Best of Franz Liszt: 11 Amazing Songs and Other Interesting Facts

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear “Franz Liszt”? For the vast majority of people, Liszt evokes feelings of love, enchantment, and great elation in his piano performances. check out the best liszt songs and other amazing things about his amazing life story here.

In this interesting biography of Franz Liszt, you will discover some secret details of the mysterious life of the famous piano master, undoubtedly one of the great geniuses of humanity and classical music of the Romantic period. At the end of this post I prepared a wonderful list with some of his best songs, I hope you like it. Enjoy!!!.

Liszt He became known worldwide for being a great piano virtuoso, considered the greatest pianist in the history of music. In addition, he was also one of the great classical composers and became a very popular artist in his time, a true piano star.

Liszt, born October 22, 1811 in Raiding in Hungary, began his piano studies at the age of 6 and still child began to compose. The nobles of the region were amazed at his precocious talent and funded his studies. Liszt traveled the world and met several artists who became good friends and were sources of inspiration for his artistic development.

Some of the great names of the Romantic era were present in Liszt’s circle of friendship, for example:

Famous Friends of Franz Liszt

Nicolo Paganini – The great Italian violinist, thus considering Liszt the greatest of all time in his musical instrument. He was recognized as a supernatural violinist because he had the power to magnetize everyone with the sound of his magnificent violin Stradivarius.

Frédéric Chopin – Great Polish Pianist, is recognized along with Liszt and Beethoven like the great composers of pieces for piano.

Hector Berlioz – One of the greatest French composers, author of operas, concerts and other wonderful works. He was influential in Liszt’s life.

Alphonse de Lamartine – French writer, poet and politician

Victor Hugo – French writer, poet and playwright

George Sand – Lover of Chopin, considered the greatest French writer of the romantic period.

Robert Schumann – German composer and pianist, led with Liszt and Chopin the romantic movement in piano music.

A Virtuous Pianist

In the legacy of compositions of Franz Liszt it is possible to find works for different musical forms. Solo piano pieces, songs, concerts, symphonic poems, nationalist-inspired pieces inspired by the folk music of his country, the famous Hungarian Rhapsody.

In his 74 years of life, Liszt left to mankind a legacy with hundreds of musical works, his technique of composition was strictly private. He developed instrumental innovations, new sonorities and musical forms inspired by literature and other works of art.

We already know that Liszt was a piano virtuoso, that is, a person with superior abilities to perform his musical instrument. The great master of the piano, totally dominated the piano technique. This made him the first pop star in the history of music.

An old legend tells us that after watching Paganini’s triumphant performance at the opera in Paris in 1832.

Franz Liszt felt extremely inspired and influenced by the great Italian violinist, in this way he further perfected his technique studies and his performance to the piano becoming forever the greatest pianist in human history.

The truth is that even God is graced with the great gift of music. Behind the genius of the natural talent of every great virtuoso there is an important amount of endless hours of study and much dedication.

In addition to fabulous and beautiful public performances, Franz Liszt was also responsible for the physical development of the piano, improvement of technique and interpretation, was a great influencer of young composers and classical pianists like Rachmaninoff.

If you are a pianist or classical piano student and have had contact with some of Liszt’s pieces, then you know that these are extremely difficult works to perform.

Liszt’s great masterpieces as you know are the 19 Hungarian Piano Rhapsodies which have also been arranged for orchestras and are often performed in the best concert halls in the world.

Everyone already knows that Liszt liked to travel and perform for the public, after all he was a pop star. He also taught piano lessons and composition many of his students became famous musicians such as Bizet, Saint-Saëns, Albénis and others.

He still had the peculiar interest of making piano transcriptions of works of other geniuses like Beethoven, Paganini, and other scholarly musicians.

His friend Frédéric Chopin also exerted great influence in his form of playing revealed to him the chromatism and the fluctuation of the harmony. Berlioz, introduced the programmatic music. And Paganini, the exaggerated virtuosity and perfectionist.

To the Hungarian master is attributed the creation of the musical genre called symphonic poem, the innovation in performing concerts, having the piano as sole instrument and, also, fixing the piano, laterally for greater contact with the public.

According to historians and scholars Liszt composed a total of 749 works:

14 – Symphonies
9 – Concerts
418 –  Pieces for solo piano
82 – Compositions for other instruments
1 – Opera
106 – Corals
119 – Songs.

