Franz Liszt - The First Rockstar
A corner of this website must be reserved for Franz Liszt. The first modern piano player and rock star avant-la-lettre. After witnessing Paganini play he made it his mission in life to do for the piano what Paganini did for the violin: to turn it into a virtuoso instrument.
Franz Liszt was perhaps the most significant cultural force in the 19th century. He was a champion of the music of Richard Wagner early on (as early as in 1850 he conducted the premiere of Lohengrin in Weimar while Wagner was in Swiss exile due to his involvement in the Dresden uprising of 1849) and a teacher for many students. When Wagner married Liszt’s daughter Cosima good old Richard became his son-in-law. Franz was not too pleased about that (when Cosima broke with Catholism in order to marry Richard he was actually devastated) but his admiration for the genius of Wagner never diminished.
In the 1840’s Franz Liszt was on top of his game as piano virtuoso. He toured extensively through Europe in a time when most of the travelling was done by carriage, in a schedule that also with todays means of transportation would be very demanding. Liszt invented the piano recital. He redefined the instrument like Jimi Hendrix (or Eddie van Halen for that matter) redefined the electric guitar and made piano transcriptions from orchestral works (e.g. the complete symphonies of Beethoven). In a time before recorded sound in which people had to rely on music that was played live, they had with Franz Liszt a complete orchestra coming from the hands of one man. With his piano transcriptions he set a standard that is unmatched to this day.
In 1844 Heinrich Heine, famous writer and notorious critic, coined the term “Lisztomania”. Lisztomania referred to the (mass) hysteria that broke out when Franz started to play. A cult started around the man who could open the gates of Dante’s Inferno while sitting behind a keyboard. His portrait was worn on brooches and cameos. Lady admirers attempt to cut pieces of his hair and had bracelets made of the strings he broke during performances. They even collected his cigar butts and the coffee dregs from the cups he drank from. The overtone to all this was clearly sexual. And there was, of course, fainting. More than a century before Elvis and The Beatles, Franz Liszt was the first popstar. Sometimes history can teach us something about our present. But it also works the other way around. Then we can gain insight about our past by looking at the world we know and grew up in, a world with popmusic and rockstars.
Franz Liszt was perhaps the most significant cultural force in the 19th century. He was a champion of the music of Richard Wagner early on (as early as in 1850 he conducted the premiere of Lohengrin in Weimar while Wagner was in Swiss exile due to his involvement in the Dresden uprising of 1849) and a teacher for many students. When Wagner married Liszt’s daughter Cosima good old Richard became his son-in-law. Franz was not too pleased about that (when Cosima broke with Catholism in order to marry Richard he was actually devastated) but his admiration for the genius of Wagner never diminished.
In the 1840’s Franz Liszt was on top of his game as piano virtuoso. He toured extensively through Europe in a time when most of the travelling was done by carriage, in a schedule that also with todays means of transportation would be very demanding. Liszt invented the piano recital. He redefined the instrument like Jimi Hendrix (or Eddie van Halen for that matter) redefined the electric guitar and made piano transcriptions from orchestral works (e.g. the complete symphonies of Beethoven). In a time before recorded sound in which people had to rely on music that was played live, they had with Franz Liszt a complete orchestra coming from the hands of one man. With his piano transcriptions he set a standard that is unmatched to this day.
In 1844 Heinrich Heine, famous writer and notorious critic, coined the term “Lisztomania”. Lisztomania referred to the (mass) hysteria that broke out when Franz started to play. A cult started around the man who could open the gates of Dante’s Inferno while sitting behind a keyboard. His portrait was worn on brooches and cameos. Lady admirers attempt to cut pieces of his hair and had bracelets made of the strings he broke during performances. They even collected his cigar butts and the coffee dregs from the cups he drank from. The overtone to all this was clearly sexual. And there was, of course, fainting. More than a century before Elvis and The Beatles, Franz Liszt was the first popstar. Sometimes history can teach us something about our present. But it also works the other way around. Then we can gain insight about our past by looking at the world we know and grew up in, a world with popmusic and rockstars.
Franz Liszt redefined the piano like Jimi Hendrix and Eddie van Halen redefined the electric guitar
