Franz Liszt (Hungarian: Liszt Ferenc; pronounced , in English: list) (October 22 1811 – July 31 1886) was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer of the Romantic period. He was a renowned performer throughout Europe during the 19th century, noted especially for his showmanship and great skill with the piano. Today, he is considered to be one of the greatest pianists in history. Liszt is frequently credited with re-defining piano playing itself, and his influence is still visible today, both through his compositions and his legacy as a teacher. He is credited with the invention of the symphonic poem, as well as the modern solo piano recital, in which his virtuosity won him approval by composers and performers alike.

Liszt contributed greatly toward the Romantic idiom in general. His writings and philosophies about the nature of music as an art, the role of the artist, and the necessary future direction of music had a significant effect on the musical culture of the time. His great generosity with both time and money benefited many people, including victims of disasters, orphans, and the many students he taught for free. He was also a benefactor and advocate of many composers, most famously Richard Wagner and Hector Berlioz.

Many of his piano compositions have entered the standard repertoire, including the Hungarian Rhapsodies, Transcendental Etudes (Études d'exécution transcendante), Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), the Piano Sonata in B minor, and two piano concertos. He also made many piano transcriptions of operas, famous symphonies, Paganini Caprices (some of the most demanding works of the violin repertoire in his day), and Schubert lieder. Many of his piano compositions are among the most technically challenging in the repertoire. Liszt was also a composer of lieder and choral music, of symphonic poems and other orchestral works. He also wrote for the organ, and his compositions for that instrument are lauded and well-established in the organ repertoire.

Liszt was born in the village of Doborján. He was a weak and sickly child, and was surrounded from his early childhood with music. His father, who worked at the court of Prince Esterházy, was himself a pianist and cellist who used to play in Esterházy's summer orchestra in Eisenstadt; he organized chamber music evenings with amateur musicians from the surrounding villages in which his old friends from Eisenstadt occasionally took part.

Franz received his first music lessons from his father when he was six years old. He quickly displayed incredible talent, easily sight-reading the most difficult music he could find, often even reading multiple staves at once. Local aristocrats noticed his talent and enabled him to travel to Vienna and later to Paris with his family.

In Vienna, he was taught by Beethoven's student Carl Czerny, who proved to be the only professional piano teacher Liszt ever had. Antonio Salieri taught him the technique of composition and fostered the young Liszt's musical taste.

Although he always considered himself a Hungarian, Liszt never became fluent in the Hungarian language; his later letters and diaries show that he came to regret this deeply. One letter to his mother begins in faltering Hungarian, and after an apology continues in French, his preferred language.

On April 13, 1823, Liszt gave a concert at which, according to legend, he impressed Beethoven to such an extent that he personally congratulated Liszt, kissing him on the forehead and giving him enthusiastic praise.

Liszt left Vienna in 1823 to travel. On April 20 1832, he attended a concert by the virtuoso violinist Paganini and became suddenly determined to become as great a virtuoso on the piano as Paganini was on the violin. He often took to seclusion in his room, and was heard practicing for over five hours a day. In 1832-34 he wrote the Grande Fantaisie de Bravoure sur La Clochette de Paganini ("Grand Bravura Fantasy on Paganini's La Campanella").

After 1842, when "Lisztomania" swept across the European continent, Liszt's recitals were in an overwhelming demand. His admirers praised and courted him, and ladies reputedly fought over his handkerchiefs and green silk gloves as souvenirs, which they often ripped to pieces in their struggle. Some of Liszt's contemporaries saw this kind of worship as vulgar and inappropriate, and eventually came to despise Liszt because of it.

In 1847, Liszt gave up public performances on the piano and in the following year finally took up the invitation of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia to settle at Weimar, where he had been appointed Kapellmeister Extraordinaire in 1842, remaining there until 1861. During this period he acted as conductor at court concerts and on special occasions at the theatre, gave lessons to a number of pianists.

Among his compositions written during his time at Weimar are the two piano concertos, No. 1 in E flat major and No. 2 in A major, the Totentanz, the Concerto pathetique for two pianos, the Piano Sonata in B minor, a number of Etudes, fifteen Hungarian Rhapsodies, twelve orchestral symphonic poems, the Faust Symphony and Dante Symphony, the 13th Psalm for tenor solo, chorus and orchestra, the choruses to Herder's dramatic scenes Prometheus, and the Graner Fest Messe. Much of Liszt's organ music also comes from this period, including the well-known Prelude and Fugue on the theme B-A-C-H (later arranged for solo piano).

