October 1794 at Ecclesmachan, Linlithgow, where his father was parish
minister. He began the study of anatomy under Dr John Barclay
(1758-1826) at Edinburgh in 1810, and soon became a skilful anatomist.
After eight years' study, he became a lecturer on anatomy and surgery in
the Edinburgh School or Medicine; and in 1827 he was elected one of the
surgeons to the Royal Infirmary. In 1835 he was chosen professor of
clinical surgery in University College, London, and this appointment he
held until his death, which occurred in London on the 7th of December
1847. Liston was a teacher more by what he did than by what he said. He
taught simplicity in all operative procedures; fertile in expedients, of
great nerve and of powerful frame, he is remembered as an
extraordinarily bold, skilful and rapid operator. He was the author of
_The Elements of Surgery_ (1831-1832) and _Practical Surgery_ (1837),
and made several improvements in methods of amputation, and in the
dressing of wounds.
LISZT, FRANZ (1811-1886), Hungarian pianist and composer, was born on
the 22nd of October 1811, at Raiding, in Hungary. His appeal to
musicians was made in a threefold capacity, and we have, therefore, to
deal with Liszt the unrivalled pianoforte virtuoso (1830-1848); Liszt
the conductor of the "music of the future" at Weimar, the teacher of
Tausig, Bülow and a host of lesser pianists, the eloquent writer on
music and musicians, the champion of Berlioz and Wagner (1848-1861); and
Liszt the prolific composer, who for some five-and-thirty years
continued to put forth pianoforte pieces, songs, symphonic orchestral
pieces, cantatas, masses, psalms and oratorios (1847-1882). As virtuoso
he held his own for the entire period during which he chose to appear in
public; but the militant conductor and prophet of Wagner had a hard
time of it, and the composer's place is still in dispute. Liszt's
father, a clerk to the agent of the Esterhazy estates and an amateur
musician of some attainment, was Hungarian by birth and ancestry, his
mother an Austrian-German. The boy's gifts attracted the attention of
certain Hungarian magnates, who furnished 600 gulden annually for some
years to enable him to study music at Vienna and Paris. At Vienna he had
lessons in pianoforte playing from Carl Czerny of "Velocity" fame, and
from Salieri in harmony and analysis of scores. In his eleventh year he
began to play in public there, and Beethoven came to his second concert
in April 1823. During the three years following he played in Paris, the
French provinces and Switzerland, and paid three visits to England. In
Paris he had composition lessons from Paër, and a six months' course of
lessons in counterpoint from Reicha. In the autumn of 1825 the handsome
and fascinating _enfant gâté_ of the salons and ateliers--"La Neuvième
Merveille du monde"--had the luck to get an operetta (_Don Sancho_)
performed three times at the Académie Royale. The score was accidentally
destroyed by fire, but a set of studies à la Czerny and Cramer,
belonging to 1826 and published at Marseilles as 12 Études, op. i., is
extant, and shows remarkable precocity. After the death of his father in
1828 young Liszt led the life of a teacher of the pianoforte in Paris,
got through a good deal of miscellaneous reading, and felt the influence
of the religious, literary and political aspirations of the time. He
attended the meetings of the Saint-Simonists, lent an ear to the
romantic mysticism of Père Enfantin and later to the teaching of Abbé
Lamennais. He also played Beethoven and Weber in public--a very
courageous thing in those days. The appearance of the violinist Paganini
in Paris, 1831, marks the starting-point of the supreme eminence Liszt
ultimately attained as a virtuoso. Paganini's marvellous technique
inspired him to practise as no pianist had ever practised before. He
tried to find equivalents for Paganini's effects, transcribed his violin
caprices for the piano, and perfected his own technique to an
extraordinary degree. After Paganini he received a fresh impulse from
the playing and the compositions of Chopin, who arrived in 1831, and yet
another impulse of equal force from a performance of Berlioz's
"Symphonie Fantastique, épisode de la vie d'un artiste," in 1832. Liszt
transcribed this work, and its influence ultimately led him to the
composition of his "Poèmes symphoniques" and other examples of
orchestral programme-music.
