Few composers in classical music history are as shrouded in mythology as Franz Liszt. He is the ultimate nineteenth-century showman: a dazzling virtuoso whose thunderous piano works are often dismissed as all flash and ego. His fame, scandalous love life,

In 1960, Columbia Pictures released the romantic biopic Song Without End, tracing the love affair between pianist/composer Franz Liszt and the married Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. One would assume that this real-life story of forbidden love would make a great

The relationship between Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin was complex and influential. Despite their contrasting personalities (Chopin was more of an introvert, while Liszt was a flamboyant extrovert), the two composers have remained linked in music lovers’ minds for generations.

Franz Liszt was one of the most powerful musical connectors of the nineteenth century. As a virtuoso pianist, composer, teacher, conductor, and tireless advocate for others’ music, he stood at the center of an international network of composers who admired

Franz Liszt is remembered today as one of the most revolutionary pianists in history, but his influence extended far beyond his own performances and compositions. During his decades teaching in Weimar, Rome, and Budapest, Liszt trained an extraordinary circle of

Few Romantic Era love stories are as passionate – or as tumultuous – as the relationship between Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult. What began as an unexpected meeting in a Parisian salon in the early 1830s blossomed into an intense

Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) was one of the most celebrated pianists of the nineteenth century. It was said that he played faster than Liszt and louder than Chopin. In addition, he was also a highly original composer comparable to Hector Berlioz.

A set of short anonymous poems in Boston’s Musical Herald did a poetical job of setting out the history in limericks, along with unique rhyming spellings. We started in the 18th century with Gluck and then Haydn. Next, we’ll advance