Franz Liszt of course! But also my friends Wagner and Berlioz, Grieg - that pupil of mine Debussy, old man van Beethoven, whom I met in Vienna, Verdi, Bellini, Bach and so on - I'm sure you get ze picture.
"Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words. If music has one advantage over the other media through which a person can represent the impressions of the soul, it owes this to its supreme capacity to make each inner impulse audible without the assistance of reason... Music presents at once the intensity and the expression of feeling. It is the embodied and intelligible essence of feeling, capable of being apprehended by our senses. It permeates them like a dart, like a ray, like a mist, like a spirit, and fills our soul."
Horowitz plays Consolation No. 3
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Volodos plays the Hungarian Rhapsody 15
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Cziffra plays Gnomenreigen
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Berezovsky playz Mazeppa
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Arthur Rubenstien plays Liebestraume No.3
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Valentina Lisitsa brilliant and beautiful! playing my Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12........>
Lazar Berman plays Venezia e Napoli........>
Victor Borge plays Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. Très drôle! - I never thought of doing it like this!
An excerpt of Don Sanche ou Le château de l'amour - my only opera and a very juvenile work. I had thought it was destroyed in a fire. Many thanks to Amatherasu for making the video.
Television
Vat is dis?
Books
Balzac, Dante, Petrarca, Goethe
Heroes
Dante, Goethe, Leonardo da Vinci, Paganini, Ludovico van B and me of course!
About me: Salut, mes amis! If you do not already know me, I am a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer, although I lived for many years in Paris and then later in Weimar, Rome and Budapest.
I displayed incredible talent at a young age, easily sight-reading multiple staves at once. My father gave me my first music lessons when I was six years old. Local aristocrats noticed my talent and enabled me to travel to Vienna and later to Paris with my family. As a result, I never fully learned Hungarian; that was a pity but I was always at home with French.
In Vienna I was taught by Beethoven's student Carl Czerny, the only piano teacher I ever had. Antonio Salieri taught me the composition and helped foster my musical taste. Salieri was not such a bad man as he is made out to be today.
I formed an early friendship with Frédéric Chopin, but later there were problems with Frédéric - nothing to do with Georges Sand, I can tell you. Well, maybe. Still, we had some wonderful times together, and if he was jealous of my playing, I have to admit I was someitmes a little jealous of his compositions. Ah, well. I was a lifelong friend of Camille Saint-Saëns, and the latter dedicated a symphony to me.
I left Vienna in 1823 to travel. In Paris, I studied composition with Ferdinando Paer and Anton Reicha. On April 22, 1832, I went to a concert by the virtuoso violinist Paganini. It was then that I decided to become the greatest virtuoso the world has ever known! I secluded myself in my room and practiced scales, arpeggios, trills, thirds, sixths and so on for over 10 hours a day. It was after that that I wrote the Studies of Transcendental Execution after Paganini and the 12 Transcendental Etudes.
Schumann described these pieces as "playable at the most, by ten or twelve players in the world".
My friends in those days were all the top composers of the time, such as Frédéric Chopin, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann; and Richard Wagner, who later married my daughter Cosima. I was very widely read in philosophy, art and literature and was on friendly terms with the painter Ingres and the authors Heine, Lamennais, H.C. Andersen, and Baudelaire, who addressed his prose poem "Le thyrse" to me.
After I played dear Chopin's études for him, he was very impressed... "Je voudrais lui voler la manière de rendre mes propres études..." ("I would like to steal his way of playing my own études.") he later said. That was quite a compliment for Frédéric was a great pianist himself and an astute judge of music.
In 1835 I left Paris with Marie, the Comtesse d'Agoult, with whom I had three beautiful children. During those years we lived mostly in Switzerland and Italy.
I regularly gave concerts in Paris, maintaining my legendary reputation as one of the greatest virtuosi of all time, and published some essays, but was active chiefly as a composer.
