The greatest virtuoso career in history - that of Franz Liszt - has been told in countless biographies. But what does that career look like when viewed from the perspective of European cultural history? In this study Dana Gooley examines the world of discussion, journalism, and controversy that surrounded the virtuoso Liszt, and reconstructs the multiple symbolic identities that he fulfilled for his enthusiastic audiences. Gooley’s work is based on extensive research into contemporary periodicals - well-known and obscure journals and newspapers - as well as letters, memoirs, receipts, and other documents that shed light on Liszt’s concertizing activities. Emphasizing the virtuoso’s contradictions, the author shows Liszt being constructed as a model aristocrat and a model bourgeois, as a German nationalist and a Hungarian patriot, as a sensitive romantic artist and a military dictator, as a greedy entrepreneur and as a leading force for humanitarian charity. His popularity, Gooley argues, was not an inevitable result of his musical genius, but depended on specific ways in which his playing intersected with the concerns of his contemporary world.
DANA GOOLEY is Assistant Professor of Music at the CaseWestern Reserve University, Ohio. He is a music historian specializing in music of the nineteenth century. He has presented numerous papers on virtuosity and on issues of gender and music, and has published in the journal 19th Century Music and the Journal of the American Liszt Society. Dana Gooley is also an accomplished pianist who plays in jazz clubs and concert halls around the world.
GENERAL EDITORS
JEFFREY KALLBERG, ANTHONY NEWCOMB, AND RUTH SOLIE
This series explores the conceptual frameworks that shape or have shaped the ways in which we understand music and its history, and aims to elaborate structures of explanation, interpretation, commentary, and criticism which make music intelligible and which provide a basis for argument about judgments of value. The intellectual scope of the series is broad. Some investigations will treat, for example, historiographical topics, others will apply cross-disciplinary methods to the criticism of music, and there will also be studies which consider music in its relation to society, culture, and politics. Overall, the series hopes to create a greater presence for music in the ongoing discourse among the human sciences.
PUBLISHED TITLES
Leslie C. Dunn and Nancy A. Jones (eds.), Embodied voices: representing female vocality in Western culture
Downing A. Thomas, Music and the origins of language: theories from the French Enlightenment
Thomas S. Grey, Wagner’s musical prose
Daniel K. L. Chua, Absolute music and the construction of meaning
Adam Krims, Rap music and the poetics of identity
Annette Richards, The free fantasia and the musical picturesque
Richard Will, The characteristic symphony in the age of Haydn and Beethoven
Christopher Morris, Reading opera between the lines: orchestral interludes and cultural meaning from Wagner to Berg
Emma Dillon, Medieval music-making and the ‘Roman de Fauvel’
David Yearsley, Bach and the meanings of counterpoint
David Metzer, Quoting music within music: quotation and cultural meaning in the twentieth century
Alexander Rehding, Hugo Riemann and the birth of modern musical thought
Dana Gooley, The Virtuoso Liszt
DANA GOOLEY
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, CB2 2RU, UK
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa
http://www.cambridge.org
© Dana Gooley 2004
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and
to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the
written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2004
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
Typeface Palatino 10/12 pt. System LATEX2e [TB]
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Gooley, Dana A. (Dana Andrew), 1969-
The virtuoso Liszt / Dana Gooley.
p. cm. - (New perspectives in music history and criticism)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 521 83443 0
1. Liszt, Franz, 1811-1886 - Appreciation. 2. Liszt, Franz, 1811-1886 - Public opinion.
3. Liszt, Franz, 1811-1886 - Performances. 4. Virtuosity in music. 5. Music -
19th century - Social aspects. I. Title II. Series.
ML410.L7G68 2004
786.2ʹ092 - dc22 2003065426
ISBN 0 521 83443 0 hardback
In memory of my mother, Judith Ann Gooley
| List of illustrations page | page x | |
| List of music examples | xi | |
| List of tables | xii | |
| Acknowledgments | xiii | |
| Note on periodical citations | xv | |
| Introduction: a virtuoso in context | 1 | |
| 1 | Liszt, Thalberg, and the Parisian publics | 18 |
| 2 | Warhorses: Liszt, Weber’s Konzertstück, and the cult of Napoleon | 78 |
| 3 | The cosmopolitan as nationalist | 117 |
| 4 | Liszt and the German nation, 1840-43 | 156 |
| 5 | Anatomy of “Lisztomania”: the Berlin episode | 201 |
| Afterword | 263 | |
| Bibliography | 268 | |
| Index | 277 |
| 1.1 | Caricature of Liszt, 1842 (Ernst Burger, Munich) | page 38 |
| 1.2 | “‘General Bass’ is taken unawares in his fixed lines, and overpowered by Liszt,” 1842 (from R. Bory, La vie de Franz Liszt par l’image) | 38 |
| 1.3 | Parisian caricature of Liszt, 1855 (from R. Bory, La vie de Franz Liszt par l’image) | 42 |
| 1.4 | “Galop chromatique,” 1843 (from R. Bory, La vie de Franz Liszt par l’image) | 43 |
| 1.5 | “Le magicien Liszt au piano” (from R. Bory, La vie de Franz Liszt par l’image) | 44 |
| 1.6 | J.-P. Dantan, “Liszt” (Musée Carnavalet, Paris; reproduced from Music in Paris in the 1830s, ed. P. Bloom) | 45 |
| 1.7 | Caricature of Thalberg, c. 1840 (Musée Carnavalet, Paris; reproduced from Music in Paris in the 1830s, ed. P. Bloom) | 49 |
| 1.8 | J.-P. Dantan, “Thalberg” | 51 |
| 2.1 | Caricature from the Miroir drolatique, 1842 (Ernst Burger, Munich) | 79 |
| 2.2 | Portrait of leading piano virtuosos, by Nicolas Maurin, 1842 (Ernst Burger, Munich) | 90 |
| 2.3 | Liszt portrait by Henri Lehmann, 1839 (Musée Carnavalet, Paris) | 91 |
| 2.4 | Liszt portrait by Ary Scheffer, 1837 (Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen) | 92 |
| 2.5 | Liszt portrait by Josef Kriehuber, 1838 (Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen) | 93 |
| 3.1 | Liszt receiving the sabre of honor in Budapest, 1840 (Hungarian National Museum, Budapest) | 129 |
| 5.1 | Berlin caricature by Grühnspahn, 1842 (from R. Bory, La vie de Franz Liszt par l’image) | 213 |
| 5.2 | Berlin caricature by A. Eyssenhardt, 1842 (from R. Bory, La vie de Franz Liszt par l’image) | 214 |
All reasonable effort was made to contact the original holders of these images.
