Page 202 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Figure 11.8
Lisztomania, as depicted in 1842. A recital by Liszt was likely to create the sort of sensation that a concert by a rock star might generate today. Women fought for a lock of his hair, a broken string from his piano, or a shred of his velvet gloves.
LiSTeN TO . . . Example 11.9 online.
from Portugal to Russia. Everywhere he went, the handsome pianist was greeted with the same sort of mass hysteria experienced by today’s rock stars. Audiences of three thousand crowded into the larger halls. Women tried to rip off his silk scarf and white gloves, and fought for a lock of his hair (Figure 11.8). Lisztomania swept across Europe.
Despite their obvious sensationalism, Liszt’s concerts in the 1840s established the format of our modern-day piano recital. He was the first to play entire programs from memory (not reading from music). He was the first to place the piano par- allel with the line of the stage so that neither his back nor his full face, but rather his extraordinary
side profile, was visible to the audience. He was the first to perform on the stage alone—up to that point, concerts traditionally had included numerous perform- ers on the program. These solo appearances were called first “soliloquies” and then “recitals,” suggesting they were like personal dramatic recitations. As Liszt modestly claimed in his adopted French, “Le concert, c’est moi!”
Judging from contemporary accounts, Liszt was the greatest pianist who ever lived, certainly with regard to technical facility. He had large hands and unusually long fingers with very little web-like connective tissue between them, which allowed him to make wide stretches with relative ease. He could play a melody in octaves when others could play only the single notes of the line. If oth- ers might execute a passage in octaves, Liszt could dash it off in more impressive- sounding tenths (octave plus third). So he wrote daredevil music full of virtuosic display, as we see in Example 11.9, which goes lightning fast.
Example 11.9 > a typical moment in liszt piano piece. it looks difficult—and it is!
180 chapter eleven romanticism and romantic chamber music
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