As Fulvia Morabito rightly observes, ‘Liszt was one of the most influential protagonists of the vast and complex nineteenth-century musical scene’ (p. ix). Few would argue with Morabito, editor of “En pèlerinage avec Liszt”: Virtuosos, Repertoire and Performing Venues in 19th-Century Europe, in casting this composer in a leading role of Romantic-era musical life as it unfolded. Of course, Franz Liszt (1811–1886) has long been central to discussions of musical style and performance practice of this period, alongside Berlioz, Schumann, Chopin, Wagner and Brahms. Additionally, through his salient role in the emerging discipline of the virtuoso concert tour, and his contributions to the core repertoire through performances and publications of his own music, and through his important orchestral transcriptions of Beethoven and others, Liszt has stood as a pillar of influence for his contemporaries and subsequent generations of musicians. This multi-faceted discussion provides the perspective from which the present volume proceeds, following, as Morabito explains, ‘two principal lines of investigation: Franz Liszt, and the musical voyage’ (p. ix). A variety of topics – most are keenly centred on Liszt, but others expand beyond him as an exclusive focal point – concerning musical style, performance practice, critical reception, interdisciplinary connections and personal interactions offer a panoramic view of musical life in nineteenth-century Europe as it evolved through the activities of Liszt and his contemporaries.

Published in 2014 as part of the Speculum Musicae series, this volume contains 17 chapters drawn from the symposium The European Sound in the Era of Liszt: The Musical Tour in the Nineteenth Century (Briosco, Italy, 2011) in honour of Liszt’s bicentennial birth year.Footnote ¹ The chapters (in English, French, Italian and Spanish) are organized into four main themes, beginning with ‘Franz Liszt’s Life and Work: New Evidence and Perspectives’. The volume opens with Nicolas Dufetel’s chapter (‘Franz Liszt à Weimar d’après la correspondance inédite de Carl Alexander (1844–1861)’) on Liszt’s personal and professional life surrounding his Weimar years, as illustrated by nearly two decades of correspondence and other personal writings by the composer and his acquaintances (most notably Carl Alexander and Polish princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein). This is followed by Florence Gétreau’s (‘Liszt am Klavier (Vienne, 1840): Josef Danhauser et la construction d’un archétype de salon parisien’) analysis of the well-known painting Liszt am Klavier, which offers an imaginative depiction of the composer surrounded by literary and artistic luminaries of Vienna, 1840. Gétreau’s inclusion of intricate details from Danhauser’s painting, reproduced here in black and white, to accompany her discussion will be of particular interest to readers. She also includes an article by Viennese dramatist Ignaz Franz Castelli (Wiener Zeitung, 1840), and a list of other studies of this painting, including those published as recently as 2011. Two authors independently consider Liszt’s piano transcriptions: David Hurwitz (‘Liszt’s Transcriptions as Evidence of Intrinsic Vibrato in the 19th-Century Orchestra’) in regard to contemporary performance practice as suggested by Liszt’s notation, and Mark Kroll (‘On a Pedestal and Under the Microscope: The Arrangements of Beethoven Symphonies by Liszt and Hummel’) on the different approaches to arranging Beethoven’s symphonies for piano (he compares transcriptions by Liszt and Hummel, in terms of style and intended audience). The section closes with Sandra Myers’s chapter, ‘What Is “Spanish” about Liszt?’, addressing particular ‘exotic’ elements in some of Liszt’s music, in relation to the growing trend in stylized ‘Spanish’ music and literature beginning in the 1830s. As Myers suggests, François-Joseph Fétis’s work on sixteenth-century music, and his related concerts given in Paris, greatly stimulated this trend in musical historicism, and the use of traditional romanesca and bolero styles (pp. 126–31).Footnote ²

The second section of the book, ‘Liszt and the European Musical Scene’, expands to a broader perspective on the developing nineteenth-century musical life in Western Europe. Chapters by Victoria Alemany Ferrer (‘La estancia de Franz Liszt en España y su influencia sobre los conciertos de piano españoles celebrados durante la segunda mitad del siglo xix’), and co-authors Ana Maria Liberal and Rui Pereira (‘Liszt in the Case: The Repertoire of Virtuosi Visiting Porto in the Late 19th Century’) consider changes in concert life and performance repertoire in Spain and Portugal, respectively, in relation to Liszt’s appearances there. The latter also includes a table of compositions and arrangements by Liszt, performed by others in the city of Porto (1865–1914); this illustrates his ongoing role as a guiding force for repertoire and musical taste long after his 1845 tour. Between these chapters, and taking the opposite perspective in seeking those who inspired Liszt, David Gasche (‘Johann Nepomuk Hummel et la conception d’une nouvelle identité sonore: la Parthia en Mi-flat (1803)’) steps back in time to consider Hummel’s Parthia in E-flat Major (1803) as a representative of the popular Harmoniemusik style that he argues is observable in some of Liszt’s orchestral music, including Bergsymphonie, Prometheus, Mazeppa, Festklänge and Die Ideale (p. 183). The section closes with a chapter by Anne Penesco (‘Sonorités violonistiques à l’époque de Liszt’) on violin construction and technique; while less specifically about Liszt, the discussion of well-known figures such as Niccolò Paganini is certainly relevant to the general topic of virtuosity, which is addressed by several authors in the remaining sections.

