Description:
The 1830s were a golden age of instrumental virtuosity. With the end of the Ancien Régime, musicians -composers and players alike - were no longer the paid servants of princes or the Church. They had acquired their freedom, but the need to earn a living often led them to produce music which pandered to the tastes of an audience which now included new layers of the bourgeoisie, and to sell it like merchandise. Franz Liszt, one of the most illustrious of these virtuosi, was torn between the desire to affirm himself as the greatest virtuoso of his day and the wish to win recognition from the intelligentsia of philosophers, poets, painters and innovative composers (Berlioz, Schumann,...) as a successor to Beethoven. His «cultural» aspirations are expressed in several series of articles inspired variously by Saint-Simon, Lamennais and Ballanche. In them, he presents a lucid criticism of the musical institutions, the lyrical theatres, concerts and music teaching of his time, and sets out proposals for reform. What is ambiguous in Liszt's attitude is that, for all this, he did not renounce his ambitions as a piano athlete. These contratst did not fail to strike lucid minds, provoking in particular the irony of Heinrich Heine, who saw in him a pianist "badly seated" between contradictory options, and ill at ease with his success as a virtuoso. It was only from 1847 onwards, as Kapellmeister of the Duke of Weimar, that Liszt escaped form the temptations of commercializing his art. However, with artists having lost their clearly defined social function, he was no longer a paid musician-servant as under the Ancien Régime. From that time on, it was clear that music which wanted to escape from market constraints could survive only by subsidies and support from public or private benefactors. 1847 onwards, as Kapellmeister of the Duke of Weimar, that Liszt escaped form the temptations of commercializing his art. However, with artists having lost their clearly defined social function, he was no longer a paid musician-servant as under the Ancien Régime. From that time on, it was clear that music which wanted to escape from market constraints could survive only by subsidies and support from public or private benefactors.