Letters of Franz Liszt, vol 1, Paris to Rome | Page 4

with the Online Distributed Proofreading Team of Charles Franks.

Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: Years of
Travel as a Virtuoso"
by Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated by
Constance Bache

CONTENTS

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH DEDICATION PREFACE TO
THE ENGLISH EDITION, BY CONSTANCE BACHE TABLE OF
LETTER CONTENTS THE LETTERS OF FRANZ LISZT, VOL. 1
INFO ABOUT THIS E-TEXT EDITION

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

The Austrian composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a pianistic miracle.
He could play anything on site and composed over 400 works centered
around "his" instrument. Among his key works are his Hungarian
Rhapsodies, his Transcendental Etudes, his Concert Etudes, his Etudes
based on variations of Paganinini's Violin Caprices and his Sonata, one
of the most important of the nineteenth century. He also wrote
thousands of letters, of which 260 are translated into English in this
first of a 2-volume set of letters.
Those who knew him were also struck by his extremely sophisticated
personality. He was surely one of the most civilized people of the
nineteeth century, internalizing within himself a complex conception of
human civility, and attempting to project it in his music and his
communications with people. His life was centered around people; he
knew them, worked with them, remembered them, thought about them,
and wrote about them using an almost poetic language, while pushing
them to reflect the high ideals he believed in. His personality was the
embodiment of a refined, idealized form of human civility. He was the
consummate musical artist, always looking for ways to communicate a
new civilized idea through music, and to work with other musicians in
organizing concerts and gatherings to perform the music publicly. He
also did as much as he could to promote and compliment those whose
music he believed in.
He was also a superlative musical critic, knowing, with few mistakes,
what music of his day was "artistic" and what was not. But, although he
was clearly a musical genius, he insisted on projecting a tonal, romantic
"beauty" in his music, confining his music to a narrow range of moral
values and ideals. He would have rejected 20th-century music that
entertained cynical notions of any kind, or notions that obviated the

concept of beauty in any way. There is no Prokofiev, Stravinsky,
Shostakovich, Cage, Adams and certainly no Schoenberg in Liszt's
music. His music has an ideological "ceiling," and that ceiling is
"beauty." It never goes beyond that. And perhaps it was never as
"beautiful" as the music of Mozart, Bach or Beethoven, nor quite as
rational (Are all the emotions in Liszt's music truly "controlled?"). But
it certainly was original and instructive, and it certainly will linger.

DEDICATION

To the Memory of MY BROTHER WALTER, AND TO OUR DEAR
AND HONORED FRIEND A.J. HIPKINS, ESQ., I DEDICATE THIS
TRANSLATION.
--C.B.

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION, BY CONSTANCE BACHE

In writing a few words of Preface I wish to express, first and foremost,
my appreciation of the extreme care and conscientiousness with which
La Mara has prepared these volumes. In a spirit of no less reverence I
have endeavored, in the English translation, to adhere as closely as
possible to all the minute characteristics that add expression to Liszt's
letters: punctuation has, of necessity, undergone alteration, but italics,
inverted commas, dashes and other marks have been strictly observed.
It may be objected that unnecessary particularity has been shown in the
translation of various titles, names of Societies or newspapers,
quotations, etc.; but there are many people who, while understanding
French, do not read German, and vice versa, and therefore it has
seemed better to translate everything. Where anything has been omitted
in the printed letters I have adhered to the sign .--. employed by La
Mara to indicate the hiatus. It has seemed best to preserve the spelling
of all proper names as written by Liszt, and not to Anglicise any, as it is
impossible to do all; and therefore, even at the risk of a seeming
affectation, the original form of the name has been preserved. In the
same spirit I have adhered to the correct form of the name of our
adopted composer Handel, and trust I may be pardoned for so doing on

the strength of a little joke of Liszt's own "The English," he said,
"always talk about Gluck and Handel!"
La Mara says in her Preface that this collection can by no means be
considered a complete one, as there must exist other letters-- to Liszt's
mother, to Berlioz, Tausig, etc.--which it is hoped may yet be some day
forthcoming. In like manner might there not also be letters to his
daughter Madame Ollivier (not to mention his still-living daughter
Madame Wagner)? [Another volume of Liszt's letters, of a