The Death of Franz Liszt: Based on the Unpublished Diary of His Pupil Lina Schmalhausen [Hardcover]

Lina Schmalhausen (Author), Alan Walker (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2002

"If only I do not die here."

After falling ill during a visit to Bayreuth, Franz Liszt uttered this melancholy refrain throughout his final days, which were spent in rented rooms in a house opposite Wahnfried, the home of his daughter Cosima and his deceased son-in-law Richard Wagner. Attended by incompetent doctors and ignored and treated coldly by his daughter, the great composer endured needless pain and indignity, according to a knowledgeable eyewitness. Lina Schmalhausen, his student, caregiver, and close companion, recorded in her diary a graphic description of her teacher’s illness and death. Alan Walker here presents this never-before-published account of Liszt’s demise in the summer of 1886.

Walker, whose three-volume biography of Liszt was praised as "without rival" by Time, states that "no one who is remotely interested in the life and work of Franz Liszt can remain unaffected by the diary." Schmalhausen’s tale of neglect, family indifference, and medical malpractice was considered so explosive at the time of its writing that it was kept from public view. The twenty-two-year-old Schmalhausen was regarded with suspicion by many in the composer’s inner circle, as well as by other confidants, and a sanitized and inaccurate depiction of Liszt’s death made its way into the history books.

For this volume, Walker has overseen the translation and thoroughly annotated the eighty-one-page handwritten diary, and added a selection of illustrations. A prologue contains important background information on Liszt himself and on Lina Schmalhausen’s diary. An epilogue discusses the funeral and ensuing controversies over disposition of the composer’s remains.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Walker, author of a highly regarded, three-volume biography of Liszt and winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize, here offers a slender but remarkable addition to the scholarship on the great Hungarian composer. While combing the Goethe and Schiller Archives in Weimar, along with the papers of Liszt biographer Lina Ramann, he ran across the diary of Lina Schmalhausen, a student of Liszt who became a devoted caregiver to her elderly master when he fell ill in Bayreuth in July 1886. Carefully translated and copiously annotated here by Walker, the diary convincingly debunks the sanitized version of Liszt's death, which had the composer passing away peacefully from pneumonia, surrounded by loving relatives. In fact, Liszt was ignored by his cold daughter Cosima (who had fallen out with her father after marrying Richard Wagner) and attended by incompetent doctors. Schmalhausen's account makes for riveting, at times horrifying reading, and Walker is to be commended for bringing it to light. Recommended for all music collections.
Larry Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...[B]elongs to the curious subgenre of books about the deaths of composers....each is a macabre little classic...." -- (The New Yorker, June 3, 2003)

"[B]rings you into the closest possible proximity to this much idolized pianist, thanks to a detailed diary kept by ...Schmalhausen." -- (Philadelphia Inquirer, February 2, 2003)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (December 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801440769
• ISBN-13: 978-0801440762
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #656,866 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for Liszt enthusiasts, November 21, 2005

By 

klavierspiel "klavierspiel" (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Death of Franz Liszt: Based on the Unpublished Diary of His Pupil Lina Schmalhausen (Hardcover)

Alan Walker is generally recognized as the foremost authority on the great Franz Liszt, piano virtuoso, composer, and teacher, born in Hungary but claimed by all of Europe. After Walker's monumental three-volume biography it would have seemed that hardly more could be added to the Liszt tale; yet this slender book is an essential supplement.

Lina Schmalhausen was one of Liszt's lesser piano pupils and, from several accounts, not a human being of total integrity. She was openly despised by many in Liszt's inner circle of relatives, students and friends--Walker correctly warns the reader against taking all of her judgments at face value. Yet a genuine affection appears to have existed between her and the increasingly frail Liszt during his final years; certainly Schmalhausen was a devoted friend and caregiver (the jury remains out on whether there was an actual romantic attachment between the two), to whom the composer left some of his original manuscripts and other valuables. She visited him during his fatal journey to Bayreuth in the summer of 1886, and her firsthand written account of Liszt's last days on earth, in pain, largely immobile, racked by spasms of coughing, makes for harrowing reading. Even more painful is the indifference and incompetence of the relatives, servants, students and doctors who should have helped him and instead ignored him (his daughter Cosima, who was more preoccupied with running the festival of her late husband's work), or gave him incompetent medical advice and treatment that needlessly increased his suffering and may even have caused his death. Long suppressed and/or ignored by authorized Liszt scholars and biographers, Schmalhausen's diary has been edited, readably translated, extensively annotated (occasionally to excess, the only small drawback) and given a prologue and epilogue by Walker that sets the material in context.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sad look into Liszt's last days before his death, September 24, 2007