From 1833 to 1848--when he gave up playing in public--he was greeted with
frantic applause as the prince of pianists. Five years (1835-1840) were
spent in Switzerland and Italy, in semi-retirement in the company of
Madame la comtesse d'Agoult (George Sand's friend and would-be rival,
known in literary circles as "Daniel Stern," by whom Liszt had three
children, one of them afterwards Frau Cosima Wagner): these years were
devoted to further study in playing and composition, and were interrupted
only by occasional appearances at Geneva, Milan, Florence and Rome, and
by annual visits to Paris, when a famous contest with Thalberg took place
in 1837. The enthusiasm aroused by Liszt's playing and his
personality--the two are inseparable--reached a climax at Vienna and
Budapest in 1839-1840, when he received a patent of nobility from the
emperor of Austria, and a sword of honour from the magnates of Hungary in
the name of the nation. During the eight years following he was heard at
all the principalcentres--including London, Leipzig, Berlin, Copenhagen,
St Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Constantinople, Lisbon and Madrid. He
gained much money, and gave large sums in charity. His munificence with
regard to the Beethoven statue at Bonn made a great stir. The
subscriptions having come in but sparsely, Liszt took the matter in
hand, and the monument was completed at his expense, and unveiled at a
musical festival conducted by Spohr and himself in 1845. In 1848 he
settled at Weimar with Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein (d. 1887), and remained
there till 1861. During this period he acted as conductor at court
concerts and on special occasions at the theatre, gave lessons to a
number of pianists, wrote articles of permanent value on certain works of
Berlioz and the early operas of Wagner, and produced those orchestral and
choral pieces upon which his reputation as a composer mainly depends. His
ambition to found a school of composers as well as a school of pianists
met with complete success on the one hand and partial failure on the
other. His efforts on behalf of Wagner, who was then an exile in
Switzerland, culminated in the first performance of _Lohengrin_ on the
28th of August 1850, before a special audience assembled from far and
near. Among the works produced for the first time or rehearsed with a
view to the furtherance of musical art were Wagner's _Tannhäuser_, _Der
fliegende Holländer_, _Das Liebesmahl der Apostel_, and _Eine Faust
Overtüre_, Berlioz's _Benvenuto Cellini_, the _Symphonie Fantastique_,
_Harold en Italie_, _Roméo et Juliette_, _La Damnation de Faust_, and
_L'Enfance du Christ_--the last two conducted by the composer--Schumann's
_Genoveva_, _Paradise and the Peri_, the music to _Manfred_ and to
_Faust_, Weber's _Euryanthe_, Schubert's _Alfonso und Estrella_, Raff's
_König Alfred_, Cornelius's _Der Barbier von Baghdad_ and many more. It
was Liszt's habit to recommend novelties to the public by explanatory
articles or essays, which were written in French (some for the _Journal
des débats_ and the _Gazette musicale_ of Paris) and translated for the
journals of Weimar and Leipzig--thus his two masterpieces of sympathetic
criticism, the essays _Lohengrin et Tannhäuser à Weimar_ and _Harold en
Italie_, found many readers and proved very effective. They are now
included, together with articles on Schumann and Schubert, and the
elaborate and rather high-flown essays on Chopin and _Des Bohémiens et de
leur musique en Hongrie_ (the latter certainly, and the former probably,
written in collaboration with Madame de Wittgenstein), in his _Gesammelte
Schriften_ (6 vols., Leipzig). The compositions belonging to the period
of his residence at Weimar comprise two pianoforte concertos, in E flat
and in A, the "Todtentanz," the "Concerto pathétique" for two pianos, the
solo sonata "An Robert Schumann," sundry "Études," fifteen "Rhapsodies
Hongroises," twelve orchestral "Poèmes symphoniques," "Eine Faust
Symphonie," and "Eine Symphonie zu Dante's 'Divina Commedia,'" the "13th
Psalm" for tenor solo, chorus and orchestra, the choruses to Herder's
dramatic scenes "Prometheus," and the "Missa solennis" known as the
"Graner Fest Messe." Liszt retired to Rome in 1861, and joined the
Franciscan order in 1865.[1] From 1869 onwards Abbé Liszt divided his
time between Rome and Weimar, where during the summer months he received
pupils--gratis as formerly--and, from 1876 up to his death at Bayreuth on
the 31st of July 1886, he also taught for several months every year at
the Hungarian Conservatoire of Budapest.