Also in 1847, while touring in Russia, Liszt met Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. The Princess was an author, whose major work was published in 16 volumes, each containing over 1,600 pages. Her longwinded writing style had some effect on Liszt himself. His biography of Chopin and his chronology and analysis of Gypsy music were both written in the Princess's loquacious style. The couple had intended to marry in 1860, but since the Princess had been previously married and her husband was still alive, the Roman Catholic authorities would not approve the wedding, eventually intervening in dramatic fashion only moments before the couple were to take their vows. Although Liszt and Princess Carolyne remained friends, the stress of trying to persuade the Church authorities to let them marry, only to have their efforts eventually be in vain, proved an emotional blow from which neither completely recovered.

Liszt moved to Rome in 1861, in anticipation of his marriage to Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein.

From 1876 until his death he also taught for several months every year at the Hungarian Conservatoire at Budapest. He died in Bayreuth on July 31, 1886 as a result of pneumonia.

Liszt was a prolific composer. Most of his music is for the piano and much of it requires formidable technique. His thoroughly revised masterwork, Années de Pèlerinage ("Years of Pilgrimage") arguably includes his most provocative and stirring pieces. This set of three suites ranges from the pure virtuosity of the Suisse Orage (Storm) to the subtle and imaginative visualizations of artworks by Michaelangelo and Raphael in the second set. Années contains some pieces which are loose transcriptions of Liszt's own earlier compositions; the first "year" recreates his early pieces of Album d'un voyageur, while the second book includes a resetting of his own song transcriptions once separately published as Tre sonetti di Petrarca ("Three sonnets of Petrarch"). The relative obscurity of the vast majority of his works may be explained by the immense number of pieces he composed. In his most famous and virtuosic works, he is the archetypal Romantic composer. Liszt pioneered the technique of thematic transformation, a method of development which was related to both the existing variation technique and to the new use of the leitmotif by Richard Wagner. Liszt was the first to perform a symphonic poem, although an unperformed piece by César Franck that is sometimes counted as a symphonic poem predates Liszt's first symphonic poem. Nevertheless, Liszt is generally accepted as the real inventor of the symphonic poem. A symphonic poem is a single-movement orchestral work usually based on a literary work or a character sketch. Liszt's inspiration came from classical literature, including "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne," based on a Victor Hugo poem of the same title, and "Les Préludes" from Lamartine. Other pieces are based on works by Lord Byron, Goethe and Dante. Liszt's symphonic poems represent his ideal and philosophy of "The Music of the Future", in which music and art and literature would all join together in a grand synthesis. Although the symphonic poems were generally successes, they were often criticised by those who preferred the traditional absolute music as exemplified by Johannes Brahms.

His transcriptions met with less criticism. As a transcriber of even the most unlikely and complicated orchestral works, an example would be his transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies. He created piano arrangements which stood on their own merits; many other pianist-composers followed his example.



His piano works have always been well represented in concert programs and recordings by pianists throughout the world. Many of his works have been recorded a multitude of times. However, the only pianist who has recorded his entire pianistic oeuvre is the Australian Leslie Howard. The project took almost 15 years to complete, and comprised 95 full-length CDs. Howard was awarded a place in the Guinness Book of Records for having completed the largest recording project ever in the history of music (including both pop and classical). The series has also earned several Gramophone Grands Prix du Disque, and a special award from the Hungarian government. This massive undertaking included a number of premiere recordings, including many unpublished pieces, recorded from manuscript, which had not been played by anyone since Liszt himself.

Although in his later years his compositional style became less overtly virtuosic, it also became more experimental harmonically. Later works of the composer such as Bagatelle sans tonalité ("Bagatelle without Tonality") foreshadow composers who would further explore the modern concept of atonality. A famous example of this later style is Nuages Gris; it can also be seen to some extent in the third volume of the Années de Pèlerinage. Liszt's work also foreshadowed the impressionism that would characterize the work of Debussy and Ravel, as shown in '''Les Jeux d'Eaux à la Villa d'Este (The Fountains of the Villa d'Este) from the third volume of Années de Pèlerinage.

