Product Description

"You can't help but keep turning the pages, wondering how it will all turn out: and Walker's accumulated readings of Liszt's music have to be taken seriously indeed."--D. Kern Holoman, New York Review of Books "A conscientious scholar passionate about his subject. Mr. Walker makes the man and his age come to life. These three volumes will be the definitive work to which all subsequent Liszt biographies will aspire." --Harold C. Schonberg, Wall Street Journal

"What distinguishes Walker from Liszt's dozens of earlier biographers is that he is equally strong on the music and the life. A formidable musicologist with a lively polemical style, he discusses the composer's works with greater understanding and clarity than any previous biographer. And whereas many have recycled the same erroneous, often damaging information, Walker has relied on his own prodigious, globe-trotting research, a project spanning twenty-five years. The result is a textured portrait of Liszt and his times without rival." --Elliot Ravetz, Time

"The prose is so lively that the reader is often swept along by the narrative. . . . This three-part work . . . is now the definitive work on Liszt in English and belongs in all music collections."--Library Journal

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #614876 in Books
• Published on: 1997-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The last quarter-century of Liszt's life was filled with dramatic turns, contrasts and emotional storms, like the Hungarian composer's romantic music. The buoyant man of the world retreated into a monastery near Rome (1863-1865), emerging as a Roman Catholic cleric. His elder daughter, Blandine, died from a breast operation, and Liszt tried his best to break up the adulterous relationship of his younger daughter, Cosima, with composer Richard Wagner, whom she married after concealing the out-of-wedlock births of three children by Wagner from her first husband, pianist and Wagner-worshiper Hans von Bulow. Shuttling endlessly between Rome, Weimar, Budapest, Paris, Vienna, overworked, overdrinking Liszt suffered a nervous breakdown in 1877 and struggled with suicidal impulses. Polish princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, whose wedding to Liszt was canceled at the last minute in 1861 because of her family's meddling, betrayed him in 1881 by inserting an anti-Semitic chapter into Liszt's revised book on Bohemian music. In this final volume of an extraordinary biography, Walker, a professor of music in Ontario, shows how Liszt's universal despair gave rise to the pathbreaking, proto-modernist music of his later years. A rarity among composers' biographies, this full-bodied portrait combines lively writing and impeccable scholarship. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The final volume of Walker's monumental study (Franz Liszt, Vol. 1: The Virtuoso Years, 1811-47, LJ 11/1/82; Franz Liszt, Vol. 2: The Weimar Years, 1848-61, LJ 5/15/89) draws upon some recent scholarship to present a more complete picture of Liszt's life and achievements than had been previously possible. Liszt's remarkably peripatetic existence creates manifold challenges for the conscientious scholar, but Walker is more than equal to the task. His narrative is copiously footnoted yet never seems to bog down in minutiae. In fact, quite the opposite: the prose is so lively that the reader is often swept along by the narrative. A particularly fascinating section concerns the infamous Cosima Liszt-Hans von Buelow-Richard Wagner triangle, which is skillfully dissected by Walker to separate legend from accurate history. Liszt emerges as an unmistakably generous and self-effacing man in his later years whose prodigious gifts as a composer and pianist were undimmed until the very end. Walker provides frequent musical examples throughout, and his comments on them are not too technical for the general reader. This three-part work, which represents a 25-year labor of love, is now the definitive work on Liszt in English and belongs in all music collections.
Larry A. Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, Pa.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In the third installment of his biography of nineteenth-century composer/pianist Franz Liszt (the previous volumes are Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811^-48 [1983] and Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, 1848^-62 [1989]), musicologist Walker writes with the depth and insight worthy of academia but also with the vibrancy and enough clarity to capture the interest of the lay reader. The last years of the Romantic era composer's life are fascinating to the extent that they were so much at odds with his earlier years. Walker has accomplished two laudable goals: shedding new light on Liszt's life by accessing rare documents and conveying the humanity of his subject despite a daunting amount of detail. Walker compassionately conveys the transformation of the rakish Liszt into a pious, reclusive, self-effacing man. Wracked with bouts of depression, alcoholism, and illness, Liszt's final years are remarkably similar to those of the eccentric twentieth-century pianist Glenn Gould. Abandoning performances, Liszt spent his final years as "a life split in three," dividing his solitary travels between Vienna, Rome, and Weimar, Germany. Walker has written a lively, informative, and compassionate portrait of an artist. Ted Leventhal

Customer Reviews

Doing justice to Liszt
This is the third and final volume of Alan Walker's lengthy and in-depth biography of Liszt. It so happens to be the third volume I purchase. This is the most informative and entertaining biography I've ever read (including footnotes and the appendices). Mr. Walker goes beyond the call of duty (or defines it), by having done extensive travels during his years researching for this masterwork on the master of Romantic music, Franz Liszt. He was even granted access to the Vatican's Secret Archive to study what happened during Liszt and Carolyne's struggle to get married.
Anyone truly interested in reading the definitive biography on Liszt cannot consider anything else but these three volumes by Mr. Walker. I came upon them by chance, and now do I consider myself very lucky. He has since the publication of the third volume released some complimentary books, with more specific topics and correspondence of the time. Alan Walker is indeed The Liszt erudite. Period!

an inspiring and scholarly book
I have just finished the reading of all three volumes of Walker's Liszt biography and it is like the composer is in front of me, alive and awe-inspiring. Walker's fortes are the uncanny ability to revive the atmosphere of the 19th Century and its relevance to Liszt's compositional frame of mind. He is also extremely thorough on his research of primary sources, which leads to some unexpected conclusions about the composer's personality and creativity. As it is with many other biographies of men who seem to be one step up on the ladder of intellectual output, creative energy and forward looking imagination, the author seems to be a bit too keen on justifying his failures. To him, the object of his admiration can do no wrong and one has to go to the pains of blaming everyone else for what happens of negative in his life. Liszt had obvious shortcomings as a composer if we compare him to his contemporary Chopin for instance, but the all-embracing nature of his interests were surely unique and constitute themselves reason enough to attract one's admiration. One doesn't need to play down the bad aspects. The biographer has obviously to admire the object of his study, but he doesn't need to be his posthumous PR. Having said that, one cannot be but overwhelmed by the sheer ammount of information and by the delicious style with which it is presented. In fact, it is difficult to put the the books down inthe first place, and upon reaching the end one feels like forgetting it only to have the pleasure of reading it again. Walker's tremendous stature as a scholar and Liszt's absolutely super-human productivity and larger-than-life personality are an inspiration to anyone who feels that one has to do something out of one's life. It is impossible to read thiese magnificent books and remain stuck in petty pursuits. They give us a measure of the miracle each human life is.

Finest biography of Liszt you will ever read
"Franz Liszt: The Final Years" is compelling and at times, heartbreaking. It reads like an epic novel. I was literally catapulted through the book and couldn't stop reading it, yet I didn't want it to end. Walker does a magnificent job of breathing life into 19th century Europe with intimate details of the lives of its most innovative geniuses, Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. I've read all three volumes of this biography, but the final volume was most devastating in its power. It's a moving tribute to the charisma and warmth of Franz Liszt, one of the most fascinating, brilliant men who ever lived