Customer Reviews

Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811-1847, Vol. 1 (Franz Liszt)

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Volume I of this massive 3-volume biography of the great Liszt is, as the other two volumes, well written, informative, and, well, fun to read. Liszt lead an exciting life, lived in exciting times, and wrote exciting music. Alan Walker is more than up to the job. His writing style moves along like an octave run up the piano. Remember, these books are about his life; if you want in-depth study of the music, you'll have to look elsewhere. (As I'm in the process of doing now.) I'm the proud owner of all three volumes in hardcover and I refer to them constantly. Don't know what else to say other than "enjoy!" And buy as much Liszt music as you can; you won't regret it.

I knew nothing of Liszt when this book was recommended to me by a friend who knows I love biographies that mix the world of music and inspiring personalities. They need not be perfect to inspire and this book appears to give a scholarly view of a personality much misrepresented. The quality of Liszt the man is as inspiring as the innovations he brought to performance and art.

He was thin and had long straight hair. When he sat down at the piano he would oftimes play with such power that he snapped strings and would have to switch to playing on another piano. When he came onstage the women would swoon. Are we talking about a modern rocker, perhaps? Nope. We are talking about the incomparable Franz Liszt. I believe that Alan Walker took somewhere around 20-25 years to write all 3 volumes of Liszt's biography. It was definitely worth it! In this first volume we follow Liszt the traveling virtuoso. The man with the powerful fingers certainly needed stamina to pursue his career back in those days. Imagine traveling thousands of miles over bad roads in all sorts of weather, in a coach! Liszt achieved amazing fame and was well-aware of the position he had attained through his hard work. In the days when musicians were still generally regarded as the servants of the aristocracy Liszt, in one famous incident stopped playing because the Czar of Russia had the effrontery to speak during the concert! Liszt paused and said, "Even music stops when the Czar speaks!" Despite the picture of Liszt that has come down through the ages as some kind of Hungarian Ham that liked to wear medals and who would leave his green gloves behind on the piano so that after a concert the ladies could fight over them, there was a lot more to him than just being a showman. He was a very spiritual man and believed his ability was a gift from God. He worked very hard and in addition to being a virtuoso he was one of great composers, with an amazing output both in terms of quantity and quality. He was a very generous man who would give benefits to raise money for worthy causes such as flood victim relief or to pay for a statue of Beethoven to be commissioned. Liszt had many, many students and he never charged a penny for his lessons. He thought it was his duty to pass on his knowledge to other pianists with talent. A minor flaw of this biography is that Walker tends to be a bit too fawning at times. But the knowledge we gain because of the tremendous amount of research the author has done makes up for this many times. This is a great biography.

As a music student in the 70's the subtext when discussing Franz Liszt was that he was a showman who leaned on his empty virtuosity. Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Schumann on the other hand, were the true romantic artists.

It's taken me over 35 years of studying piano and music to get to the point where I would read this wonderful biography of Liszt, and my eyes have been opened even wider about the wonderful artistic character of Liszt and his completely indespensible role in 19th century music.

This book (I have all three) is a wonderful read, at some times it is "laugh out loud" funny, and is filled with musical examples that perfectly illustrate the points that Mr. Walker makes.

If you are a musician interested in the piano, or the Romantic period, you owe it to yourself to let the scales fall from your eyes, and read this enlightening exposition.

This is simply the standard of Liszt biography. The fact that Alan Walker researched enough to fill three volumes is an achievement enough, but you know what else makes this biography so good? It's fun to read. Without a doubt, anyone interested in Liszt will find anecdotes, insights, illuminated facts, and even musical analysis of the most colorful and exciting character in classical music: Franz Liszt.

