation.

Liszt taught piano to hundreds of students, many of whom became notable performers themselves. His large and varied body of work influenced his forward-thinking peers and pointed toward 20th-century ideas. His musical contributions include creating the symphonic poem, advancing thematic transformation and Impressionism in music, and inventing the masterclass as a teaching format. In a sharp shift from his earlier style, many of his later pieces experiment with atonality, hinting at developments in 20th-century classical music. Today, he is most famous for his original piano works, such as the Hungarian Rhapsodies, Années de pèlerinage, Transcendental Études, "La campanella," and the Piano Sonata in B minor.

**Life**

**Early life**

Franz Liszt was born on 22 October 1811 in the village of Doborján (now Raiding, Austria) in Sopron County, Kingdom of Hungary (part of the Habsburg monarchy), to Anna Liszt (née Maria Anna Lager) and Adam Liszt. His father worked as a land steward for Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy; an enthusiastic amateur musician, Adam played piano, guitar, and flute, and personally knew Joseph Haydn and Johann Nepomuk Hummel. A recognized child prodigy, Franz began improvising at the piano before age five, and his father carefully encouraged his growth. Franz also absorbed music from attending Mass and from traveling Romani bands in the Hungarian countryside. He gave his first public concert in Sopron in 1820 at age nine; its success led to further performances in Pressburg and at Prince Nikolaus’s court in Eisenstadt. This attention prompted a group of wealthy sponsors to fund Franz’s musical education in Vienna.

In Vienna, Liszt studied piano with Carl Czerny, who as a youth had been a student of Beethoven and Hummel. Czerny, already very busy, reluctantly agreed to hear Liszt play and initially refused regular lessons. Impressed by the audition, however, he taught Liszt free of charge for eighteen months, until he felt he had nothing more to offer. Liszt remained grateful, later dedicating the 1830 republication of his Transcendental Études to Czerny. Liszt also studied composition with Antonio Salieri, the accomplished music director of the Viennese court who had taught Beethoven and Schubert. Like Czerny, Salieri was deeply impressed by Liszt’s improvisation and sight-reading.

Liszt’s public debut in Vienna on 1 December 1822 was a great success. He was welcomed in Austrian and Hungarian aristocratic circles and met Beethoven and Schubert. To build on this success, Adam Liszt moved the family to Paris, the center of the artistic world. At Liszt’s final Viennese concert on 13 April 1823, Beethoven reportedly walked onstage and kissed Liszt on the forehead, as a kind of artistic blessing, though the story’s accuracy is debated. The family briefly returned to Hungary, and in May 1823 Liszt gave a concert in traditional Hungarian dress to emphasize his roots.

In 1824, a piece Liszt had written at age 11—his Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli (S. 147)—appeared in Part II of *Vaterländischer Künstlerverein* as his first published composition. This volume, commissioned by Anton Diabelli, contains 50 variations on his waltz by 50 different composers (Part I is Beethoven’s 33 variations on the same theme, now known as his Diabelli Variations). Liszt was the youngest contributor, described as "a boy of eleven years old"; Czerny also participated.

**Paris**

Having earned significant money from his concerts, Liszt and his family moved to Paris in 1823, hoping he could attend the Conservatoire de Paris. Despite a letter of recommendation from Chancellor Klemens von Metternich, director Luigi Cherubini refused his entry because the Conservatoire did not accept foreigners. Instead, Liszt studied with Anton Reicha and Ferdinando Paer, and gave a series of highly successful concerts, debuting on 8 March 1824. Paer was connected to the Parisian theatrical and operatic scene, and through him Liszt began...