As Alan Walker writes in his volume covering Liszt's late years, it can be tempting to think of Liszt as the father of modern music on the basis of his late music. From our vantage point, it would seem that his experiments in harmony, his audacious handling of musical form, his unparalleled ability to draw strange sounds from the concert grand, would all apparently confirm that Liszt was one of the true revolutionaries in music. But to look at these achievements as ends in themselves would be erroneous.<bgref>Walker, Alan, <i>Liszt: The Final Years, 1861-1886 (Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 437.</bgref>

Liszt's technical achievements in his late music are one side of a more complex picture. By the early 1880s, Liszt was often ravaged by a universal sadness, descending without warning and threatening to overwhelm everything he did. He told Lina Ramann, "I carry with me a deep sadness of the heart which must now and then break out in sound."

Liszt wrestled daily with the demons of desolation, despair and death, bringing forth music that utterly failed to find its audience. We now know, in retrospect, that Liszt's contemporaries were offered a glimpse into a mind on the verge of catastrophe. They formed what Bence Szabolcsi calls "a conspiracy of silence" on the late pieces — one not lifted until modern times.

Liszt's works from this period fall into three categories:

*Music of retrospection *Music of despair *Music of death

The first category contains pieces in which a troubled spirit seeks consolation in memories of the past. Liszt referred to this music as his "forgotten" pieces — sardonically referring to compositions forgotten before even played, with titles such as </i>Valse oubliée, Polka oubliée and Romance oubliée.<bgref>Walker, <i>Liszt: The Final Years, p. 438.</bgref>

The second category, music of despair, can appear much more important since the titles of the pieces in this category would seem to point to a troubled mind. These titles include:

*</i>Schafflos! Frage und Antwort *Unstern! Sinastre, Diastro *Nuages gris *Ossa arida *Csárdás macabre *Abschied

These pieces, as well as others in this category, can be best understood as fragments broken off from a greater whole, each offering a glimpse of a pathology of despair. Though they do not share any overtly musical connections, they seem to fit with one another like members of a large family who never settle on one place yet become acquainted through chance encounters at smaller gatherings.<bgref>Walker, <i>Liszt: The Final Years, p. 438.</bgref>

The third category, music of death, contains pieces where Liszt raised grief to high art. Memorials, elegies, funerals and other aspects of the grieving process find their place in this music. Again, a sampling of titles in this grouping:

*</i>Funeral March for Emperor Maximilian *Seven Hungarian Historical Portraits #Széchenyi Isván (Lament) #Eötvös Jôzsef #Vörösmarty Mihály #Teleki László (Funeral Music) #Deák Ferenc #Petõfi Sándor (In Memory of) #Monsoni Mihály (Funeral Music)

*Funeral Prelude and Funeral March *Elegy in Memory of Mme Mouchanoff *Und wir dacten der Toten (And We Thought of the Dead)

Liszt once referred to his works in this category as his "mortuary pieces," perhaps as a joke intended to deflect criticism. As Walker puts it: "These pieces reveal a soul in turmoil. Since that is also a part of the human condition, there can be something here for all of us".<bgref>Walker, <i>Liszt: The Final Years, p. 439</bgref>

Liszt helped found the </i>Liszt School of Music Weimar<i> http://www.hfm-weimar.de/v1/index.php?file=/v1/seite.php&lang=en as well as the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. Throughout his later years Liszt took on many private students and his influence as a pedagogue was immense. Among his students were Eugen d'Albert, Arthur Friedheim, Sophie Menter, Moriz Rosenthal, Emil von Sauer, and Alexander Siloti.

Liszt's playing was described as theatrical and showy, and all those who saw him perform were stunned at his unrivalled mastery over the piano. Perhaps the best indication of Liszt's piano-playing abilities comes from his </i>Douze Grandes Etudes and early Paganini Studies, written in 1837 and 1838 respectively, and described by Schumann as "studies in storm and dread designed to be performed by, at most, ten or twelve players in the world". To play these pieces, a pianist must connect with the piano as an extension of his own body (Walker, 1987).

