Franz Liszt was a colossus of the nineteenth-century European Romanticism: a prolific, innovative and versatile composer of genius, one of the history’s greatest pianists, a conductor, an influential teacher, a writer and critic, a philosopher and an abbé, a philanthropist and a great advocate and supporter of many fellow musicians.
He was a true cosmopolitan figure whose influence on the development of the national European music schools in the second half of the nineteenth century, on the development of the new trends in late nineteenth century – early twentieth century musical styles, and on the future generations of composers and pianists, is hard to overestimate.