Liszt's father, an estate-trustee of Prince Esterhazy, resigned from his job, because his son as a six years old lad showed a surprising music-talent. At the age of 9, Franz Liszt gave concerts in a sensational performance. Art-sensible Hungarian noblemen donated a scholarship for six years.
Liszt and his parents moved to Vienna in 1821, where he got Carl Czerny (Vienna 1791-1857) and Antonio Salieri (Italy, Austria 1750-1825) as wonderful teachers. In Vienna, he was allowed to play something for the great Ludwig van Beethoven. In 1823, Liszt made his first concert tour to Paris. Luigi Cerhubini (1760-1842) rejected Liszt as student of the Conservatoire de Paris, because he didn't like child prodigies.
Liszt learned a lot from Niccolo Paganini and Frederic Chopin. The meaningful piano work started in 1826 with "24 Grandes Etudes pur le piano" followed by the "3 Nocturnes Dreams of Love" (1850). No. 3 became a well known orchestral version up tonow.
The 19 "Hungarian Rhapsodies" didn't get their original extraction from Hungarian melodies or folk dances, as Liszt erroneously thought about. His "Piano Concertos No. 1 in e-flat major" (1855) and "a-major" (1857) are music treasures and are regularly included in my playlist of my radio show.
Liszt's more or less 40 orchestral works came into being within 10 years, such as "Tasso" (1854), "Les Preludes" (1854), "Faustus Symphony" (1857) or "Dance of Death" (1858), a para-phrase on "Dies Irae" for piano and orchestra.
All in all Franz Liszt composed 673 musical works and became valid as founder of the General German Music Association in 1861.