Love life and relationships Liszt:

Legend has it that this great artist had an angelic beauty, he charmed everyone with his music and left the maidens completely in love.

His love life was a bit troubled and not discreet, Liszt began a relationship with the Countess Marie d’Agoult. She gave him three children, among them Cosima, who was to marry the German composer Richard Wagner.

He then became involved with Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein.

Over the years after having had many love affairs and losing the women of his life and also his children, Liszt found himself alone because they had all died.

With his heart filled with loneliness, Liszt resolved to seek solace in the church where he lived the last years of his life as a member of the Franciscan order.

Liszt died at the Wagner residence in Bayreuth on July 31, 1886, acclaimed as the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century and perhaps of all time.

Franz Liszt interesting facts

His first teacher was his father Adam Liszt, when he moved to Vienna he took piano lessons with Carl Czerny, renowned piano teacher and former student of Beethoven.

He had composition classes with the famous composer Antonio Salieri.

Liszt tried to study at the Paris Conservatoire but was not accepted as a student because he was not French.

He was deeply shaken after his father’s death in 1826, lost interest in composition and decided to devote himself to piano lessons to support the family.

Liszt regained his interest in music after seeing Paganini play his violin.

They tell me that once, during a reception in a palace, Liszt’s hat fell, rolling down the stairs. A Russian princess, approaching Lizst, exclaimed, “Oh, your hat fell, sir!” He replied, “Let me, because of your charm, I have lost my head, so that the hat will no longer serve me.”

Liszt’s piano pieces are among the hardest ever composed, some songs are so difficult that only the most dedicated pianists can play.

His friend Chopin once commented: “I wanted to steal from him the art of playing my own studies so well”

His teacher Czerny declared: “The young Franz could at first read extremely difficult pieces in public that everyone would believe he would have studied exhaustively to reach such perfection”

Franz Liszt: Memorable quotes from music and art.

“Music is the heart of life.” She speaks love; “without it, there is no possible good and with it everything is beautiful.”

“For the virtuoso, musical works are in fact nothing but tragic and moving materializations of his emotions; he is called upon to make them speak, weep, sing and sigh, to recreate them in accordance with his own consciousness. In this way he, like the composer, is a creator, for he must have within himself those passions that he wishes to bring so intensely to life.”

“Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.”

If you like Liszt and wish to know other compositions, listen to his concerts, rhapsodies, symphonic poems, piano studies, piano transcriptions, sacred compositions and solo piano works. His work is very extensive, so I will recommend here some remarkable songs, in which you can penetrate the world of Liszt.

Listen to the most famous works by Franz Liszt:

1. Hungarian Rhapsody N.2

The fabulous Russian pianist Valentina Lisitsa hypnotizes us with her enigmatic performance of Liszt’s work.

2. Franz Liszt Liebestraume N.3 (Love Dream)

At the piano we can listen to the performance of the Polish pianist Aleksandra Mikulska, here she performs Liszt’s most romantic piano piece

3. La Campanella

Here we have the transcription for piano made by Liszt. This piece makes for the collection of piano pieces called Grandes études de Paganini. At the piano the talented South Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son

4. Piano Concerto No 1 in E flat major

Here the incomparable Argentine pianist Martha Argerich presents us with her imposing interpretation.

5. Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major

The talented Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili delights everyone in this with her wonderful performance.

Now we will listen to the three orchestral works that are contained in the collection of Liszt’s famous symphonic poems

6. Les Préludes:

7. Orpheus:

8. Mazeppa:

9. Hungarian Fantasy

A really interesting composition, the scales, rhythms and arpeggios used here by the pianist Lev Vlassenko reveal to us a mysterious and rather surprising melody.

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10. Sonata in B Minor

The incredible Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire impresses and thrills us with this perfect performance of Liszt’s famous sonata.

11. Totentanz for Piano & Orchestra

This is a very peculiar composition, it is surrounded by an atmosphere of typical dark tone of minor tonality, it is a play for virtuoso pianists like Denis Matsuev, check it out:

Thank you for your attention, I hope you enjoyed it. Please write your opinion in the comments of this post, I accept suggestions. Share with six friends on social networks. Peace and Good, Happiness to all. Listen to other compositions by Liszt and other masters of classical music.