Franz Liszt, Volume 3

Starred review from June 3, 1996
The last quarter-century of Liszt's life was filled with dramatic turns, contrasts and emotional storms, like the Hungarian composer's romantic music. The buoyant man of the world retreated into a monastery near Rome (1863-1865), emerging as a Roman Catholic cleric. His elder daughter, Blandine, died from a breast operation, and Liszt tried his best to break up the adulterous relationship of his younger daughter, Cosima, with composer Richard Wagner, whom she married after concealing the out-of-wedlock births of three children by Wagner from her first husband, pianist and Wagner-worshiper Hans von Bulow. Shuttling endlessly between Rome, Weimar, Budapest, Paris, Vienna, overworked, overdrinking Liszt suffered a nervous breakdown in 1877 and struggled with suicidal impulses. Polish princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, whose wedding to Liszt was canceled at the last minute in 1861 because of her family's meddling, betrayed him in 1881 by inserting an anti-Semitic chapter into Liszt's revised book on Bohemian music. In this final volume of an extraordinary biography, Walker, a professor of music in Ontario, shows how Liszt's universal despair gave rise to the pathbreaking, proto-modernist music of his later years. A rarity among composers' biographies, this full-bodied portrait combines lively writing and impeccable scholarship. Photos.

April 15, 1996
The final volume of Walker's monumental study (Franz Liszt, Vol. 1: The Virtuoso Years, 1811-47, LJ 11/1/82; Franz Liszt, Vol. 2: The Weimar Years, 1848-61, LJ 5/15/89) draws upon some recent scholarship to present a more complete picture of Liszt's life and achievements than had been previously possible. Liszt's remarkably peripatetic existence creates manifold challenges for the conscientious scholar, but Walker is more than equal to the task. His narrative is copiously footnoted yet never seems to bog down in minutiae. In fact, quite the opposite: the prose is so lively that the reader is often swept along by the narrative. A particularly fascinating section concerns the infamous Cosima Liszt-Hans von Buelow-Richard Wagner triangle, which is skillfully dissected by Walker to separate legend from accurate history. Liszt emerges as an unmistakably generous and self-effacing man in his later years whose prodigious gifts as a composer and pianist were undimmed until the very end. Walker provides frequent musical examples throughout, and his comments on them are not too technical for the general reader. This three-part work, which represents a 25-year labor of love, is now the definitive work on Liszt in English and belongs in all music collections.-Larry A. Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, Pa.

April 15, 1996
In the third installment of his biography of nineteenth-century composer/pianist Franz Liszt (the previous volumes are "Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811^-48" [1983] and "Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, 1848^-62" [1989]), musicologist Walker writes with the depth and insight worthy of academia but also with the vibrancy and enough clarity to capture the interest of the lay reader. The last years of the Romantic era composer's life are fascinating to the extent that they were so much at odds with his earlier years. Walker has accomplished two laudable goals: shedding new light on Liszt's life by accessing rare documents and conveying the humanity of his subject despite a daunting amount of detail. Walker compassionately conveys the transformation of the rakish Liszt into a pious, reclusive, self-effacing man. Wracked with bouts of depression, alcoholism, and illness, Liszt's final years are remarkably similar to those of the eccentric twentieth-century pianist Glenn Gould. Abandoning performances, Liszt spent his final years as "a life split in three," dividing his solitary travels between Vienna, Rome, and Weimar, Germany. Walker has written a lively, informative, and compassionate portrait of an artist. ((Reviewed April 15, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)