![]() ![]() He brought the audience to a new level of listening and put them, not him, on a higher plane. He wasn't presenting egotistical theatrics. Many accounts of Liszt's playing describe a strange magic, a hypnotizing focus. ![]() It was too much for Berlioz, who couldn't control his emotions. Liszt began playing Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata. Critic Ernest Legouvé accidentally turned the wick down instead of up and the room went nearly to black. The fire was nearly out and the lamplight was dying. Biographer Alan Walker describes one scene in which Hector Berlioz and a small group of colleagues succumbed to Liszt's playing in a drawing room. ![]() But I'm more intrigued by the mesmerizing effect that Liszt seems to have had on his audiences. It's true that during his years of intensive concertizing (roughly 1839-1847), an emotional hysteria developed in Liszt's fans, and "Lisztomania" set in. And he was determined to bring his students into his imaginative universe. He was inspired by the communicative power of music, not by the deadening, hollow effect of technical facility on display. Why the thunderous reaction? Because Liszt deplored empty virtuosity. At the moment when the left hand begins its relentless march in octaves, Liszt burst out: "Do I care how fast you can play your octaves!? What I wish to hear is the canter of the horses of the Polish cavalry before they gather force and destroy the enemy!" In a piano lesson with Liszt, a student was playing the famous A-flat Major Polonaise by Chopin. He's often dismissed for being nothing but a flashy virtuoso, but that's not really a fair judgment. 22, now is a good time to reminisce about the great Liszt performances I've had the pleasure of hearing at WGBH. With the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt coming up Oct. ![]()
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