Liszt claimed to have spent ten or twelve hours each day practicing scales, arpeggios, trills and repeated notes to improve his technique and endurance. All of these piano techniques were frequently applied in his compositions, often resulting in music of extreme technical difficulty (his Transcendental Etude No.5 "Feux follets<i>" is an example). He would challenge himself and his immaculate fingering by presenting random problems to his playing.

Perhaps a large contributing factor to Liszt's affinity for extreme technical difficulty was the structure of his own hands. An original 19th century plaster cast of Liszt's right hand has been reproduced, and is now held in the Liszt House at Marienstrasse 17 (also known as the Liszt Museum). The plaster cast reveals that while Liszt's fingers were undoubtedly slender, they were of no exceptionally abnormal length. However, the small "webbing" connectors found between the fingers of any normal hand were practically nonexistent for Liszt. This allowed the composer to cover a much wider span of notes than the average pianist, perhaps even up to 10 whole steps.

During the 1830s and 1840s — the years of Liszt's "transcendental execution" — he revolutionised piano technique in almost every sector. Figures like Rubinstein, Paderewski and Rachmaninoff turned to Liszt's music to discover the laws which govern the keyboard.

While revolutionary and famously spectacular, Liszt's playing was far from mere flash and acrobatics. He also was reported to have played with a depth and nobility of feeling that would move sturdy men to tears. It seems that this quality to his playing may have continued to develop during his life, overtaking the youthful fire and bravura. Indeed, reports of his playing in old age include observations that it was surprisingly and distinctly subtle and poetic, with great purity of tone and effortlessness of execution; in distinction to the more tumultuous "Liszt school" of playing, which by then had already started to become traditional in Europe. Examination of the late piano works seems to back up this expressive requirement, where the composer seems to be deliberately rejecting the showiness of his earlier works.

Liszt was also a brilliant sight reader and stunned Edvard Grieg in the 1870s by playing his Piano Concerto perfectly by sight. The year before, Liszt played Grieg's violin sonata from sight. Decades earlier Liszt had played Chopin's studies at sight, prompting Chopin to write that he was consumed by envy, and wished to steal from Liszt his manner of playing his own pieces. This is all the more remarkable when one remembers that Liszt was playing at sight from a hand-written manuscript.

The term recital was first used by Liszt at his concert in London of June 9 1840, although the term had been suggested to him by the publisher Frederick Beale, and his career model is still followed by performing artists to this day. Before Liszt no one had given a piano-only concert. There would always have been a chamber work, or some songs too. It was Liszt who elevated the piano to its status today, and who demonstrated that a satisfying concert can be given by the piano alone.

Liszt's recitals traversed the European continent from the Urals to Ireland. He would often play before as many as three thousand people. He was the first solo pianist to play entire programmes from memory, and the first to play with the piano at right angles to the platform, with its lid open, reflecting sound across the auditorium.

:</i>For a full list of works, see main articles: List of compositions by Franz Liszt (S.1 - S.350) and also (S.351 - S.999)

Although Liszt provided opus numbers for some of his earlier works, they are rarely used today. Instead, his works are usually identified using one of two different cataloging schemes:

* More commonly used in English speaking countries are the "S" or "G" numbers, derived from the catalogue compiled by Humphrey Searle during the 1960s.<bgref>Searle, Humphrey: <i>The Music of Liszt, pp. 155-156, Dover Publications, 1967. See also http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/liszt_index.asp.</bgref> * Less commonly used is the "R" number, which derives from Peter Raabe's 1931 catalogue </i>Franz Liszt: Leben und Schaffen<i>.

* </i>Huit Variations op.1 * Seven Variations on a melody by Rossini op.2 * Impromptu Brillant sur des Thèmes de Rossini et Spontini op.3 * Deux Allegri di Bravura<i> op.4

These above works were published 1825, Opus number 5 was left unused.

* Etude in Twelve Exercises op.6, first published 1826. Later edition published by Hofmeister, Leipzig, as op.1 in March 1839.

