Liszt and the Keyboard

Whatever else the world may debate about Liszt’s life and work, one thing is generally conceded: he was the first modern pianist. The technical breakthrough that he achieved at the keyboard during the 1830s and 40s was without precedent in the history of piano playing. All subsequent schools were branches of his tree. Anton Rubinstein, Busoni, Godowsky, and Rachmaninov – all those pianists who formed what historians latter dubbed “the golden age of piano playing” – would be unthinkable without Liszt. It was not that they copied his style of playing: that was inimitable. Nor did they enjoy close personal contact with him; not one of them was his pupil. Liszt’s influence went deeper than that. It had to do with his unique ability to solve technical problems. Liszt is to piano playing what Euclid is to geometry. Pianists turn to his music in order to discover the natural laws governing the keyboard. It is impossible for the modern pianist to keep Liszt out of his playing – out of his biceps, his forearms, his fingers – even though he may not know that Liszt is there, since modern piano playing spells Liszt. Scholars still refer to the brief period 1838 to1847 as Liszt’s “Years of Transcendental Execution” when he unfolded a virtuoso career unmatched in the history of performance. In this illustrated lecture Alan Walker shows how Liszt’s reforms at the keyboard might be best understood by returning them to the biographical context from which they first emerged. Music Tracks: 1. Liszt: Feux-follets – Kemal Gekić. 2. Beethoven: Kreutzer Sonata, op. 47 – Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), Lambert Orkis (piano). 3. Liszt: Tarantella from “Venezia e Napoli” – Jorge Bolet. 4. Liszt: Mephisto Waltz – André Laplante 5. Liszt: La Campanella – André Watts 6. Liszt: Dante Sonata - Mykola Suk 7. Liszt: Rákóczy March – Cutner Solomon 8. Liszt: 10th Hungarian Rhapsody – Charles Rosen 9. Liszt: Les Jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este – Valerie Tryon 10. Liszt: Dante Sonata – Louis Lortie