Liszt: Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 7 8

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Franz Liszt (1811-1886) Piano Transcriptions of Beethoven's Symphonies, S464/R128: Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93   On 1 December a very talented boy who has come here from Pressburg, by name Liszt, gave a concert in the great town hall and aroused through his playing and his remarkable facility general wonder. --- Vienna Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, 7 December 1822   It was in 1822, ten years after Beethoven had completed his Seventh Symphony, that Liszt, who had been studying in Vienna with Czerny, gave his first public concert. In April 1823 he gave his final concert, before leaving for a brief visit home to Pest and then for Paris. Whether there is any truth in the popular legend that the boy was kissed by Beethoven, the so-called Weihekuss, Liszt certainly met Beethoven and treasured a special relationship to which he gave expression in his concert performances, whether as pianist or conductor, and in his pious transcriptions of works such as Beethoven's symphonies. Born at Raiding, in Hungary, in 1811, the son of Adam Liszt, a steward in the service of Haydn's former patrons, the Esterhazy Princes, Franz Liszt had early encouragement from members of the Hungarian nobility, allowing him in 1822 to move to Vienna. From there he moved to Paris, where Cherubini refused him admission to the Conservatoire. Nevertheless he was able to impress audiences by his performance, now supported by the Erard family, piano manufacturers whose wares he was able to advertise in the concert tours on which he embarked. In 1827 Adam Liszt died, and Franz Liszt was now joined again by his mother in Paris, while using his time to teach, to read and benefit from the intellectual society with which he came into contact. His interest in virtuoso performance was renewed when he heard the great violinist Paganini, whose technical accomplishments he now set out to emulate. The years that followed brought a series of compositions, including transcriptions of songs and operatic fantasies, part of the stock-in-trade of a virtuoso. Liszt's relationship with a married woman, the Comtesse Marie d'Agoult, led to his departure from Paris for years of travel abroad, first to Switzerland, then back to Paris, before leaving for Italy, Vienna and Hungary. By 1844 his relationship with his mistress, the mother of his three children, was at an end, but his concert activities continued until 1847, the year in which his association began with Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a Polish heiress, the estranged wife of a Russian prince. The following year he settled with her in Weimar, the city of Goethe, turning his attention now to the development of a newer form of orchestral music, the symphonic poem, and, as always, to the revision and publication of earlier compositions. It was in 1861, at the age of fifty, that Liszt moved to Rome, following Princess Carolyne, who had settled there a year earlier. Divorce and annulment seemed t