The Poetic Significance of Franz Liszt’s ‘Liebestraum’

Liszt giving a concert for Emperor Franz Joseph I, before 1890, by an unknown artist. PD-US

Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was a virtuoso pianist of the Romantic movement. The prolific composer, performer, and teacher composed 700 pieces in his lifetime. A child prodigy of a musical family, he performed for well-known musicians and royalty by the time he was 9 years old. Regular traveling and performing in his youth led Liszt to develop nervous exhaustion and to consider spiritual alternatives. Young Liszt told his father, Adam Liszt, that he wanted to become a priest.

To improve young Franz’s health, Adam took him to the sea in Boulogne, France, where Adam died of typhoid fever. The traumatic death of his father led Franz at age 15 to turn away from music for several years while he focused his inquisitive mind on the study of religion and art.

Poetic Nocturnes

In his early 20s, Liszt returned to composing and performing. He was a virtuoso performer who gave solo recitals completely on his own. The devoted pianist delivered piano music to innovative new places by creating chromatic harmony. He also developed what he called a “symphonic poem,” a single movement that encapsulated the dramatic complexity of a literary work and combined all the compositional elements of a traditional, four-movement symphony.