The Famous Hungarian

Franz Listz was born in 1811 at Raiding in Hungary and moved to Vienna when he was a child ,and he took piano lessons from Czerny and composition lessons from Salieri in Vienna. Two years later, in 1823, he moved with his family to Paris. He was influenced by the violinist Paganini, and he turned his attention to the development of a similar technique as a pianist. In 1835, he left Paris with his mistress, the Comtesse d’Agoult. He travelled widely during the following years and his reputation as a pianist grew. In 1844 he separated from his mistress, the mother of his three children. In 1848, he settled in Weimar as Director of Music Extraordinary, accompanied by Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein. He now turned his attention to composition and in particular to the creation of a new form: the symphonic poem. In 1861 Liszt moved to Rome. In 1869 he began returning regularly to Weimar and had many pupils, and he was regarded as a national hero in Hungary. He died in Bayreuth in 1886, four years after the death of his son-in-law Wagner. As a pianist he had no equal, and as a composer he suggested a new course of composition to a younger generation of musicians.