* </i>Grande fantaisie sur une Tyrolienne de l'Opéra La Fiancée de Auber op.1. 1st version 1829, first performance by Liszt on April 7, 1829, Paris; 2nd version 1835, first performance by Liszt on October 1, 1835, Geneva. * (1832-34) Grande Fantasie de Bravoure sur La Clochettede Paganini op.2, first performance by Liszt November 5, 1834, it was a complete fiasco for Liszt. *Opus numbers 3 and 4 were left unused. *(1835) Trois morceaux de salon op.5, revised 1838. ** Fantaisie romantique sur deux airs suisses. ** Rondeau fantastique sur le thème "Il contrabandista" de Manuel Garcia, first performance by Liszt on January 28, 1837, Paris. ** Divertissement on the Cavatina "I tuoi frequenti palpiti" from Pacini's La Niobe, first performance by Liszt on April 1, 1836, Geneva. * (1835) Valse di bravura op.6, first performance by Liszt on May 28, 1836, Paris. * (1835-36) Réminscences des Puritains op.7. Revised English edition 1840 (?), first performance by Liszt on May 5, 1836, Lyon. * (1835-36) Deux fantaisies sur les motifs des Soirées musicales de Rossini op.8, revised 1840. ** La Serenata e l'Orgia op.8 no. 1, first performance by Liszt on May 18, 1836, Paris. ** La Pastorella dell’Alpi e li Marinari op.8 no.2 * (1835) Réminiscences de la Juive de Halévy op.9, first performance by Liszt on May 18, 1836, Paris. * (1835-36) Trois airs suisses op.10 * (1836) Réminiscences des Huguenots op.11, revised 1842, first performance by Liszt on April 9 1837, Paris. * (1837) Grand galop chromatique op.12 was Liszt's most popular concert piece during the time of his tours. Liszt played it at a private soirée given on April 6, 1838 by the Baroness Wetzlar, Thalberg's mother, in Venice, on April 19 1838; together with Clara Wieck in a four handed version at a soirée given by Haslinger in Vienna, and for the first time in a regular concert on May 2 1838, in Vienna. * (1839) Réminiscences de Lucia di Lammermoor 13, 1st part ("Andante finale") published in the beginning of 1840, first performance by Liszt on November 5 1839. Triest, the 2nd part, published as "Marsch und Cavatine<i>" in 1841 (without Opus number), first performance by Liszt on December 2 1839, Vienna.

