Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Lisztwas a prolific 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, organist, philosopher, philanthropist, author, nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary...
NationalityHungarian
ProfessionPianist
Date of Birth22 October 1811
littles function windmills
I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.
anyone assistance certain dared founded means perform scanty school works
Without any assistance whatever, I founded a school in Weimar in 10 years. Only I could perform certain works with the scanty means that I dared not ask anyone else to work with.
opera needs wells
I conclude that the Wagnerian operas which are already in the repertoire, and other masterworks as well, stand in no further need of my services.
musical tradition rooted
Oral musical traditions are rooted in assured and scrupulous faith.
spheres gypsy improvisation
The music of the Gypsies belongs in the sphere of improvisation rather than in any other, without which it would have no power to exist.
variation composer brahms
Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.
sacrifice affection sorrowful
I foster a sorrowful conception of affection. Make no sacrifices.
song hungary melody
In Hungary all native music, in its origin, is divided naturally into melody destined for song or melody for the dance.
pilots tasks disappear
The principal task of a conductor is not to put himself in evidence but to disappear behind his functions as much as possible. We are pilots, not servants.
law thrones use
The Jew continues to monopolize money, and he loosens or strangles the throat of the state with the loosening or strengthening of his purse strings...He has empowered himself with the engines of the press, which he uses to batter at the foundations of society. He is at the bottom of...every enterprise that will demolish first of all thrones, afterwards the altar, afterwards civil law.
numbers firsts musician
The first impulse of a great number of civilized musicians... is to protest ourdeclaration that the music in Hungary belongs to the Gypsies.
trying misery companion
Companions, in misery and worse, that is what we all are, and to try to change this substantially avails us nothing.
ambition wish instruction
It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.
play style needs
We need improvement in the style of performance. There is no more advantage in a musician who plays and conducts than in one who is only a beater of rhythm.