By 

Amy - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Death of Franz Liszt: Based on the Unpublished Diary of His Pupil Lina Schmalhausen (Hardcover)

This is a very accurate tale of Franz Liszt's final days. Walker's source is the diary of Liszt's student Lina Schmalhausen. Schmalhausen was a pupil, caregiver and confidante of Liszt in his last years. Her diary covers July 22, 1886, to August 3, 1886, the day of Liszt's funeral in Bayreuth. Its contents include the daily comings and goings around the dying Liszt and her very personal comments on events and many of the people involved. We hear from Liszt on topics such as his personal keepsakes, his students, human relations and romances. And, of course, the powerful figure of Cosima, Liszt's daughter and Wagner's widow of three years, is present throughout the book. She faced overseeing the performances and social events of the Bayreuth Festival while her dying father was close by. Schmalhausen gives a daily account of this situation. When I first got this book I thought, is the diary of Schmalhausen reliable? Walker does caution the reader to view her interpretation of the facts in the light of her relations with Liszt, Cosima and several other Liszt pupils, relations which he presents to the reader. Walker's prologue and epilogue gives a sad revealing look at friends and family of Liszt arguing over where he should be buried among other things. This is a wonderful book and I have read it many times. There are also eight black and white photos in the book. I think any one interested in Franz Liszt would enjoy this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite an addition to the Liszt literature! But look at the source of the find!, May 5, 2007

By 

Anthony J. Lomenzo "Doc Tony" (Fort Ann, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Death of Franz Liszt: Based on the Unpublished Diary of His Pupil Lina Schmalhausen (Hardcover)

My compliments to the reviewer "Klavierspiel" who captured the essence of the book and in passing also mentioned that it also bears the touch of what many [myself inclusive] consider to be "the" authority on Franz Liszt, Dr. Alan Walker. Just as a quick sidebar: It's my own view that Dr. Walker's quite excellent biographical trilogy is quite simply the definitive Franz Liszt. Keep alert for Amazon vendors offering the 'hardcover' 'used' editions of these otherwise pricey tomes [in hardcover] because with a little patience I was able to get literally mint hardcovers from 3 separate Amazon vendors for 'very' reasonable and greatly reduced from original hardcover list [no pun intended!] prices.

Anyway and the known 'sanitized' versions that exist of Liszt's demise not to mention the fact that Lina Schmalhausen herself was the object of some friction by others [simple envy that the 'master' took a liking to her .. and her care of him?] , but I go with the diary and Dr. Walker. And this too from someone who was 'there' which only adds, IMO, much credence to the matter with regard to the personal treatment of Liszt albeit of a 'non' medical nature by his own daughter, Cosima Wagner : Let the conductor, Felix Weingartner also speak, and I quote, "The Wagner family gave no outward sign of mourning. The daughters wore black dresses but that was all. We had confidently expected that at least one of the festival performances would be cancelled [...] If at least the flag on the roof of the theatre had been removed or hung at 'half-mast' [sic] ... But nothing, nothing at all was done to show outward reverence to his memory. Not even the receptions in the Villa Wahnfried were interrupted. Everything was made to look -- as if on purpose-- that Franz Liszt's passing was not of sufficient importance to dim the glory of the Festivals even temporarily by a veil of mourning. From that day on I never entered the portals of Wahnfried again." [sic -- "The Book of Musical Anecdotes", Norman Lebrecht, The Free Press, 1985 hardcover edition, p. 151].

Rather telling, I would say, or put another way, 'Der Stoff zum Nachdenken' [food for thought] in more ways than one! I think Dr. Walker should be commended for not just his own valuable contributions via his truly magnificent 3 volumes on Franz Liszt but also making this discovery of the unpublished Schmalhausen diary part and parcel of the Liszt biographical literature. And if the reader will bear with one additional sidebar: I'm still trying to figure out the literal jihad that Clara [Wieck] Schumann had later on in life with Franz Liszt. Another puzzler with all sorts of conjectured 'whys and wherefores' but nothing definitive there either save for the wags to call it a "cobra/mongoose situation" but the 'why' of it is still puzzling! But back to the Schmalhausen diary: to be colloquial about it, it's quite an eye-opener! And I thoroughly trust the source of the diary find, editor and examiner, Dr. Alan Walker.

Doc Tony