Franz Liszt Studies in Central European Histories Edited by Roger Chickering (Georgetown University) David M. Luebke (University of Oregon) Editorial Board Steven Beller (Washington, D.C.) Marc R. Forster (Connecticut College) Atina Grossmann (Columbia University) Peter Hayes (Northwestern University) Susan Karant-Nunn (University of Arizona) Mary Lindemann (University of Miami) H.C. Erik Midelfort (University of Virginia) David Sabean (University of California, Los Angeles) Jonathan Sperber (University of Missouri) Jan de Vries (University of California, Berkeley) VOLUME 59 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sceh Franz Liszt A Story of Central European Subjectivity By Erika Quinn LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Josef Danhauser, Liszt at the Piano, 1840. Oil on Canvas. © Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin / Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen / Art Resource, NY. Quinn, Erika, author. Franz Liszt : a story of Central European subjectivity / by Erika Quinn. pages cm. — (Studies in Central European histories, ISSN 1547-1217 ; 59) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-27921-6 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-27922-3 (e-book) 1. Liszt, Franz, 1811–1886. 2. Composers—Hungary—Biography. 3. Music—Hungary—19th century—History and criticism. 4. Music—Germany—19th century—History and criticism. I. Title. ML410.L7Q56 2015 780.92—dc23 [B] 2014023817 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1547-1217 isbn 978-90-04-27921-6 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-27922-3 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. 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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Acknowledgments vii List of Illustrations viii List of Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 1 The Virtuoso Prophet 23 2 The Hungarian Patriot 64 3 The Romantic Hero and the Kulturnation 105 4 The War of the Romantics 148 5 Composing a Nation-Church Bond in Hungary 184 6 The General German Music Association 220 Coda 246 Bibliography 250 Index 269 Acknowledgments This book has been a long time in the making. As is the case with creative proj- ects, it is the product of many conversations, exchanges, expressions of sup- port and questions. Celia Applegate’s questions and observations pushed my thinking forward. Shennan Hutton read the manuscript chapter by chapter, making suggestions that significantly improved the work; Jim Brophy also gen- erously read an early draft. Mona Siegel and Katerina Lagos both read portions of the manuscript. Friends Edward Ross Dickinson and Michael Miller have been hugely supportive, Edward for the ongoing conversation and Michael for his warm hospitality and guidance in Budapest, as well as for reading the Budapest chapter. Maté Rigó also translated Magyar sources for me. Pete Tisa contributed his skills to images. At the Metropolitan Ervin Szábo Library’s Budapest collection, Tibor Sándor was a helpful and welcoming presence, as was the Liszt curator at the Stiftung Weimarer Klassik in Weimar. Thanks also to Zsuzsana Domanska of the Liszt Museum in Budapest, who generously met with me on short notice. Rob, most of all, deserves thanks for his consistent love and support. List of Illustrations FIGURE Caption 1.1 Josef Danhauser, Liszt at the Piano 47 1.2 In the Concert Hall 54 2.1 Miklós Barabás, portrait of Franz Liszt 86 2.2 Josef Kriehuber, Franz Liszt 87 2.3 The New Pegasus in the Yoke 93 3.1 Weimars Volkslied 144 3.2 The Goethe-Schiller Monument in Weimar 145 4.1 Drawing of Beethoven and the young Liszt 155 5.1 Liszt conducts Elisabeth in the Redoute 205 5.2 The most recent Jewish Messiah 218 6.1 Liszt as Inspiration for the ADMV 243 List of Abbreviations The following are frequently cited sources and archives. AAZ Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung AMZ Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung Anr Anregungen für Kunst, Leben und Wissenschaft BAA Franz Liszts Briefe an Anton Augusz, 1846–1878, ed. Wilhelm von Czapó. Budapest, 1911. BCA Briefwechsel zwischen Franz Liszt und Carl Alexander, Grossherzog von Sachsen, ed. La Mara. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1909. BMA Correspondance de Liszt et de la Comtesse d’Agoult 1833–1840, ed. Daniel Ollivier. Paris: Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1933. Br I–VIII Franz Liszt’s Briefe, ed. La Mara, VIII vols. