LISZT: FRANZ, a Hungarian pianist and musical composer; born in Raiding, Hungary, Oct. 2, 1811. His father, who was musical, directed his studies, and at the age of nine he was performing in public. Several Hungarian noblemen provided means to send him to Vienna, where he studied the pianoforte and com position (1821-1823). He received fur ther teaching in Paris. About 1839 he toured Europe as a pianist, and was re ceived everywhere with enthusiasm. He settled in Weimar and became director of the Court Theater. In this position he was enabled to produce works by Schumann, Berlioz, and Wagner, and to win favor for their new methods of musical composition. He made Weimar famous in the annals of music by pro ducing Wagner's "Lohengrin" and Ber lioz's `Benvenuto Cellini. In 1861 he resigned the directorship of Weimar and went to reside in Rome, where he took minor orders in the Roman Catholic Church in 1865, and was thenceforth generally known as Abbe Liszt. Subse
quently he retired from Rome to his native country, where in 1875 he received a government pension and was named director of the Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest. He gave his assist ance to foster the Wagner festivals of music in Bayreuth, and died there July 31, 1886. His chief musical composi tions are: The "Faust" and "Dante" symphonies, "Hungarian Rhapsodies," "Symphonic Poems," and the oratorios of "St. Elizabeth" and "Christus." He also wrote monographs on Chopin and Franz. His writings were published in six vol umes at Leipsic in 1880-1883. By the Countess D'Agoult, well known under the pseudonym "Daniel Stern," he had a son and two daughters.