I've read this book twice, actually, and the second time was even more enjoyable. This owes to many things: Alan Walker's superb writing style, eloquent organization (gives the pedantics many footnotes to absorb at the bottom of the page) and a fine cohesion of thoughts and ideas put into each chapter. Sometimes I can't help but enjoy the biography as I would a novel. Yet Walker does not write it like a novel and clearly sets out to chronicle Liszt's life from his youth all the way to his retiring from the concert stage. In between these pivotal times, Walker manages to debunk myths, explore Liszt's underrated music from his virtuoso days, and examine other characters who interacted with the Hungarian composer. Walker is always focused on Liszt but never detracts by discussing Clara and Robert Schumann's reactions, or Sigismond Thalberg, Chopin and even Alkan. Walker depicts their perspective of Liszt and goes on to explain why there were so many misunderstandings.

Stories of Liszt's true meeting with Beethoven, his exciting romance with Marie D'Agoult, the duel with Thalberg, his generous nature to play for charity, and so many enticing stories of his concert days all help to shed light on what a remarkable man Liszt was, and at such a young age, too. The whole book is an exquisite panorama of Liszt's character, detailed through his letters, his travels, his music, and his legacy as researched by the author. What Walker has done is set the standard for the way Liszt should be viewed in the history books. For so long, musicologists were almost feeding us false information. From the really low ones we were even getting propaganda that he was a womanizer, a cheat, some kind of vulgar pianist, and even a fraud. Walker candidly mauls those old and incorrect views into the dust; he explores and accurately dispels the myths and ignorance that so many people harbored and still harbor for him, and for that I feel thankful.

Never have I read a biography twice like this and found the second reading even more engrossing. There is never a dull moment, never a chapter that slows down. To be fair, the only chapter that was uninteresting was the prologue and biographical information of Liszt's family. Despite that, once you're absorbed into Liszt's young world with Czerny, his move to Paris, and his tours all over Europe, it's like being on a rollercoaster ride during the whole book.

Bottom line: Liszt lovers must read this book; it's the best wealth of knowledge to get on the young Franz Liszt and it is written in a way that doesn't just educate, but also entertains. Highly recommended.

I think the Alan Walker series has become the definitive biographical work on Liszt. Walker does not reach any staggering new insights about the man's character, but he is a stickler for accurate evidential detail (witness his exhaustive exploration of the infamous but apocryphal "Beethoven kiss"), and provides a great number of intriguing anecdotes that help the history to come alive. If Walker seems a bit enamored of his subject, he can hardly be blamed -- it is, after all, a weakness common to all biographers, and in this case doubly so: Liszt really seems to have been about the nicest man in the history of classical music.

One should not look here for an in-depth critique of Liszt's merits as a composer, but for straight biography, Walker's work is unimpeachable.

Alan Walker deserves 5 enthusiastic stars for making his life's purpose the writing of Franz Liszt's definitive biography, and succeeding nearly as well as humanly possible considering the availability of the always-emerging Liszt materials throughout the years. For me, I would have liked to have seen an even more musically-oriented life of Liszt. More than a few times, Walker mentions that eyewitness accounts exist of important concerts, only to refer us in a footnote to some person's diary (probably only available in some Transylvanian dialect if you could ever find it) rather than telling us about it himself. Meanwhile we're treated to almost painfully detailed renderings of Franz's love life with Marie D'Agoult and the many domestic dramas which haunted him as his pursued his life on the concert trail... but these are minor quibbles. The book is great, no doubt about it. Poor Liszt, he was the busiest piano virtuoso in history at that time, traveling in various carriages and carts across thousands of miles of potholed roads where he was jolted mercilessly and endured illness, exhaustion, rain, mud, snow and ice while he raced to his next gig. He was literally thrown to the ground violently at least twice, when wheels dipped into ditches or the drivers fell asleep and the whole carriage overturned. (It's sad and sobering to realize that this is exactly how the original bassist for the rock group Metallica, Cliff Burton, was killed more than 150 years later on a lonely road in Sweden. He was sleeping on the band's tour bus when it overturned. In a similar accident, singer Gloria Estefan was lucky to escape with her life.) Somehow, despite these gritty and dangerous travel conditions, Liszt performed a grueling succession of mostly triumphant concerts everywhere from Italy to Scotland to Russia before he decided he had been bounced around quite enough thank you, and settled down to compose and teach in Weimar, where Volume two of this epic biography begins. Towards the end of Volume 1, I began to feel as if author Walker's spark was fading slightly. And lo and behold, as I began reading Volume 2, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the intervening years in which the author was researching the next installment had allowed him to completely recharge his batteries, and present part 2 to the public with a fully-renewed sense of brilliance, wit, and passion for his subject matter. Highly recommended reading for biography buffs interested in great musicians and composers!

