Liszt's final decade

Abstract

Toward the end of his life Franz Liszt maintained extensive correspondence with two women who were at the time his closest confidantes, Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein and Olga von Meyendorff. Liszt wrote regularly to these women, expressing his intimate feelings about personal and career events and his conflicted self-image as a celebrated performer but underappreciated composer. Absent a diary, the letters offer the most direct avenue into Liszt's psychein his final years. Liszt's Final Decade explores through these letters the mind and music of one of the nineteenth century's most popular musicians, providing insight into Liszt's melancholia in his last years and hisstruggle to gain recognition for his music yet avoid negative criticism. The exchange indicates that Liszt ultimately resolved his self-image through a personally constructed Christian moral philosophy that embraced positive resignation to suffering, compassionate love, and trust in a just reward to come. The book also examines how Liszt's sacred compositions unfold a paradigm of suffering that yields to joy and hope. Significantly, Liszt viewed these works, commonly overlooked today, as a major part of his compositional legacy. This volume thus challenges the idea of a single late Lisztian style and the notion that despair overwhelmed the composer in his final years. Dolores Pesce, Avis Blewett Professor of Music at Washington University in St. Louis, has published books and articles on medieval and Renaissance music theory, the medieval motet, Franz Liszt, and Edward MacDowell.