Before Liszt composed the great operatic fantasies, his early life almost resembled
that of the life of
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)--both composers were child
prodigies. According to Bryce
Morrison, the first exposure Liszt had to music
started at 6 years old, and he ended up committed to music
ever since that age,
and this made his father, Adam (a music lover himself), very excited. (16-17).
Ann Lingg said that perhaps the main reason why Franz Liszt went on to be the
greatest composer-pianist
in the Romantic period was perhaps a psychic outcome;
she mentions that on the day of his birth--October
22, 1811, Halley's comet
seemed to be streaking over the sky directly at his birthplace, Raiding. (3)
The
effect was almost similar to what happened in Biblical times when the
Star of the East announced the birth of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth at around 33
A. D.--an hence, Franz Liszt might have been the god of the piano.
Furthermore, the way Liszt started musically in an early age is almost
a bit similar to how Chopin started
his life as a composer and a pianist, as
seen below:
....he bought an instrument as soon as he
could afford it
...a piano and a watch...Adam
would sit down at the
piano and improvise
softly, and after dinner would leaf
through
a book or two...while Anna took the guitar
and
sang in her small dark-pitched voice.
(Lingg 4)
So the so-called adage of Chopin being "the poet of the piano" was enhanced
highly when Franz Liszt
appeared in the world.
REFERENCES:
Lingg, Ann. Mephisto Waltz: The Story of Franz Liszt. Originally pubd. in Berlin:
G. Bondi, 1900.
Morrison, Bryce. The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers: Liszt.
Omnibus Press, 1992.