I don't need a thousand words to express my admiration for the deepness of this Liszt's biography by Alan Walker. The research evolved unto these should have been formidable. The unique comparison for such a work of 30 years of research is the Work of Liszt itself. We cannot immagine how Alan Walker got all these informations, he seemed to really know what Liszt made all days in his life.
In a word: Incredible !!! Get it!

This will probably be one of my shorter reviews [A sudden shout: "Yeah, right Doc!"] because I can quickly cut to the chase, to wit, Dr. Alan Walker has produced in this painstakingly researched 3 volume biography [spread out over 25 years during the research] with this 1811-1847 book being the first in that series, the 'definitive' Franz Liszt! This trilogy is a must read for those interested in Liszt and, IMO, is not only the definitive Liszt from "the" acknowledged authority and foremost Franz Liszt scholar but a decided asset to the Liszt biographical literature per se.

Two more comments: Watch the Amazon vendor prices for the 'hardcover' editions! Originally, these were rather pricey books in hardcover [although well worth it! Knopf quality!] but I was able to get 'used' albeit literally mint hardcover editions of the 3 volumes from 3 separate Amazon vendors. What's that? Sure! The original harcover editions were, in order of publication, $25.00, $39.95 and $45.00. I'll generally check out the hardcover offerings over the paperback editions in most of my books and sometimes there are some really exceptional buys out there although if it's a choice between 'good' and 'very good' pay the few dollars extra for the 'very good' or 'like new' grade notations.

Finally, check out among other of Dr. Walker's tomes on Franz Liszt, "The Death of Franz Liszt: Based on the Unpublished Diary of his Pupil Lina Schmalhausen" which is quite an eye-opener with regard to the "treatment" [or lack of same therein] of Liszt prior to his demise. As I said when I reveiewed that book, I trust the source of the diary find as well as the findings and its editing, annotations and examination via Dr. Walker as to the veracity of the Schmalhausen remarks. I quoted the remarks of the conductor, Felix Weingartner, who was 'there' at the time and his own observations [et al] lend credence to the Schmalhausen diary.

So too, and if finances permit and you want Franz Liszt a la mode, get the 3 volumes in one swoop plus the Lina Schmalhausen diary book which was edited and annotated by Dr. Walker in re the death of Liszt and finally, putting it all together, the 2005 published Dr. Alan Walker 'capstone', if you will, "Reflections on Liszt." See my reviews on those two tomes as well.

Doc Tony


What's that? Why not! Doc Walker with a straight white haired wig resurrecting Steve Allen's "Meeting of Minds" and doing the one and only "F. Liszt" as a sort of latter day counter-balance to Victor Borge's 'interpretation' so to speak in that classic Mike Wallace skit! Who better than Doc Walker to play Liszt and concurrently know what he's talking about! Ahhhh! That's the rather cogent difference!

A sudden voice: "What about Doc Walker's Chopin and Schumann tomes?" Fine! They could be played next! ;-) [as I place much trust in Dr. Walker's sense of humor! But the obvious compliment of his research is clearly evident!]

This is one of the best biographies of anyone--maybe the best--I have read. Walker presents masses of evidence to make his points, and he usually has his own interpretation of controversial issues, but the wonderfut thing is that he gives you enough material for you to draw your own conclusions. He doesn't hide or distort things. He is very fair, very thorough, and always very interesting.