Franz Liszt was quite tall in his generation, standing 6 feet 2 inches tall, long blonde hair, piercing sharp eyes, pianist' long narrow and delicate hands and fingers. His body build was very slender.
People who knew him described his personality as full of charm, charisma, and very knowledgeable.
And he loved brainy women.
He was the consummate artist.
It seems that Liszt loved dangerous love, which thrilled him and gave him excitement rather than a stable, peaceful , safe love.
While reading about his biography, I was wondering why he fell in love with two princesses who were already married.
He seems to have had a lot of love affairs in his life, someone found out that he had at least 26 serious relationships in his life ( besides countless other affairs ) but the only ladies he thought about marriage was with these two princesses , Marie D’Agoult and Carolyne Sayn Wittgenstein ?
One of my favorite of Franz Liszt’s music is Liebestraum ( Love dream ), especially the version played by Hiroko Nakamura in the Franz Liszt greatest hits Audio CD.
Depending on the pianist, I get really different impression and I’m wondering how the composer himself Liszt played it, such a romantic , sentimental beautiful music, Liebestraum.
And I started checking to find out who was Liszt thinking about when he composed this music ?
I originally thought he composed this music for his long time girlfriend Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein , who was one of the Russian Princesses.
But it was not.
Liszt made it for his secret lover Agnes Street Klindworth who was 28 years old at that time. Liszt was 42.
And Liszt and Carolyne’s relationship was still very much alive even though they were not living together at that time.
Liszt and Agnes fell in love with each other within months of their first meeting. Agnes was the daughter of master spy George Klindworth Metternich , who had the ear of Emperor Franz Joseph and Tsar Nicholas I.
Liszt apparently knew of Agnes’ double life all along, and it seems this only added to make her even more intriguing to him , and their subsequent passionate and emotional affair was one of the best-kept secrets of the Weimar years .
Agnes was central to Liszt’s life in the mid-1850s.
From the music Liebestraum , it’s so clear to hear and feel his serious love for her, his strong emotion, burning love for her through the music.
His Liebestraum is the most beautiful romantic music for couples I’ve ever heard.
On the other hand , he could be dry in some ways. His main partner was always Carolyne.
They were unable to get married because of outside forces out of their control.
When Carolyne discovered Agnes’s letters to Liszt, Carolyne eventually forgave him because she thought Agnes is a temporary affair and she, Carolyne, was in the top position of his life.
Liszt and Agnes continued their affair for awhile but he advised Agnes not to write to him anymore since Carolyne found out and he destroyed all the letters from Agnes.
However , Agnes kept Liszt’s letters to her, sorted by date, in a box. She didn’t want to lose the evidence she had an affair with Franz Liszt.
When Agnes realized that Liszt would stay with Carolyne, and he wouldn’t marry with Agnes, Agnes got married with other guy.
But Liszt was not upset with Agnes’ marriage and was happy for her.
I wonder in Liszt’s world, did he experience no jealousy ?
Or did it come from high pride ?
Also, had he never experienced rejection from any ladies ??
According to Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s review of Liszt’s final concert which he attended and which was held when Liszt was 70 years old, Tchaikovsky described Liszt as being “ surrounded by a bouquet of ladies “ after the concert.
I only knew popular idol stars being surrounded by ladies when they were young, and rarely saw these idol stars surrounded by ladies in their senior years.
Liszt sounds like a very charming person.
He had students who admired him even when he became over 70’s, and Lina Schmallhousen was taking care of Liszt’s in his final year.
According to Liszt’s bio site Wikipedia , one of his other talented students Olga Janina had a short affair with Liszt, but later she was so jealous she tried to kill him.
Author Alan Walker didn’t think Olga Janina and Liszt had a love affair, although she was his student for awhile, but there is no evidence they had such an affair.
Maybe people thought they had affair from Olga’s fiction story book she made and published which became a scandal for Liszt ?
Liszt was like an ocean.
A huge and charismatic personality.
His life was very colorful and flamboyant, as were his clothes, as was his music.
He composed a very wide range of music, with a huge contrast of styles, both loud and soft, stormy and peaceful.
Very variety.
From reading all his ladies stories, Carolyne was the most serious partner who cared about him, and Liszt trusted her as well.
Just they were no match with each other in many ways, different views of life and many topics and had some big arguments.
It was sad to read she was unable to be with Liszt when he passed away.
Only a few months after Liszt’s death, Carolyne also passed away, from depression of it.
I think this type of man is good to see from far away. lol
Like many idol stars.
One of my other heroes, Freddie Mercury once said “ My love is dangerous” and he wrote a song about it.
When asked why he wrote a song with that title,
he said
“ Why ? Can you imagine if I wrote a song with the title “ My love is safe “ it will never sell ! “
Actually all my favorite and interesting people have similar parts.
Their love sounds not stable.
And their views of relationships are original.
Ray’s favorites are similar to mine.
Personally , I feel that stars are wonderful and interesting but it’s good to see them from far away, otherwise, you may get burned.
Each of Liszt’s love affairs sounds serious and genuine to me even though he had many relationships.
And despite it all, Liszt’s strikes me as somehow innocent and also cute and funny.