* (1822) Variation on a Theme by Diabelli (S/G147, R26) * (1833-34) Piano arrangement of the </i>Sinfonie fantastique by Berlioz (Rèveries - Passions, Un Bal, Scène aux Champs, Marche du Supplice, Songe d'une nuit de Sabbat), first performance of the movements Un bal and Marchen du supplice ("March to the Scaffold") by Liszt on December 28, 1834, Paris. *(1837) Hexameron, Variations de bravoure sur une marche de Bellini, Introduction by Liszt, 1st variation by Thalberg, 2nd variation by Liszt, 3rd variation by Herz, 4th variation by Pixis, 5th variation by Czerny, 6th variation by Chopin, finale by Liszt. First performance by Liszt on December 10, 1837, Milan. The Hexameron was from 1837 to 1847 one of Liszt's most frequently played concert pieces. There are versions for four hand piano and for piano and orchestra by Liszt as well. * (1840) Réminiscences de Robert le diable, first performance by Liszt on November 6, Hamburg. * (1840-41) Réminiscences de Don Juan, first performance by Liszt on September 25, in Frankfurt, Liszt played from the manuscript score. * (1841-43) Réminscences de la Norma. * (1841) Feuilles d'album ('Album Leaves'). * (1842) Fantasy on melodies from Don Juan and Figaro; left unpublished by Liszt; was published 1911 by Busoni; it was not "completed" by Busoni but shortened by about a half. * Consolations; 1st version was composed late 1843/early 1844 and left unpublished by Liszt; 2nd version composed 1849. * (1848) Ballade No. 1 in D flat major (In original German:Ballade No. 1 in Des-dur), some materials were taken from an album leaf Dernière illusion, ecrit pour Marie ("Last illusion, written for Mary") from the end of 1845; in the French edition it has the title Le croiser ("The crusader"). * (1853) Ballade No. 2 in B minor (German: Ballade Nr. 2 in h-Moll). * (1848) Three Concert Etudes (French: Trois Études de Concert); No. 3, Un Sospiro ("A sigh"), (S/G144, R5). * (1835-82) Années de Pèlerinage: Première Année — Suisse; Deuxième Année — Italie - Venezia e Napoli; Troisième Année; an early version of the first part had been published as Années de Pèlerinage, 1re année in June 1841 in Paris; in 1841 a second part "Italy" and a third part "Germany", were planned by Liszt. An early version of Venezia e Napoli containing altogether four pieces was engraved by Haslinger in the beginning of 1840 but left unpublished by Liszt. From the first piece of these, he later took materials for his Symphonic Poem Tasso. * (1833-51 (?)) Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses, (S/G173) a collection of solo piano pieces, including the well known No. 7, Funérailles. * (1843-50) Liebesträume No. 3 ("Dreams of Love") in A-flat Major (piano solo) (S/G541, R211). * (1850) Mazurka brillante. * (1852) Transcendental Etudes (Prelude, Molto Vivace, Paysage, Mazeppa, Feux Follets, Vision, Eroica, Wilde Jagd, Ricordanza, Allegro Agitato Molto, Harmonies du soir, and Chasse neige. Known well for being technically difficult, notedly Mazeppa and Feux Follets) (S/G139, R2B), Composed 1837 (in most parts based on the 1826 studies), revised 1852) * (1851) Grandes Etudes de Paganini, including No. 3, "La Campanella"; and No. 5, "La Chasse" (Composed 1838-39, revised 1851). The first version was published in February 1841 without dedication by Schonenbeger, Paris, and in autumn 1841 with dedication to Clara Schumann by Haslinger, Vienna. * (1851-53) Piano Sonata in B minor (S/G178, R21). * (1843-52) Valse-Impromptu, (S/G213). * (1850) Polonaise No. 1 in C minor. * (1851) Polonaise No. 2 in E Major; it was exceptionally popular in Liszt's times. * (1851) Scherzo and March. * (1852) Three Valses Caprice. ** Valse de bravoure, revised version of the Valse di bravura op.6. ** Valse mélancolique, revised version of a prior version from 1840. ** Valse de concert sur deux motifs de Lucia et Parisina de Gaetano Donizetti, revised version of the "Valse a capriccio sur deux motifs de Lucia et Parisina de Gaetano Donizetti" from 1841. First performance of the older version by Liszt on October 11, 1841, Liège (Lüttich), Liszt played from the manuscript score. * (1853) Soirées de Vienne, nine Valses-Caprices d'après Fr. Schubert * (1839-85) Nineteen Hungarian Rhapsodies (S/G244, R106) - among them the most famous Rhapsody No. 2; Rhapsody No. 6 (1854) is well known for its finale with octaves; the Rhapsodies No. 16 - No. 19 are seldom played but also of note. * (1860) Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (piano solo) (S/G514, R181). * (1863) Two Concert-Studies ** 1. Waldesrauschen ** 2. Gnomenreigen * (1863) Slavimo Slavno Slaveni! for organ (S503, R196). * (1863) Légende No. 2: St François de Paule. * (1877) Dem Andenken Petőfis. * (1881) Nuages Gris ('Grey clouds') (S/G199, R78). * (1880-81) 2nd Mephisto Waltz. * Mephisto Waltzes No. 2 - 4, No. 2 (1880-81), No. 3 (1883), No.4 (1885). * Four Valses oubliées, No. 1 (1881), No. 2 (1883), No. 3 (1883), No. 4 (1883 (?)). * (1885) Bagatelle sans tonalité (S216a). * (1855) Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H for organ, rev. 1870. * (1832-35) Malédiction. * (1834) Symphonic Lélio Fantasy. * (1830-1849) Piano Concerto no. 1 in E-flat Major (S/G124). * (1839-1861) Piano Concerto no. 2 in A Major (S/G125) (revised 1861). * (1849) Totentanz ('Dance of death') (S/G126ii), for piano and orchestra. (revised 1853-1859). * (1854) Faust Symphony * (1857) Dante Symphony * (1848-82) Symphonic Poems ** Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne (also known as Berg-Symphonie), (1848-9) (after Victor Hugo) ** Tasso: lamento e trionfo, (1849) (after Byron) ** Les Préludes, after Lamartine (1848, rev. before 1854) ** Orpheus, (1853-4) ** Prometheus, (1850) ** Mazeppa, (1851), after Hugo. ** Festklänge, (1853) ** Héroïde funèbre, (1849-50, revised in 1854); an elaborated version of the first movement of a planned Revolutionary Symphony from 1830.<bgref>Liszt, Franz; <a rel='nofollow' title=<i> class='bookCitationLink' href=>Les Préludes and Other Symphonic Poems in Full Score.</a>Dover Publications (1994). ISBN:0486283224</bgref> ** </i>Hungaria, (1854) ** Hamlet, (1858), after Shakespeare. ** Hunnenschlacht, (1857), after a painting by Kaulbach. ** Die Ideale (1857), after Schiller ** Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe (1881-2), after a painting by Zichy; it was originally composed for piano. * (1866) Christus<i> (S/G3)

