The Liszt Year
2011 is dedicated to Ferenc Liszt, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth. The following Toronto Star article captures the essence of his character and work through quotes from his peers and puts his popularity into perspective in today’s meaning of the word celebrity.
To commemorate Ferenc Liszt a series of concerts and exhibitions are held in Budapest and in several other countries throughout the year. The Budapest events are listed on our Liszt 2011 page.
Franz Liszt was the Justin Bieber of 1830s Europe - Toronto Star, Jan/06/2011
“It wasn’t the Beatles or Elvis Presley who first caused young women to lose their marbles. That honour belongs to Franz Liszt, a dashing Hungarian pianist with long, flowing hair who could make his audiences swoon before he had played a single note.
Liszt was the Justin Bieber of 1830s Europe; the Elvis Presley of the 1840s; the Mick Jagger of the 1850s and the Frank Sinatra of the 1860s and ’70s. In fact, he remained a god of the musical world right until his death in 1886.
His power over women was so absolute that the resulting hysteria was even given a name - Lisztomania - and treated as a disease. It was also the title of a 1975’s psychedelically over-the-top Ken Russell film featuring Roger Daltrey as the Romantic piano star, and, more recently, the title of a hit song by French rockers Phoenix…” Read the whole article
That is a very interesting artical, I don’t know how I missed it in the Star but thank you for posting it here. Keep up the good work, I enjoy you website.