The third section, ‘The Musical Journey: Phenomenology and Case Studies’, turns to several contemporaries of Liszt, offering a variety of ‘snapshots’ to illustrate the new discipline of the concert tour as experienced by select individuals during this formative period in music history. Jeroen van Gessel (‘Tracing the “Sound of Europe” through Nineteenth-Century Music Memoirs’), addresses international style as projected through the published writings of musicians and journalists. Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger (‘Phobie de l’estrade et sédentarité: Chopin – Alkan – Heller – Henselt’) considers the pressures of concert tours and their effect on virtuoso performers, while Leon Plantinga (‘Why the Virtuosi Stopped Playing’) discusses performers who chose to abandon a performance career altogether for a variety of reasons. More broadly, Laure Schnapper (‘Le développement des tournées: les voyages d’Henri Herz (1831–1851)’) discusses the development of the international tour, focusing on French pianist Henri Herz. The section concludes with a discussion by Renata Suchowiejko (‘Les violinists virtuoses et la presse au xix^e siècle: épistémologie d’une recherche a partir de l’exemple de Henryk Wieniawski’) on violin virtuosos, with specific interest in Polish violinist Henryk Wieniawski. Supporting materials include images of Wieniawski, a chronology of his life, a source list of press coverage and extracts from concert reviews.

The final section, ‘Virtuosos on Tour’, considers the varied experiences of Ernesto Cavallini, Hector Berlioz and Felix Mendelssohn – names that for many readers will be more readily familiar than others discussed in this volume. Francisco José Fernández Vicedo (‘Ernesto Cavallini: un virtuoso clarinetista italiano en la España de mediados del siglo xix’) examines Cavallini’s musical activities and his reception in Spain in the mid-nineteenth century, and the use of clarinet in nineteenth-century Spanish instrumental music. Sabine Koch (‘Berlioz and the Listening Public: The Perspectives of a French Composer Touring Western Europe in the 19th Century’) discusses select writings of Hector Berlioz, who compares different national audiences in France, Italy and Germany, in terms of their response to musical style. Because this point of discussion became increasingly important to nineteenth-century audiences and critics, and expanded through the early-twentieth century, it is interesting and useful to read Berlioz’s early perspective on this topic – although Koch sensibly reminds the reader that these writings are not always balanced, depending on Berlioz’s particular agenda (p. 337). The concluding chapter by Siegwart Reichwald (‘Mendelssohn as Musical Ambassador: Bringing the World to a Concert Hall near You’) considers Felix Mendelssohn’s three-year grand tour in the early 1830s, turning the discussion to the early career of another essential figure of nineteenth-century musical life. In this way, it brings the volume almost back to where it began with Liszt in Weimar, not long after this.

The reader will notice that the content primarily concerns instrumental genres and performers, not surprisingly, given the significant contributions of Liszt and his contemporaries in these areas. Still, one notable absence is a solid discussion of Liszt’s vocal music. While some references are made to his songs in broader topics (for example, ‘Il m’aimait tant!’ in Hurwitz’s chapter on vibrato, pp. 81–2, and p. 91, and ‘Gastibelza’ in Myers’s chapter on Spanish Style, pp. 129–31), those familiar with his vocal music, which includes a substantial number of songs, choral works and melodramas, as well as two oratorios and an opera, might well miss this line of discussion. And Liszt’s later activities, particularly his connection to the church, and his association with sacred music (the oratorio Christus, 1873, for example) would add another dimension, and provide an elegant balance to the topics surrounding his early life, which are well represented in this volume.Footnote ³ Granted, the editor was limited to the topics presented at the 2011 symposium, and a review of the complete programme does not suggest any additional papers that might fill these gaps.Footnote ⁴ Regardless, the diversity of topics offered here is pleasing, and the interested reader will find numerous other publications beyond this volume to enrich their understanding of Liszt and this period in history further.Footnote ⁵

When compiling a volume of this sort, with chapters drawn from a symposium of fairly diverse scope – even within the bounds of a Liszt celebration – organizing the individual topics into coherent themes surely is one of the greatest challenges for an editor. This is especially true when one is not presenting a strict chronological narrative, and some topics are readily adaptable to more than one theme area, and others are not as obviously Liszt-centric one might immediately expect. In some cases, a simple question regarding the logic of the chapter placement might arise (for instance, Plantinga’s chapter ‘Why the Virtuosi Stopped Playing’ might seem premature, as it is given prior to Schnapper’s discussion of the development of the concert tour, and several other chapters on virtuosos.) In other cases, the topics are somewhat modular in terms of organizing them into proposed themes. For example, Myers’s chapter on Spanish style appears in ‘Franz Liszt’s Life and Work’, although her discussion of European taste, musical trends and contemporary scholarship would also lend this chapter well to ‘Liszt and the European Musical Scene’. Similar flexibility could be argued for relocating Vicedo’s chapter on Cavallini in Spain from ‘Virtuosos on Tour’ to ‘Liszt and the European Musical Scene’, along with those by Ferrer, and Liberal and Pereira. And Suchowiejko’s discussion of violinist Henryk Wieniawski certainly works as a case study for ‘The Musical Journey’, although it would be as logical to find it in ‘Virtuosos on Tour’. In this particular case, however, I believe this placement was actually made in error, as certain phrasing in the preface suggests that Suchowiejko’s chapter was perhaps originally intended for ‘Virtuosos on Tour’ (p. xiii).Footnote ⁶ It is a minor inconsistency, possibly resulting from a last-minute alteration that was overlooked in the final stages of editing, but certainly worth noting.

Still, while some points of organization are debatable, this does not detract from the content of the individual chapters, or the overall effect of the volume. In keeping with the Speculum Musicae series, the visual presentation of the text is elegant, with fine musical examples and tables, and clean reproductions of images and documents, and the finished product (in sewn hardcover binding) yields a rich, enjoyable experience for the reader. (A general index would be helpful in navigating topics and individual compositions, although a substantial and very useful index of names is provided.) The many fascinating individual discussions that make up the volume offer – as was the objective of the symposium in 2011 – a panoramic view of European musical life as it developed through the activities of Liszt and his contemporaries, their surrounding critical response and the changes in repertoire and performance culture that resulted in part from them.