LISZT, Franz, frants list, Hungarian pianist and composer: b. Raiding, near Oden burg, Hungary, 22 Oct. 1811; d. Baireuth, 31 July 1886. He was scarcely nine years of age when he made his first appearance as a pianist and improvisator in Odenburg and Presburg with such success that several noblemen under took the expenses of his training at Vienna under Czerny the pianist, and Salieri the com poser. In 1823 he made a great sensation as executant and improvisator on the planet in Vienna, Munich, Paris and other cities. His father thereupon traveled with him through France, Switzerland and England for further study of his art. While yet a boy he composed the operetta (Don Sancho' (1824) and the following year launched out into grand opera at Paris. For a time he experienced the conflict between his religious predilections, which beckoned him to the Church, and his father's wishes for his musical success, which resulted finally in the choice of music as his profession. His hearing of Paga nini in 1831 affected him greatly and had a most stimulating influence on his cultivation of vir tuosity. In 1835 he had completed his studies as composer for the piano, and in company with the Countess d'Agoult who afterward became the mother of his children (one of whom be came the wife of Von Billow and afterward of Richard Wagner) he began his travelsuring S which he gave a series of concerts in Switzer land, Italy and Hungary, winding up with some remarkable performances in Vienna. From 1839 to 1847 he made a triumphal progress through the whole of Europe. His success was due less to the astounding power of execution with which he rendered the masterpieces of every age, than to the sublimity, the noble feeling, the depth of expression with which he rendered every number of his program. Honors now were showered upon him; he was made Kapell meister to the Grand Elector of Weimar; Fred erick William IV knighted him, and he was decorated by every court in Europe. In 1848 he settled at Weimar with the Princess Karo line Sayn-Wittgenstein, and became the teacher and °inspirer° of a large circle of young musi cians. In 1861 he settled at Rome; in 1865 he took minor orders in the Catholic Church, and became known as Abbe Liszt. In 1870 he was made president of the Royal Musical Academy at Budapest and henceforth lived in turn there, at Rome and at Weimar. The villa in the last
city which he occupied now contains the Liszt museum.
In the career of Liszt as a composer there are three distinct periods. The compositions of his first period consist partly of (Transcrip tions' for the pianoforte (a department in piano music inaugurated by him) ; partly of piano pieces, songs and choruses for male voices. In the second period, during his residence at Weimar, he applied himself to purely instru mental music, in accordance with the principles which he had learned of Berlioz. He sought on the piano to express by a symphony familiar poetic objects and by means of this to adum brate ideas of a lyric or dramatic order. To this class of compositions belong his twelve Poems,' namely, (1) 'Cc qu'on entend stir la Montagne' known also as 'The Mountain Symphony' ; (2) Tasso's 'Lament° e Trionfo); (3) Preludes, after Lamartine's (Notre Vie est-elle autre Chose qu'une Seric de Preludes" (4) (5) (Prome theus,' etc. 'Later in this period appeared (Missa Solemnis' and (The Hungarian Coro nation Mass.' In his third period, from his residence in Rome to his death, he is chiefly remarkable as a composer of sacred music. He produced the oratorios ; and Legend of Saint Elizabeth'; a (Requiem,' for male voices and the organ; besides (Cantatas,' (Psalms,' 'Paternosters,' and short pieces for the church choir. In all these works he fol lowed the method inaugurated by Berlioz and Wagner, and his works indicate the high water mark of the North German school. What per haps won him most renown were his phonic Poems' and his sacred compositions, in which latter he strove to blend the liturgical and dramatic elements of music. Re was also a musical critic of considerable power. Among his published works may be enumerated (Frederic Chopin' (1852); (Lohengrin et Tannhauser de R. Wagner' (1851); and Bohemiens et leur musique en Hongne) (1859). Consult or studies by Coloocoressi (Paris 1905) ; Gollerich (Berlin 1908) ; Hervey (London 1911); Kapp, Julius (Berlin 1911) -, Ramann (Leipzig 1894); Wagner, C. (Munich 1911). His letters were published in eight vol umes under the editorship of Maria Lipsius (1893-1905) ; his correspondence with Wagner appeared in an English translation by Hueffer in 1888.