| 1.1 | Thalberg, Célèbre fantaisie pour le piano sur “Moïse” | page 26 |
| 1.2 | Beethoven, Symphony no. 6, III, opening | 30 |
| 1.3 | Liszt, Grand fantaisie di bravura sur la clochette de Paganini | 39 |
| 2.1 | Ossias from Liszt’s 1881 edition of Weber’s Konzertstück | 100 |
| 2.2 | Weber, Konzertstück, first piano entrance | 101 |
| 2.3 | Weber, Konzertstück, march | 103 |
| 5.1 | Liszt’s transcription of the Guillaume Tell overture, first climax | 208 |
| 5.2 | Liszt et al., Hexaméron: morceau de concert, opening | 245 |
| 5.3 | Liszt, Réminiscences de Norma | 250 |
| 5.4 | Liszt, Réminiscences de Norma | 251 |
| 1.1 | Outline of the Liszt-Thalberg rivalry | page 20 |
| 2.1 | Program and layout of Weber’s Konzertstück | 97 |
I would like to thank first Carolyn Abbate, who advised the dissertation on which this book is based. It would have gone nowhere without her sustained encouragement, and she remains an inspiration. WilliamWeber selflessly offered his mentorship, and his insights about European concert life provided an excellent frame for thinking about Liszt’s career. I have incurred a huge debt to Gabriela Cruz, who read and reread these chapters more times than I care to remember. David Kasunic and Rob Wegman gave me valuable feedback on individual chapters. Fellow Lisztians Geraldine Keeling, Michael Saffle, and Rena Mueller kindly responded to specific inquiries about sources. Nada Bezić and Mirjana Šimundža helped me with the documents concerning Liszt’s visit to Zagreb. I have received crucial support for this project from numerous colleagues and friends, including Tom Walker, Karen Painter, James Deaville, David Schneider, Klara Moricz, and Robin Draganic.
I wish to thank Penny Souster, Jeffrey Kallberg, Ruth Solie, and Anthony Newcomb for the interest they have all shown in this book. Conversations with Jeff helped steer this book as I was conceiving it. With his uncanny eye for detail, he picked up on numerous errors in the text, and then he did it all over again for the next draft.
I have received generous financial support from several institutions. A fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) allowed me to spend a year in Berlin and to make research visits to other parts of Germany. The American Musicological Society helped me finish the dissertation with an AMS 50 award. I am grateful to the following libraries and research institutions for the use of their resources: in Paris the Bibliothèque nationale, the Bibliothèque de l’Opéra, and the Bibliothèque de la Ville de Paris; the Municipal Library of Versailles, the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, the Vienna Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Frankfurt Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, the Hamburg Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv of Weimar, and the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek of Weimar.
Chapter 2, “Warhorses,” appeared in 19th Century Music 24/1 (Summer 2000), and I would like to thank them for permission to reprint it here.
Liszt knew to save something special for the end. Mai Kawabata has contributed to the writing of this book in innumerable ways. She read it and critiqued it more closely than anyone. She has been a dedicated editor, my toughest critic, and my closest friend.
Hundreds of reviews of Liszt’s concerts bear generic titles such as “Liszt” or “Concert de Liszt.”Manyothers have no title at all, or lie embedded in reviews of several miscellaneous concerts (for example, “Concerts de la semaine”). As a rule, I leave such titles out of my citations. Most concert reviews also leave the author undesignated. When the author is known, I put the name in parentheses at the end of the citation. Some periodicals do not contain specific dates, or were later reprinted in volumes with the dates removed. Citations without page numbers are from journals and newspapers that were not through-numbered and contain just three or four pages per issue. They will be easily found by date. Most translations from German or French aremy own. I have given the original French or German only in cases where the translation proved difficult.