Book contents
- Liszt in Context
- Composers in Context
- Liszt in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations and Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Part I People and Places
- Part II Society, Thought and Culture
- Part III Performance and Composition
- Part IV Reception and Legacy
- Chapter 27 Pupils
- Chapter 28 Critics
- Chapter 29 Lateness in Context
- Chapter 30 Liszt and the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Chapter 31 Life-Writing
- Chapter 32 Iconography
- Chapter 33 Liszt in Film
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 31 - Life-Writing
from Part IV - Reception and Legacy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2021
- Liszt in Context
- Composers in Context
- Liszt in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations and Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Part I People and Places
- Part II Society, Thought and Culture
- Part III Performance and Composition
- Part IV Reception and Legacy
- Chapter 27 Pupils
- Chapter 28 Critics
- Chapter 29 Lateness in Context
- Chapter 30 Liszt and the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Chapter 31 Life-Writing
- Chapter 32 Iconography
- Chapter 33 Liszt in Film
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
For such a public figure who was clearly image-conscious, Liszt was surprisingly reticent when it came to biography. Unlike several of his closest friends, most obviously Berlioz and Wagner, he did not attempt to sum up his life for posterity in the form of memoirs, which undoubtedly would have been a best-seller had he written them. In many ways, his attitude to ‘life-writing’ was remarkably laissez-faire. He famously instructed his biographer Lina Ramann, ‘My biography is more to be invented rather than written after the fact’1 and largely maintained a hands-off approach as Ramann began work on the story of his life. This chapter attempts an overview of Liszt’s relationship with ‘life-writing’, beginning with his rare forays into autobiography, then his own experiments as a biographer and ending with a discussion of how biographers have depicted him from the nineteenth century until today.
- Type
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- Information
- Liszt in Context , pp. 290 - 298Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021