About Liszt's pianoforte technique in general it may be said that it
derives its efficiency from the teaching of Czerny, who brought up his
pupil on Mozart, a little Bach and Beethoven, a good deal of Clementi
and Hummel, and a good deal of his (Czerny's) own work. Classicism in
the shape of solid, respectable Hummel on the one hand, and Carl Czerny,
a trifle flippant, perhaps, and inclined to appeal to the gallery, on
the other, these gave the musical parentage of young Liszt. Then appears
the Parisian Incroyable and grand seigneur--"Monsieur Lits," as the
Parisians called him. Later, we find him imitating Paganini and Chopin,
and at the same time making a really passionate and deep study of
Beethoven, Weber, Schubert, Berlioz. Thus gradually was formed the
master of style--whose command of the instrument was supreme, and who
played like an inspired poet. Liszt's strange musical nature was long in
maturing its fruits. At the pianoforte his achievements culminate in the
two books of studies, twice rewritten, and finally published in 1852 as
_Études d'exécution transcendante_, the _Études de concert_ and the
_Paganini Studies_; the two concertos and the _Todtentanz_, the _Sonata
in B minor_, the _Hungarian Rhapsodies_ and the fine transcriptions of
Beethoven's symphonies (the 9th for two pianofortes as well as solo),
and of Berlioz's _Symphonie fantastique_, and the symphony, _Harold en
Italie_. In his orchestral pieces of Liszt appears--next to Berlioz--as
the most conspicuous and most thorough-going representative of programme
music, i.e. instrumental music expressly contrived to illustrate in
detail some poem or some succession of ideas or pictures. It was Liszt's
aim to bring about a direct alliance or amalgamation of instrumental
music with poetry. To effect this he made use of the means of musical
expression for purposes of illustration, and relied on points of support
outside the pale of music proper. There is always danger of failure
when an attempt is thus made to connect instrumental music with
conceptions not in themselves musical, for the order of the ideas that
serve as a programme is apt to interfere with the order which the
musical exposition naturally assumes--and the result in most cases is
but an amalgam of irreconcilable materials. In pieces such as Liszt's
"Poèmes symphoniques," _Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne_ (1848-1856),
after a poem by Victor Hugo, and _Die Ideale_ (1853-1857), after a poem
by Schiller, the hearer is bewildered by a series of startling
orchestral effects which succeed one another apparently without rhyme or
reason. The music does not conform to any sufficiently definite musical
plan--it is hardly intelligible as music without reference to the
programme. Liszt's masterpiece in orchestral music is the _Dante
Symphony_ (1847-1855), the subject of which was particularly well suited
to his temperament, and offered good chances for the display of his
peculiar powers as a master of instrumental effect. By the side of it
ranks the _Faust Symphony_ (1854-1857), in which the moods of Goethe's
characters--Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles--are depicted in three
instrumental movements, with a chorus of male voices, supplying a kind
of comment, by way of close. The method of presentation in both
symphonies is by means of representative themes (_Leitmotif_), and their
combination and interaction. Incidents of the poem or the play are
illustrated or alluded to as may be convenient, and the exigencies of
musical form are not unfrequently disregarded for the sake of special
effects. Of the twelve Poèmes symphoniques, _Orphée_ is the most
consistent from a musical point of view, and is exquisitely scored.