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1894. BUS Franz Liszt: Briefe aus Ungarischen Sammlungen 1835–1886, ed. Margit Prahács. Basel: Bärenreiter Kassel, 1966. Echo Berliner Musik-Zeitung LWB Franz Liszt—Richard Wagner Briefwechsel, ed. Hanjo Kesting. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1988. GSA Stiftung Weimarer Klassik NFP Neue Freie Presse NMZ Neue Musik-Zeitung NZfM Neue Zeitschrift für Musik PL Pester Lloyd RGMP Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris SS I–V Sämtliche Schriften, ed. Detlef Altenburg, 5 vols. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1997. UPB Legány, Dezsö. Franz Liszt: Unbekannte Presse und Briefe aus Wien 1832–1886. Vienna: Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1984. Introduction In the summer of 1886, Franz Liszt, pianist, composer, and teacher, traveled to Bayreuth to attend his granddaughter’s wedding. Having reached his seven- ties, Liszt’s health and patience were not what they had once been, and long distance travel was increasingly onerous for him. For this reason, Liszt hadn’t planned on attending the Bayreuth Festival. Yet when he heard of the wedding, and his daughter, Cosima Wagner, insisted his presence would lend important support to the Festival, he agreed to attend. After enjoying the wedding and a performance of Richard Wagner’s music drama Parsifal, a piece Liszt loved, he fell ill with pneumonia and died in misery on 31 July. Liszt’s funeral took place on 3 August in the local Catholic church, attended mostly by those present in Bayreuth for the Festival, although some of his piano students and friends also arrived for the ceremony. The chapel was bedecked with Hungarian and German national wreaths of red-white-green and black- red-white.1 The music consisted of chants performed by a handful of priests and an organ improvisation on themes from Parsifal: because his friends and students could not participate in the ceremony, none of his own music was performed. Despite Liszt’s relatively low profile in Bayreuth, throngs of mourn- ers appeared in the streets.2 Masses of onlookers surrounded the area of the grave, as the police had not received orders to keep access to it open. Liszt’s friends and family had to struggle through the crowd to reach the gravesite, where mourners had trampled the grave decorations in their eagerness to par- ticipate in Liszt’s commemoration.3 Shortly after the funeral a dispute arose between Liszt’s daughter Cosima Wagner, his long-time companion the Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, and various nationalist and religious groups in Germany and Hungary regard- ing the proper location of Liszt’s remains. Cosima Wagner based her decisions about her father’s remains on her desire to preserve both his and her late hus- band Richard Wagner’s reputations. She wanted him buried in the royal tomb at Weimar, or in Budapest, so long as both legislative houses requested it and Liszt was given national honors. She believed Liszt’s close alliance with the Grand Duke Carl Alexander of Weimar, as his music director for thirteen years, earned him a place alongside Goethe and Schiller and their patron, the Grand 1 C.R., “Am Grabe Liszt’s,” NZfM 82, no. 33 (13 August 1886): 359. All translations mine unless otherwise noted. 2 “Franz Liszt,” PL Beilage (2 August 1886). 3 Kornél Ábranyi, “Franz Liszt,” PL 33, no. 214 (4 August 1886). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004�79��3_�0� 2 introduction Duke Carl August. Carl Alexander offered to build a mausoleum for Liszt at the artist’s former home, the Altenburg, but Wagner rejected that idea as unfitting for her famous father. Sayn-Wittgenstein wanted him to rest in a place of honor, either in Weimar, where she and Liszt had lived together for more than a decade, or in Rome, to be honored as a member of the Church. She endorsed the Franciscans’ claim, who sought to have his body moved to Rome. The Church laid claim to Liszt as he had belonged to the secular Third Order since 1857 and had taken lower orders in 1865, becoming an abbé. Another suggestion sought to commemo- rate Liszt as a Catholic by burying him in Eisenach, near Weimar, at the foot of the Wartburg in the Chapel of St. Elisabeth. Cosima Wagner did not want that kind of commemoration for her father; since divorcing her first husband, Hans von Bülow, to marry Richard Wagner, and converting to Protestantism, her relationship to the Church was strained at best.