Liszt, Ferencz [Franz Liszt] (baptized as Franciscus Liszt) (b Raiding, Hung., 1811; d Bayreuth, 1886). Hung. composer and pianist. A child prodigy, he gave his first pf. recital at age 9. Went to Vienna in 1821, having lessons from Salieri and Czerny. Played in Paris 1823 and London 1824 (where he was received by George IV). Returned to Eng. in 1825 and 1826; operetta Don Sanche was prod. in Paris, 1825, where he lived 1823-35, becoming friend of Berlioz and Chopin and of leading literary figures and painters. His fame as a virtuoso pianist, flamboyant in style and taste, was at its height. From 1833 he lived with Countess Marie d'Agoult; of their 3 children, Cosima (b 1837) became the wife of Bülow and then of Wagner. He returned to Vienna in 1838 and to London in 1840 and 1841. Until 1847 he toured widely, incl. Russia, his mistress by now being Princess Carolyn Sayn-Wittgenstein. In 1848 he became Kapellmeister at the Weimar court, staying until 1859. In this decade he made Weimar a pre-eminent mus. centre, conducting a vast number of works, notably by Berlioz and by his friend Wagner whom he had met in 1842. In 1850 he conducted the . of Lohengrin. These were also rich years for Liszt's own work; he wrote his Faust and Dante syms., 12 symphonic poems, and much else. From 1860 Liszt lived in Rome in the Villa d'Este, and in 1865 took minor orders, becoming the Abbé Liszt. He comp. much religious mus. at this period, incl. The Legend of St. Elizabeth and Christus. From 1869 he divided his time between Rome, Weimar, and Budapest, and his amorous adventures were still the talk of Europe. In the last 5 years of his life he concentrated on teaching, his pupils incl. Ziloti, Lamond, Rosenthal, and Weingartner, and entered a new and important compositional phase in which his harmonic innovations, always a significant feature, anticipated the ‘impressionism’ of Debussy, . in Nuages gris and the Csárdás macabre. In 1886 he made a ‘jubilee tour’ to mark his 75th birthday, revisiting Paris and London. As a pianist, Liszt was, from all reliable accounts, among the greatest, if not the greatest, there has ever been. His comps. have taken longer to win a rightful place, but they are now recognized as occupying a high place for their own virtues as well as for their undoubted influence on Wagner, R. Strauss, and subsequent composers. The pf. works are in a category of their own, the symphonic poems developed a new art-form, the syms. are compelling and imaginative, the religious works are moving and visionary, and the songs hold their own in high company. He remains a romantic enigma of mus., a genius with a touch of the charlatan, a virtuoso with the flair of an actor-manager, a man generous to colleagues and to the young. His championship of Wagner in the Weimar years, with its subsequent effect on Brahms and Schumann, thereby causing the great schism in 19th-cent. mus., had incalculable results on the art.