Melodious, effective, readily intelligible, with a dash of the
commonplace, _Les Préludes_, _Tasso_, _Mazeppa_ and _Fest-Klänge_ bid
for popularity. In these pieces, as in almost every production of his,
in lieu of melody Liszt offers fragments of melody--touching and
beautiful, it may be, or passionate, or tinged with triviality; in lieu
of a rational distribution of centres of harmony in accordance with some
definite plan, he presents clever combinations of chords and ingenious
modulations from point to point; in lieu of musical logic and
consistency of design, he is content with rhapsodical improvisation. The
power of persistence seems wanting. The musical growth is spoilt, the
development of the themes is stopped, or prevented, by some reference to
extraneous ideas. Everywhere the programme stands in the way. In much of
Liszt's vocal music, particularly in the songs and choral pieces written
to German words, an annoying discrepancy is felt to exist between the
true sound of the words and the musical accents. The music is generally
emotional, the expression direct and passionate; there is no lack of
melodic charm and originality, yet the total effect is frequently
disappointing. In the choral numbers of the five masses, and in the
oratorios _Die Heilige Elisabeth_ and _Christus_, the rarity of fugal
polyphony acts as a drawback. Its almost complete absence in some of
these works makes for monotony and produces a sense of dullness, which
may not be inherent in all the details of the music, but is none the
less distinctly present.
Omitting trifles and all publications that have been cancelled, the
following list of compositions may be taken as fairly comprehensive:--
_Pianoforte Pieces._--Études d'exécution transcendante; Études de
concert; Zwei Etuden, Waldesrauschen, Gnomentanz; Ab Irato; Paganini
Studies; Années de Pélerinage, 3 sets; Harmonies poétiques et
religieuses, 1-10; Consolations, 1-6; Ave Maria in E; Sonata in B
minor; Konzert-Solo in E minor; Scherzo und Marsch; Ballades, I. II.;
Polonaises, I. II.; Apparitions, 1-3; Berceuse; Valse impromptu;
Mazurka brillant; 3 Caprices Valses; Galop chromatique;
Mephisto-Walzer, I., II., III. and Polka; Zwei Legenden, "Die
Vogelpredigt," "Der heilige Franciscus auf den Wogen schreitend"; "Der
Weihnachtsbaum," 1-12; Sarabande und Chaconne ("Almira"); Elegies, I.,
II. and III.; La lugubre Gondola; Dem Andenken Petöfi's; Mosonyi's
Grabgeleit; Romance oubliée; Valses oubliées, 1-3; Liebesträume, 1-3
(originally songs); Hexameron; Rhapsodies Hongroises, 1-18.
_Pieces for Two Pianos._--Concerto pathétique (identical with the
Konzert-Solo in E minor); Dante symphony; Faust symphony; Poèmes
symphoniques, 1-12; Beethoven's 9th symphony.
_Pianoforte with Orchestra._--Concertos I. in E flat, II. in A;
Todtentanz; Fantasie ueber Motif aus Beethoven's "Ruinen von Athen";
Fantasie ueber Ungarische National Melodien; Schubert's Fantasia in C;
Weber's Polacca in E.
_Fantaisies de Concert for Piano Solo._--Don Juan; Norma; Sonnambula;
I Puritani; Lucia, I., II.; Lucrezia, I., II.; La Juive; Robert le
Diable; Les Huguenots; Le Prophète, 1-4. _Paraphrases_, Auber,
Tarantella di bravura (Masaniello); Verdi, Rigoletto, Ernani, Il
Trovatore; Mendelssohn, "Hochzeitsmarsch und Elfenreigen"; Gounod,
Valse de Faust, Les Adieux de Roméo et Juliette; Tschaikowsky,
Polonaise; Dargomiyski, Tarantelle; Cui, Tarantella; Saint-Saëns,
Danse macabre; Schubert, Soirées de Vienne, Valses caprices, 1-9.
