Volume 43, Number 19 · November 28, 1996
Godfather
By D. Kern Holoman
Franz Liszt: Volume III, The Final Years, 1861-1886
by Alan Walker
Knopf, 594 pp., $50.00
Liszt's seventy-five-year lifespan—1811-1886—so tidily envelops Romanticism in music that he seems to reign over it, like Monteverdi (1567-1643) in the nascent Baroque and Stravinsky (1882-1971) in the high twentieth century. By virtue of relentless artistry and his knack for a deft, recognizably personal response to the latest aesthetic shift, each came to be regarded as a kind of godfather of his era. Liszt was a celebrity from his teens until his death, gifted with a prodigious virtuosity of digital technique and musicianship—the ability, for example, to sight-read the most difficult scores at the keyboard as well as a legendary memory for musical texts.
Review, 4819 words
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