Liszt wrote about many subjects, including: an obituary of Paganini; the position of music in Italy; Robert and Clara Schumann; Chopin; Robert Franz; Beethoven's </i>"Fidelio"; Mendelssohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Foundation at Weimar; Wagner's Lohengrin and Tannhäuser; the music of the Hungarian Gypsies; John Field's nocturnes; Berlioz's "Harold in Italy"; and many more. His letters and musical essays are published in six volumes.

Some literary works that appeared under his name were written with the aid of Marie d'Agoult and Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein; a number of revisions were left to Caroline von Sayn-Wittgenstein in Liszt's later years. However, a work only he could have written himself is a "Manual of Pianoforte Technique" for the Geneva Conservatoire<i>. This has never been discovered however, and no conclusive proof that such a work was completed has ever been produced. According to Walker, it is unlikely to ever have existed. Despite this, a history of the work has been detailed by Robert Bory. If in fact it was completed, it is believed to be a technical manual for use of student pianists. It is now considered a lost work, which if discovered would provide an invaluable insight into the playing style of one of the greatest pianists who ever lived, and may well be of use to future pianists aspiring to play his works.

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* 1970: "Franz Liszt. Dreams of love" (), a Hungarian - Russian production, starring Marton Kelety as Liszt. * 1982: Liszt Ferenc, a TV movie in 24 episodes, filmed by Hungarian television with actors from several countries of Europe.

* * War of the Romantics

*</i>Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years (1811-1847) by Alan Walker, Cornell University Press, Revised Edition (1993) ISBN 0-8014-9421-4 *Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years (1848-1861) by Alan Walker, Cornell University Press, Reprint (1993) ISBN 0-8014-9721-3 *Franz Liszt: The Final Years (1861-1886) by Alan Walker, Cornell University Press, reprint (1997) ISBN 0-8014-8453-7 *The Death of Franz Liszt: Based on the Unpublished Diary of His Pupil Lina Schmalhausen by Lina Schmalhausen, annotated and edited by Alan Walker, Cornell University Press (2002) ISBN 0-8014-4076-9 *The Piano Master Classes of Franz Liszt 1884-1886: Diary Notes of August Gollerich by August Gollerich, edited by Wilhelm Jerger, translated by Richard Louis Zimdars, Indiana University Press (1996) ISBN 0-253-33223-0 *Liszt<i> by Serge Gut, De Falois, Paris (1989) ISBN 287706042X

* Walker, Alan. </i>Franz Liszt, The Virtuoso Years (revised edition) Cornell University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-8014-9421-4. * Walker, Alan. Franz Liszt, The Weimar Years Cornell University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8014-9721-3. * Walker, Alan. Franz Liszt: The Final Years'' Cornell University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8014-8453-7.

* The Franz Liszt Site with timeline * The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 by Rupert Hughes, full-text from Project Gutenberg * Franz Liszt Project - A comprehensive Liszt site with searchable databases. * * Letters of Franz Liszt * Concert programme for September 16, 1840 at The Centre for Performance History * Old cylinder recordings of orchestral arrangements of Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library. * International Franz Liszt Piano Competition - official page * Catalogue of the Complete Liszt Recording by Leslie Howard *Lizst in Limerick, The Old Limerick Journal, Richard Ahern

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* Kunst der Fuge: Franz Liszt - (Live) MIDI files * Liszt at Magnatune MP3 Creative Commons recordings * Liszt's page at Classical Archives * Liszt, Franz - Biography and Music. * Free Liszt Recordings (WMV and MP3) - A variety of Liszt's selections available for free download

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