He lived in Paris in the early days of the Romantic Movement[78] and was brought into relation with all the great artists, writers, poets and musicians of the day. Paganini’s magical playing inspired in him the ambition to do for the pianoforte what Paganini had done for the violin. How well he accomplished his desire we all know.
For many years Liszt travelled through Europe giving concerts everywhere and always with phenomenal success. His concert-tours, which extended from Spain and England to Russia and Hungary, were really triumphal progresses. Much of his money he gave away—sometimes to relieve suffering brought about by some great calamity, sometimes to help needy brother artists, sometimes for the cause of music, particularly for “the Music of the Future.”
LISZT IN 1875
Photograph taken in Budapest
In 1849 his career as a virtuoso-pianist practically came to an end and he settled in Weimar. He soon made this town the centre of a brilliant artistic life.
Professional and amateur musicians flocked there to study under the generous master who gave instruction to talented pupils without remuneration. Others came to hear rare and new works performed under his bâton at the Court Theatre of which he was conductor. His splendid interpretations of Lohengrin and Tannhäuser contributed no little in establishing Wagner’s reputation at a time when he greatly needed such endorsement as Liszt was able to give.
In 1861 Liszt left Weimar and went to Rome, where he took minor orders in 1865. Subsequently he was known as the Abbé Liszt.
The last years of his life were divided between Rome, Weimar and Buda-Pesth, an active and influential force in musical art until his sudden death at Bayreuth in 1886.
There are two great paradoxes in the career of Liszt. The first is that just as Rossini, the most popular opera composer of his day, ceased writing operas thirty-nine years before his death, so Liszt, the greatest and most adored pianist of all times, ceased playing in public (except for an occasional charitable purpose) about the same number of years before his end came. He had with his inimitable art familiarized concert-goers with nearly all the best compositions for the piano created by other masters. He had transcribed for the same instrument a large number of songs, operatic melodies and orchestral works (the number of these transcriptions at his death was 371) thereby vastly increasing their vogue. He also wrote altogether 160 original compositions for the pianoforte, many of them as new in form as in substance; unique among them being the fifteen Hungarian Rhapsodies—collections of Magyar melodies with gipsy ornaments molded by him into works of art, after the manner of epic poets. But—and here lies the second paradox—Liszt, the greatest of all pianists was not satisfied with the piano. In many of his pieces for it he endeavored to impart orchestral power and variety of tonal effect; and finally, when he became conductor at Weimar, in 1849, he transferred his attention chiefly to the Orchestra. Of his thirty-four orchestral works the most important are the Faust and Dante Symphonies and thirteen Symphonic Poems, in which he deviated from the old symphonic form in a spirit similar to Wagner’s operatic reforms—abolishing unconnected movements and allowing the underlying poetic idea to shape the form of the music.[79]