To help raise funds for the Bonn Beethoven monument, I resumed the life of a travelling virtuoso (1839-47) and was adulated everywhere, from Ireland to Turkey, Portugal to Russia. I did a lot of work for charity and donated funds from my concert tours to the flood victims in Hungary.
In 1848 I took up a full-time conducting post at the Weimar court, where, living with Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, I wrote or revised most of the major works for which I am known. I was always happy to promote new works by my fellow composers, and conducted new operas by Wagner, Berlioz and Verdi. As the teacher of Hans von Bülow and others in the German avant-garde, somehow or another I became the figurehead of the 'New German school'. Not everyone seemed to like me and Brahms, Schumann and dear Clara were always complaining about something or another, even though I performed their music and gave genuine praise for their talents.
In 1861-9 I lived mainly in Rome, writing religious works (I took minor orders in 1865); from 1870 I journeyed regularly between Rome, Weimar and Budapest and remained active as a teacher and performer to the end of my life.
The works of Liszt's late years, misunderstood by his contemporaries, are surprisingly modern in concept and anticipate many of the devices of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Bela Bartok, and the Austrian expressionists. He died while attending the Wagner festival in Bayreuth, Germany.
His innovations in harmony, musical form, and writing for the piano make him one of the most important and influential composers of the 19th century.
After you've finished here, you may like to hear this folk-carol on myspace... Poem 230 of 230, WalkaboutsVerse (see my blog for details): CHRISTMAS SUNG SIMPLY
As gospellers have said, Beneath signalling skies, On land dusty to tread, A trough in a stable Was the strawy first-bed Of a divine baby - The forgiving Godhead.
A season for new hope - There then and here now; The yuletide of goodwill - There then and here now.
In respect of this chance, Beneath bright or dark skies, Faith's the star that we glance Attending Christ's churches And trying to enhance, With singing and ritual, Our God-loving stance.
After you've finished here, you may like to hear this poem sung on myspace...
Poem 162 of 230, WalkaboutsVerse (please see my blog): TEES TO TYNE: FIRST IMPRESSIONS - SUMMER 2001
Where traditions are not so rare; Sea, country and works scent the air; A multitude of monuments, Planted tubs and patterned pavements.
The longish pedestrian malls; The remnants of defensive walls; Historic buildings are a gauge Of the respect for heritage.
Wheat, rape and pines in the fields; Estuaries guarded by shields; Long sandy beaches and wide scenes; Romantic-ruin go-betweens.
Rivers in parts licked by trees, Or fringed by boat clubs, wharfs, gantries, And crossed by practical delights - Varied spans, forming pleasing sights.
Fine churches headed at Durham; Football kits ad infinitum; Kept castles - one for study; Masonry behind masonry.
And, with moulding-works out that way, It’s somewhere for a longer stay..?
I'm Just dropping in to say hello and to thank you for remaining our friend here on Myspace. If you do get a chance, please drop by our myspace page here and have a look-see through the Gallery section or scroll up and down the front page a bit. Let us know what you think of the work. It would be valuable to know your thoughts in many ways.
On June 8, 1967, a date which will live in infamy, a United States ship, the USS Liberty, was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the State of Israel. Thirty-four American sailors died and 174 were wounded. There was no retaliation, no honest investigation, and no assistance from American forces. Israel got away with cold blooded murder.
On September 11, 2001, planes struck the two WTC towers, and shortly thereafter both towers fell. But did you know that a third large building also collapsed on September 11 at 5:20 in the afternoon and that this building, WTC 7, wasn't even hit by a plane? What could have caused such an unusual collapse, which had all the characteristics of a controlled demolition? Again, there has been no honest investigation.
If the Israelis got away with deliberately slaughtering innocent Americans on the USS Liberty, then what's to stop them from doing it again? What other terrorist crimes against humanity might they also have gotten away scot-free with? Click to learn more.
Thanks so very much for your friendship! Love, seek, and speak the truth!
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