FRANZ LISZT WAS A GREAT MUSICIAN AND COMPOSER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 43, 19 January 1949, Page 7

FRANZ LISZT WAS A GREAT MUSICIAN AND COMPOSER

Though he was a puny child who almost died at birth, Franz Liszt lived to make his final bow from the platform at 75. His successes as a touring ch|ld pianist were phenomenal. When his father died, the 16-year-old. settled in Paris, to teach study, and live with a capital “L.” In 1834 he fell violently in love with the novelist Daniel Stern (the Comtesse d’Agoult) and they had three children. To her in Geneva he returned from brilliant concert tours which took him to all parts of the world. Everywhere his technique, improvisation and gypsy magnetism moved audiences to hysterical adulation. He • became visiting court artist in Weimar in 1843 and five years later director of the opera. There he wrote 12 poems, the Hungarian Rhapsodies, the Faust and Dante symphonies. He had broken with Mme. d’Agoult, and his new love the Polish Princess Sayn-Wittzen-stein, urged him constantly to more ambitious efforts. Help To Students His kindness to the students who thronged his salon was as unremitting as his generosity to “causes” —the relief of flood sufferers, the erection of a statue in Bonn to Beethoven, the publication of Scarlatti’s works. More than that, he made himself the champion of new music; composers flocked to lay their scores at his feet forming a school of the future tllat exerted a far-reaching influence. He conducted Wagner’s neglected “Lohengrin,” “Flying Dutchman,” and Tannhauser” Berlioz’s “Benvenuto Cellini,” Webers’ “Euryanthe,” and others now famous. The encouragement these performances afforded the struggling composers was incalculable. They brought adverse criticism along with glory, however, and he relinquished his opera post in 1859. From then on he divided his working time between Budapest, Weimar and Rome. He donned the picturesque abbe’s robet, and wrote oratorios and requiems for the good of his soul. During his last years, he still played concerts for idolising audiences and still clung to his princess, though permitting himself ample amorous excursions on the side. While on a fisit to Bayreuth to his. daughter Cosima, wife of Wagner, he caught bronchitis, and died after a short illness. He was buried at Bayreuth with, the dramatic ceremony appropriate to a great showman.