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Summary

Like his contemporaries and friends – Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner – Liszt published articles, essays, critiques and books on musical life, artistic questions and aesthetic-philosophical problems. Furthermore, his writings include monographs on other composers and their works. Like most literary works of artists, Liszt’s texts also aim to promote his own view of art, to comment on the situation of art and culture and to influence cultural policy. In contrast to his colleagues, Liszt also wrote biographical texts in order to support other composers and their work. Liszt’s writing activity extends over nearly forty years (1835–72). It is highly dependent on the writing ambitions of the two most important women in his life, Marie d’Agoult (1805–76) and Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein (1819–87), because both of them took an active part in the writing of the texts.1 The following text focuses, on the one hand, on the writings of the Paris and travelling era and, on the other, on the Weimar writings, connected with the project of the ‘Neudeutsche Schule’ and Liszt’s idea of Hungarian music.

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Ma seule ambition de musicien était et serait de lancer mon javelot dans les espaces indéfinis de l’avenir – comme nous disions autrefois dans le journal de Brendel. Pourvu que ce javelot soit de bonne trempe et ne retombe pas à terre – le reste ne m’importe nullement!

My only ambition as a musician was and will be to throw my javelin into the indefinite spaces of the future – as we once said in Brendel’s journal. Provided that this javelin is of good temper and does not fall to the ground – the rest does not matter to me!

Letter to Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, 9 February 1874, in La Mara, ed., Franz Liszt’s Briefe, vol. 7.

Considering Liszt’s legacy, one should consider his multifaceted influence in the following fields: Firstly, Liszt was the ‘inventor’ of the symphonic poem. This new genre, which connects music and literature (or other arts), had a significant impact on symphonic music, mainly outside Germany. Schoenberg and Bartók, who both wrote symphonic poems at the beginning of their careers, were the first to give an assessment of Liszt’s significance for the twentieth century. Secondly, Liszt’s pianistic style (as composer and arranger) gave a model for virtuoso piano writing. Thirdly, some special characteristics of his compositions, in particular, the technique of thematic transformation in connection with large-scale form during the Weimar period, and advanced harmonic progressions becoming more obvious in the late works after 1872, have led musicologists to label him as a forerunner of twentieth-century new music. Finally, as the twenty-first century has approached, some composers have continued to draw on the works of the late Liszt for concrete inspiration.

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Chapter 14 - Liszt as a Writer

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Chapter 30 - Liszt and the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

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9 - ‘And art made tongue-tied by authority’ Shostakovich's song-cycles

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3 results

Chapter 14 - Liszt as a Writer

Summary

Chapter 30 - Liszt and the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Summary

9 - ‘And art made tongue-tied by authority’ Shostakovich's song-cycles