Italian Art and Liszt
by Elliott Hayes

Franz Liszt was in his early twenties when he was considered, by most in the Parisian public, the greatest living virtuoso.  His critics accused him of degrading the music in his performances while being too theatrical.  Even Liszt's friend and fellow composer, Frederic Chopin criticized Liszt's playing of his etudes:

I am writing without knowing what my pen is scribbling, because at this moment Liszt is playing my studies and putting honest thoughts out of my head. I should like to rob him of the way he plays my studies.[1]

In 1835, while Liszt and his new love interest, Marie d'Agoult were traveling through Switzerland, another virtuoso arrived in Paris. The Swiss-born pianist, Sigismond Thalberg was considered a supreme representative of the classical piano school. As he concretized in Paris, the public split into two camps: the "Thalbergians" and the "Lisztians".[2] Though Liszt and Thalberg weren't in Paris simultaneously, the French Press generated a buzz that favored Thalberg's playing. This annoyed Liszt and caused him to postpone his travel plans.

The two men were known to have a low opinion of one another. When Liszt heard of Thalberg being hailed as "le premier pianiste du monde", he published a mean-spirited review of Thalberg's music in the Revue et Gazette musicale.[3] This alienated Liszt from some of Paris' musical elite. After giving separate concerts in Paris in early 1837, Liszt and Thalberg finally appeared together in a so-called "duel" on March 31^st.[4] The two men played at their highest level in front of an eager, enthusiastic public.  In the April 3^rd Journal des Debats, the critic Jules Janin declared the two men "victors".[5]

The music politics of Paris and his budding relationship Marie d'Agoult were enough to push Liszt away from France. After making new enemies in the Parisian press with his own articles, Liszt felt more like a persecuted artist. In an article titled "To a Poet-Voyager", or an open letter to the author and friend Georges Sand, Liszt expressed his desire to travel to Italy, which was a divided nation at the time. He writes:

Italy! Italy! The foreigner's steel has scattered your noblest children far and wide. They wander among the nations, their brows branded with a scared curse. Yet no matter how implacable your oppressors might be, you will not be forsaken, because you were and will always be the land of choice for those men who have no brothers among men, for those children of God, those exiles from heaven who suffer and sing and whom the world calls "poets."[6]

Liszt believed Italy to be the most fair place for artists. In another letter to Georges Sand, dated 30 April, 1837, he reveals his destiny as a vagabond artist:

It behooves an artist more than anyone else to pitch a tent only for an hour and not to build anything like a permanent residence. Isn't he always a stranger among men? Isn't his homeland somewhere else? ... The artist lives alone, and when circumstances throw him into the middle of society, he, in the midst of discordant distractions, creates and impenetrable solitude within his should that no human voice can breach... What then can he do to escape his vague sadness and undefined regrets? He must sing and move on, pass through the crowd, listening to the clamor with which people stifle them, and without paying attention to the contemptible laurels with which they crown him. What a sad and great destiny to be an artist! ... Day by day, hour by hour, I have endured the silent tortures of the perpetual misunderstanding that apparently must still continue to exist from some time yet between the public and the artist.[7]

While he felt misunderstood as a musician in the eyes of Parisians, Liszt looked to the achievements of the visual arts with envy. After attending a "salon" in Paris, a government sponsored event showcasing the artistic achievements of the finest artists of the day, Liszt hoped to find a similar atmosphere in Italy:

Among all the progressive ideas I dream about, there is one that should be easy to implement and that came to me a few days ago when, strolling silently through the galleries of the Louvre, I was able to survey, one after the other, the profoundly poetic brushstrokes of Scheffer, the gorgeous colors of Delacroix, the pure lines of Flandrin, of Lehmann, and the vigorous scenes of Brascassat. I asked myself: Why isn't music invited to participate in these annual festivals? ... How is it that composers do not bring the finest flowers of their calling here as do the painters, their brothers?[8]

After a brief stay with Georges Sand in Nohant, a town in central France, Liszt began his Italian journey in May 1837. In Nohant, he was inspired by Sand to read many great works of literature and compose as much as he could. He was overcome with inspiration and felt that music was a culmination of other artistic influences, especially literature and the visual arts.[9] In a letter to one of his friends, Adolphe Pictet, Liszt recollects some of the work he did in Nohant:

Our days were simple and easy to fill. We did not have to kill time, to stage hunts in the royal forests, to give amateur theatricals ... Our activities and diversions were simply these: reading the works of some ingenious thinker or profound poet (Montaigne or Dante, Hoffmann or Shakespeare); reading a letter from an absent friend, taking long walks along the banks of the Indre and then, upon returning, playing a melody to recapture the emotions of the walk.[10]

Liszt finally arrived in Italy in August 1837, where he quickly made friends with some of Milan's music elite, including the publisher Giovanni Ricordi and the composer Gioacchino Rossini. He greatly admired Rossini because of his interest in literature, in particular the works of Lord Byron.[11] Liszt quickly became accepted by Milan's music-going public and appeared in salon and solo concerts. When he wasn't composing or concretizing, he visited some of the cultural treasures of Milan, including the Milan Cathedral and the Brera Museum, where he found Raphael's image of the Sposalizio, or Betrothal of the Virgin Mary and Joseph.

In a letter to fellow composer, Hector Berlioz, Liszt wrote of his first impressions of Italian art and drew the comparison between visual and musical expression:

The beautiful, in this privileged country, appeared to me in the purest and most sublime forms. The art showed itself to me in all its splendor; it revealed itself to me in its universality and in its unity. The feeling and the thought penetrated me more each day concerning the hidden relationship which unites works of genius. Raphael and Michelangelo helped me to better understand Mozart and Beethoven.[12]

Liszt paid special attention to the work of Raphael, admiring his universality and artistic idealism. In a further discussion on Raphael's painting of Saint Cecilia, Liszt writes to a fellow musician, Joseph d'Ortigue:

I do not understand by what secret magic this tableau suddenly presented itself to my soul under a double aspect: first as a glorious expression of the human form in that which is the most noble, the most ideal, like a marvel of grace, of purity, of harmony; then at the same moment, and without any effort of imagination, I discovered a wonderful and complete symbolism of the art to which we have devoted out lives. The poetry and the philosophy of the artwork were as visible to me as was the ordering of its lines, and its ideal beauty impressed me as strongly as did its actually plastic beauty ... Tell me, did you not also see in this noble figure the symbol of music in its highest degree of power?[13]

[1] Sydow, B. E., ed. Correspondance de Frederic Chopin. 3 vols. Paris, 1953-60.

[2] Walker, Alan. Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years. 235.

[3] Celenza, Anna Harwell. Liszt, Italy, and the Republic of the Imagination. Liszt and his world. 7.

[4] IBID, 238.

[5] IBID, 240.

[6] Suttoni, Charles. An artist's journey. 14-15.

[7] IBID., 28-29.

[8] Suttoni, Charles. 34-35.

[9] Celenza, Anna Harwell. Liszt and his World. 9.

[10] Suttoni, Charles. 41.

[11] Celenza, 11.

[12] Franz Liszt. Gazette musicale. 2 October 1839

[13] Franz Liszt. Gazette musicale. 14 April 1849.