Franz Liszt quotes
Franz Liszt
Birthdate: 22. October 1811
Date of death: 31. July 1886
Other names: Franz von Liszt
Franz Liszt was a prolific 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, organist, philanthropist, author, nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary.
Liszt gained renown in Europe during the early nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was a friend, musical promoter and benefactor to many composers of his time, including Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Ole Bull, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka, and Alexander Borodin.
As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School . He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work in which he influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated many 20th-century ideas and trends. Some of his most notable musical contributions were the invention of the symphonic poem, developing the concept of thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form, and making radical departures in harmony.
Quotes Franz Liszt
„Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.“
As quoted in Joseph Machlis, The Enjoyment of Music: An Introduction to Perceptive Listening (1963) Page 107.
„Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.“
As quoted in Arthur Friedheim and Alexander Siloti, Remembering Franz Liszt (1961) p. 138.
