Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, pianist and teacher of the Romantic period. With a diverse body of work spanning more than six decades, he is considered to be one of the most prolific and influential composers of his era and remains one of the most popular composers in modern concert piano repertoire.
Hugo Philipp Jacob Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but diverging greatly in technique.
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term Tondichtung appears to have been first used by the composer Carl Loewe in 1828. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt first applied the term Symphonische Dichtung to his 13 works in this vein.
The "War of the Romantics" is a term used by some music historians to describe the schism among prominent musicians in the second half of the 19th century. Musical structure, the limits of chromatic harmony, and program music versus absolute music were the principal areas of contention. The opposing parties crystallized during the 1850s. The most prominent members of the conservative circle were Johannes Brahms, Joseph Joachim, Clara Schumann, and the Leipzig Conservatoire which had been founded by Felix Mendelssohn. Their opponents, the radical progressives mainly from Weimar, were represented by Franz Liszt and the members of the so-called New German School, and by Richard Wagner. The controversy was German and Central European in origin; musicians from France, Italy, and Russia were only marginally involved. Composers from both sides looked back on Beethoven as their spiritual and artistic hero; the conservatives seeing him as an unsurpassable peak, the progressives as a new beginning in music.
A Faust Symphony in three character pictures, S.108, or simply the "Faust Symphony", is a choral symphony written by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's drama, Faust. The symphony was premiered in Weimar on 5 September 1857, for the inauguration of the Goethe–Schiller Monument there.
Lisztomania is a 1975 British surreal biographical musical comedy film written and directed by Ken Russell about the 19th-century composer Franz Liszt. The screenplay is derived, in part, from the book Nélida by Marie d'Agoult (1848), about her affair with Liszt.
Les préludes, S.97, is the third of Franz Liszt's thirteen symphonic poems. The music was composed between 1845–54, and began as an overture to Liszt's choral cycle Les quatre élémens, then revised as a standing alone concert overture, with a new title referring to a poem by Alphonse de Lamartine. Its premiere was on 23 February 1854, conducted by Liszt himself. The score was published in 1856 by Breitkopf & Härtel. Les préludes is the earliest example of an orchestral work entitled "Symphonic Poem".
Hunnenschlacht, S.105, is a symphonic poem by Franz Liszt, written in 1857 after a painting of the same name by Wilhelm von Kaulbach. Liszt conducted the premiere himself in Weimar on 29 December 1857.
The symphonic poems of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt are a series of 13 orchestral works, numbered S.95–107. The first 12 were composed between 1848 and 1858 ; the last, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe, followed in 1882. These works helped establish the genre of orchestral program music—compositions written to illustrate an extra-musical plan derived from a play, poem, painting or work of nature. They inspired the symphonic poems of Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, Richard Strauss and others.
Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne, S. 95, is the first of thirteen symphonic poems by Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. It is an orchestral work inspired by Victor Hugo's poem of the same name, published as No. 5 of his collection Les Feuilles d'automne (1831).
Franz Liszt composed his Prometheus in 1850, numbering it No. 5 in his cycle of symphonic poems when he revised it in 1855. The work is based on the Greek myth detailing the Titan Prometheus' theft of fire from the gods and is numbered S.99 in the Searle catalogue.
Orpheus is a symphonic poem written by Franz Liszt in 1853–54. He numbered it No. 4 in the cycle of 12 he wrote during his time in Weimar, Germany. It was first performed on 16 February 1854, conducted by the composer, as an introduction to the first Weimar performance of Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice. The performance helped celebrate the birthday of Weimar's Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, who was an amateur musician and a staunch supporter of Liszt at Weimar.
Franz Liszt composed his Tasso: lamento e trionfo in 1849, revising it in 1850–51 and again in 1854. It is numbered No. 2 in his cycle of 13 symphonic poems written during his Weimar period.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. He is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language, his work having a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day.
"Music of the Future" is the title of an essay by Richard Wagner, first published in French translation in 1860 as "La musique de l'avenir" and published in the original German in 1861. It was intended to introduce the librettos of Wagner's operas to a French audience at the time when he was hoping to launch in Paris a production of Tannhäuser, and sets out a number of his desiderata for true opera, including the need for 'endless melody'. Wagner deliberately put the title in quotation marks to distance himself from the term; Zukunftsmusik had already been adopted, both by Wagner's enemies, in the 1850s, often as a deliberate misunderstanding of the ideas set out in Wagner's 1849 essay, The Artwork of the Future, and by his supporters, notably Franz Liszt. Wagner's essay seeks to explain why the term is inadequate, or inappropriate, for his approach.
Lisztomania or Liszt fever was the intense fan frenzy directed toward Hungarian composer Franz Liszt during his performances. This frenzy first occurred in Berlin in 1841 and the term was later coined by Heinrich Heine in a feuilleton he wrote on April 25, 1844, discussing the 1844 Parisian concert season. Lisztomania was characterized by intense levels of hysteria demonstrated by fans, akin to the treatment of celebrity musicians today – but in a time not known for such musical excitement.
Mazeppa is a symphonic poem composed by Franz Liszt between the years 1851 to 1854 for orchestra. Mazeppa, S. 100, is the sixth in the cycle of twelve symphonic poems written during Liszt's time in Weimar, however a thirteenth composition was added to his collection in 1882. Mazeppa is based on the poem of the same title written by Victor Hugo in 1829. The work premiered at the Court Theatre in Weimar on April 16, 1854.
Die Ideale, S. 106, is a symphonic poem composed by Franz Liszt in 1856–1857 and published in 1858 as No. 12. It was first performed on 5 September 1857. Die Ideale was composed for the unveiling of a Goethe and Schiller monument on Sept. 5th, 1857. It was inspired by multiple passages of the poem of the same name by Schiller, which Liszt liberally rearranged to create a program to his liking. This is an example of the extreme to which Liszt went to create the programmatic atmosphere of his Symphonic Poems.
Les quatre élémens, S.80, is a cycle of four choral pieces by Franz Liszt, to words by Joseph Autran. The cycle was composed in 1844–48, originally with piano accompaniment, later orchestrated. The title is an allusion to the Ancient Greek elements: earth, air, water, and fire. As an afterthought, Liszt composed an overture for the cycle in 1849–50, but this was instead revised to become his symphonic poem Les préludes.
"Erlkönig", Op. 1, D 328, is a Lied composed by Franz Schubert in 1815, which sets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poem of the same name. The singer takes the role of four characters — the narrator, a father, his small son, and the titular "Erlking", a supernatural creature who pursues the boy — each of whom exhibit different tessitura, harmonic and rhythmic characteristics. A technically challenging piece for both performers and accompanists, "Erlkönig" has been popular and acclaimed since its premiere in 1821, and has been described as one of the "commanding compositions of the century".