_Transcriptions._--Beethoven's Nine Symphonies; Berlioz's "Symphonie
fantastique," "Harold en Italie"; Bénédiction et Serment (Benvenuto
Cellini); Danse des Sylphes (Damnation de Faust); Weber's overtures,
Der Freischütz, Euryanthe, Oberon, Jubilee; Beethoven's and Hummel's
Septets; Schubert's Divertissement à la Hongroise; Beethoven's
Concertos in C minor, G and E flat (orchestra for a second piano);
Wagner's Tannhäuser overture, march, romance, chorus of pilgrims;
Lohengrin, Festzug und Brautlied, Elsa's Brautgang, Elsa's Traum,
Lohengrin's Verweiss an Elsa; Fliegender Holländer, Spinnlied; Rienzi,
Gebet; Rheingold, Walhall; Meistersinger, "Am stillen Herd"; Tristan,
Isolde's Liebestod; Chopin's six Chants Polonais; Meyerbeer's
Schillermarsch; Bach's six organ Preludes and Fugues; Prelude and
Fugue in G minor; Beethoven, Adelaide; 6 miscellaneous and 6
Geistliche Lieder; Liederkreis; Rossini's Les Soirées musicales;
Schubert, 59 songs; Schumann, 13 songs; Mendelssohn, 8 songs; Robert
Franz, 13 songs.
_Organ Pieces._--Missa pro organo; Fantasia and Fugue, "Ad nos, ad
salutarem undam"; B-A-C-H Fugue; Variations on Bach's Basso continuo,
"Weinen, Klagen"; Bach's Introduction and Fugue, "Ich hatte viel
Bekümmerniss"; Bach's Choral Fugue, "Lob und Ehre"; Nicolai's
Kirchliche Festouvertüre, "Ein feste Burg"; Allegri's Miserere;
Mozart's Ave Verum; Arcadelt's Ave Maria; Lasso's Regina Coeli.
_Orchestral Pieces._--Eine Symphonie zu Dante's "Divina Commedia";
Eine Faust Symphonie; Poèmes symphoniques: 1. "Ce qu'on entend sur la
montagne"; 2. Tasso; 3. Les Préludes; 4. Orphée; 5. Prométhée; 6.
Mazeppa; 7. Fest-Klänge; 8. Héroïde funèbre; 9. Hungaria; 10. Hamlet;
11. Hunnenschlacht; 12. Die Ideale; Zwei Episoden aus Lenau's Faust:
I. Der nächtliche Zug, II. Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke; Marches,
Rakoczy, Goethe, Huldigung, "Vom Fels zum Meer" (for a military band);
Ungarischer, Heroischer and Sturmmarsch; Le Triomphe funèbre du Tasse;
"Von der Wiege bis zum Grab"; six Hungarian rhapsodies; four marches;
four songs, and Die Allmacht, by Schubert.
_Vocal Music._--Oratorios: "Die Legende von der Heiligen Elisabeth,"
"Christus," "Stanislaus" (unfinished). Masses: Missa solennis for the
inauguration of the cathedral at Gran; Ungarische Krönungs-messe;
Missa choralis (with organ); Missa and Requiem for male voices (with
organ); Psalms, 13, 137, 23 and 18; 12 Kirchen-Chor-Gesänge (with
organ). Cantatas: Prometheus-chöre; "Beethoven Cantata"; "An die
Künstler"; Die Glocken des Strassburger Münsters; 12 Chöre für
Männergesang; Songs, 8 books; Scena, Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher.
_Melodramatic Pieces for Declamation, with Pianoforte
Accompaniment._--Leonore (Bürger); Der traurige Mönch (Lenau); Des
todten Dichter's Liebe (Jokai); Der blinde Sänger (Tolstoy).
_Editions, Text and Variants._--Beethoven's Sonatas; Weber's
Concertstück and Sonatas; Schubert Fantasia, 4 Sonatas, Impromptus,
Valses and Moments musicaux.
