Franz Liszt: A Chronicle of His Life in Pictures and Documents

by Ernst Burger, Stewart Spencer (Translator)

This innovative documentary biography of Franz Liszt is a triumph of scholarship, as well as a magnificent achievement in the art of book design and production. Ernst Burger presents an enormous amount of new information about the life, times, and works of this quintessential nineteenth-century musical genius, and he organizes that information in a beautiful and accessible format. He supports his account of Liszt's dramatically successful career as performer and composer with an exceptional range of gloriously reproduced illustrations. The text is further enhanced by running chronologies of Liszt's compositions and of the salient events in his life. A large proportion of the documents presented here are being made available for the first time, and the numerous testimonies of Liszt's contemporaries include many that have not appeared in any other Liszt biography. "When Liszt died, he made the mistake of leaving behind an unusual legacy of envy," Alfred Brendel points out in his foreword to the volume. Liszt's boundless pianistic skill and his originality as a composer were "barely forgivable," especially when combined with his personal magnetism, masculine beauty, and energetic love life. He began his concert career as a child prodigy, hailed by a dazzled public as a second Mozart. In his later years, he took Holy Orders--a decision that may have been the culmination of a personal quest for the numinous, or the crowning public-relations coup, or both. Objective and yet contagiously enthusiastic, this book has a unique place in the current rehabilitation of any part of Liszt's prestige that was tarnished by resentment or jealousy. It enriches our appreciation of Liszt's genius and his musical influence, and of the selflessness and generosity that were important parts of his character. "In its wealth of (in part unpublished) material, in the manageability and care with which the material has been arranged, and in the extraordinary visual quality of the layout as chosen by the author himself, Ernst Burger's astonishing documentary study of Liszt must be reckoned among the most important and lasting works to be published on nineteenth-century cultural history; as such, I hope that it may open many readers' eyes, if not also their ears, to Liszt."--Alfred Brendel Ernst Burger was born in Munich in 1937. After attending his local grammar school, he studied at the Munich Conservatoire. In addition to his activities as a concert pianist, he teaches at the Richard-Strauss-Konservatorium in his home town. The present study is the result of many years of intensive interest in the music, literature, and painting of the nineteenth century, and in particular in the life and works of Franz Liszt. Stewart Spencer is a free-lance writer and translator living in London. He is the editor, with Barry Millington, of Selected Letters of Richard Wagner (Norton).

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Adrian Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book on Franz Liszt has been in my collection for a least 20 years and it's still amazing!
Everything you wanted to know about Liszt is in there and then some. As a pianist, I have always been fascinated by his life and wanted to know more. This book by Ernst Berger gave me more Liszt than I could have asked for.

Being so thorough, I would recommend this to anyone who is truly a Liszt fan.

[Doria · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing compilation of photos, paintings, articles, letters, lampoons, concert programs, quotes, and more! Even if you were unable to read a single word of the various texts included in this extraordinary assemblage, the pictures alone would tell a great part of the story of this endlessly fascinating man. His story is intriguing, but also poignantly sad, especially his years of rootless wandering. His brilliance at the keyboard and in ladies' parlors - he left a trail of broken pianos and hearts wherever he went - was matched only by his generous spirit, particularly when he was approached by composers and piano students who were in need of money and emotional support. Truly a wonderful book, and one to loom large over any coffee table.