Over time, however, Liszt’s masterwork found its audience, and today it is an absolute favourite of many pianists, music theorists, and classical music lovers across the globe. Its technical difficulty also meant that it struggled to become a core part of the repertoire for some time, as even the most talented pianists of the time were wary of taking it on. Brahms, who had a long and tumultuous history with Liszt, is even said to have fallen asleep at its premiere, and one critic said that “anyone who has heard it and finds it beautiful is beyond help.” Unusually for a sonata, its movements are played back to back without pause, and at the time received a highly divisive response. Dedicated to Robert Schumann, many have attempted to ascribe to it a meaning beyond the music, from yet another Faustian depiction to the story of the Garden of Eden, and even the suggestion that it could musical autobiography. Liszt achieved true perfection in 1853, when he completed his Piano Sonata in B minor. Liszt - La Campanella Played on an LED Piano This duo of pieces reveal an affection and sensitivity in Liszt for the Bible and its stories, as he uses the piano as a storytelling device to mimic the chirping of birds in the first piece and the aquatic rippling of the Mediterranean Sea in the second. Yet he wrote a large number of sacred choral works, and for eight years in the 1860s he took up residence in the Vatican, later being known as Abbé Liszt. His relationship with the church ebbed and flowed over the course of his life, as he generated mistrust within sacred society with his flamboyant womanising lifestyle and obsessions with the macabre in his compositions. Based on miniature stories of two Catholic saints, St Francis of Assisi and St Francis of Paola, these Deux légendes provide a delicate insight into Liszt’s otherwise private religious and spiritual beliefs. In 1863, Liszt wrote a pair of pieces for solo piano which are beyond compare in the remainder of his output. Faust, in turn, whisks away one of the village maidens, turning and twirling into the forest beyond. The joyous festivities take a turn when the demon commandeers a violin and ekes out an ‘indescribably seductive’ melody. Subtitled ‘The Dance in the Village Inn’, it follows a part of Nikolaus Lenau’s Faust story, in which Mephistopheles and Faust join a village wedding party. Written in the years between 18, the first waltz is the most famous. Liszt wrote four Mephisto Waltzes, named for one of the most renowned demons in German folk literature (also known as Mephistopheles). Here are the 15 greatest pieces he ever wrote. Over a six-decade career, he left behind a colossal amount of music – mostly piano, but also orchestral and vocal. Not least because of his swarming fanbase and 6’1” height, Liszt loomed large over the German music scene as an innovative and experimental performer and composer. His was able to bring this music to the attention of people who otherwise would never have heard it.Read more: Franz Liszt: discover the great Romantic composer’s life "The way he championed these works, very often, was to transcribe them for piano so he could play the music in his recitals - for instance he transcribed all nine symphonies of Beethoven, a tremendous undertaking. "These were composers whose genius Liszt felt it was terribly important for the world to recognize - especially Schubert and Beethoven," says Hoffman. But he also championed works of composers who had come before. He championed composers who were alive at the time - Berlioz and Wagner. Heres a video that dives deep into the ten of the most impossible works written by Franz. And as a person, Liszt was remarkably benevolent. Liszt and difficult works go together like gravy and Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, the Carl Alexander Edition still represents Liszts most comprehensive edition of his works, since the New Liszt Edition (ed. Wagner, Bartok, and Debussy were all heavily influenced by him. What's certain, Hoffman says, is that Liszt was in many ways an important pioneer as a composer. But I should probably make an exception - or pianists would angry with me - for Liszt's B minor Piano Sonata, because many people, especially pianists, do consider it a masterpiece." When I listen to his piano works, for example, I'm more struck by the virtuosity than by the beauty or the depth of the music itself. "I don't think of Liszt as a composer of masterpieces. "I think there are people who would disagree with me, but I would make the case that Liszt was not so much a great composer but was an extraordinarily important composer," Hoffman explains.
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