See also L. Ramaun, _Fr. Liszt als Künstler und Mensch_ (1880-1894);
E. Dannreuther, _Oxford Hist. of Music_, vol. vi.(1905). (E. Da.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] It is understood that, in point of fact, the Princess
Wittgenstein was determined to marry Liszt; and as neither he nor her
family wished their connexion to take this form, Cardinal Hohenlohe
quietly had him ordained.--[ED. _E.B._].
LITANY. This word ([Greek: litaneia]), like [Greek: litê] (both from
[Greek: litomai]), is used by Eusebius and Chrysostom, commonly in the
plural, in a general sense, to denote a prayer or prayers of any sort,
whether public or private; it is similarly employed in the law of
Arcadius (_Cod. Theod._ xvi. tit. 5, leg. 30), which forbids heretics to
hold assemblies in the city "ad litaniam faciendam." But some trace of a
more technical meaning is found in the epistle (_Ep._ 63) of Basil to
the church of Neocaesarea, in which he argues, against those who were
objecting to certain innovations, that neither were "litanies" used in
the time of Gregory Thaumaturgus. The nature of the recently introduced
litanies, which must be assumed to have been practised at Neocaesarea in
Basil's day, can only be conjectured; probably they had many points in
common with the "rogationes," which, according to Sidonius Apollinaris,
had been coming into occasional use in France about the beginning of the
5th century, especially when rain or fine weather was desired, and, so
far as the three fast days before Ascension were concerned, were first
fixed, for one particular district at least, by Mamertus or Mamercus of
Vienne (A.D. c. 450). We gather that they were penitential and
intercessory prayers offered by the community while going about in
procession, fasting and clothed in sackcloth. In the following century
the manner of making litanies was to some extent regulated for the
entire Eastern empire by one of the _Novels_ of Justinian, which forbade
their celebration without the presence of the bishops and clergy, and
ordered that the crosses which were carried in procession should not be
deposited elsewhere than in churches, nor be carried by any but duly
appointed persons. The first synod of Orleans (A.D. 511) enjoins for all
Gaul that the "litanies" before Ascension be celebrated for three days;
on these days all menials are to be exempt from work, so that every one
may be free to attend divine service. The diet is to be the same as in
Quadragesima; clerks not observing these rogations are to be punished by
the bishop. In A.D. 517 the synod of Gerunda provided for two sets of
"litanies"; the first were to be observed for three days (from Thursday
to Saturday) in the week after Pentecost with fasting, the second for
three days from November 1. The second council of Vaison (529),
consisting of twelve bishops, ordered the _Kyrie eleison_--now first
introduced from the Eastern Church--to be sung at matins, mass and
vespers.
A synod of Paris (573) ordered litanies to be held for three days at the
beginning of Lent, and the fifth synod of Toledo (636) appointed
litanies to be observed throughout the kingdom for three days from
December 14. The first mention of the word litany in connexion with the
Roman Church goes back to the pontificate of Pelagius I. (555), but
implies that the thing was at that time already old. In 590 Gregory I.,
moved by the pestilence which had followed an inundation, ordered a
"litania septiformis," sometimes called _litania major_, that is to say,
a sevenfold procession of clergy, laity, monks, virgins, matrons,
widows, poor and children. It must not be confused with the _litania
septena_ used in church on Easter Even. He is said also to have
appointed the processions or litanies of April 25 (St Mark's day), which
seem to have come in the place of the ceremonies of the old Robigalia.
In 747 the synod of Cloveshoe ordered the litanies or rogations to be
gone about on April 25 "after the manner of the Roman Church," and on
the three days before Ascension "after the manner of our ancestors." The
latter are still known in the English Church as Rogation Days. Games,
horse racing, junkettings were forbidden; and in the litanies the name
of Augustine was to be inserted after that of Gregory. The reforming
synod of Mainz in 813 ordered the major litany to be observed by all for
three days in sackcloth and ashes, and barefoot. The sick only were
exempted.