However, their longtime tryst did give Liszt a name. By 1844, they had split, and Marie had returned to Paris. Their cohabitation produced two more children, Marie all the while still married to her first husband. Here, they began a Bohemian life together, the Countess taking up writing while Liszt composed. In a hot scandal, the couple fled Paris for Switzerland. What began as a fling with the dashing young composer turned serious when Marie fell pregnant. 6 years Liszt’s senior, the Countess was intelligent, blue-blooded, and married - unhappily. Most notably, there was the Countess Marie d’Agoult.

In his 20s and 30s, he had a history of high-profile affairs with married noblewomen, which added to his allure. Young Franz Liszt had quite the reputation as a heartbreaker. Franz Liszt’s Scandalous Love Affairs Portrait de Marie de Flavigny Agoult, comtesse d’Agoult by Henri Lehmann, 1839, via Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris So just what was it that made Franz Liszt so magnetic to so many at this time in history? Here are 4 reasons why Liszt was so adored by his fans.ġ. No longer relying on wealthy patrons, Romantic poets and artists had to build a following to survive in the arts. In the romantic music era, the modern celebrity was starting to take shape. “And what is the real cause of this phenomenon?… A physician whose speciality is the disorders of women and with whom I conversed as to the magic which our Liszt exercises on his public, smiled mysteriously and told many things of magnetism, galvanism, electricity, of contagion in an overheated hall.”Īnecdotes aplenty tell us Franz Liszt had reached meteoric stardom. Articulating the craze in 1844, Heinrich Hein penned the term “Lisztomania.” He described it as a contagion in medical terms: Packed crowds stole cuttings of his hair, his coffee dregs - even his cigar butts.Ĭoncert halls were pandemonium. Before there was “merch,” there were women pasting Liszt’s likeness onto their brooches and cameos. Women reportedly fought over handkerchiefs Liszt had used, or crafted his broken piano strings into bracelets. Liszt had a habit of making female fans do some crazy things.

Wherever he went, Franz Liszt inspired delirium in starstruck fans - mostly women. The glamorous pianist toured the breadth of Europe. Quite rightly, Franz Liszt has been called the world’s first rock star.

His late piano pieces, the sublime Nuages gris and Bagatelle sans tonalité among them, point to Debussy’s impressionism and the coming revolution of musical modernism.Franz Liszt and Lisztomania Portrait of Franz Liszt by Ary Scheffer, via The British Museum, London Living in Rome in the 1860s, the former wild man of music took holy orders and underlined his deep faith with two visionary oratorios, St. In 1847, he quit the touring circuit and soon settled in Weimar, where he raised its court orchestra to star status and invented the symphonic poem to advertise its artistry. Liszt fathered three children by his mistress, the Countess d’Agoult, and formed a lasting relationship with his second great love, Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, while periodically turning to religion as a refuge from earthly pleasures. Liszt turned popular operatic tunes into keyboard showpieces charged with technical fireworks, and he composed works, including his Paganini and Transcendental Studies, that left audiences and fellow pianists weak at the knees. Born in 1811 in Hungary, then part of the multiethnic Austrian Empire, he launched his career as virtuoso pianist during childhood and, propelled by an innate flamboyance, astonishing technical command, and the demonic intensity of his playing, spread fan fever-or Lisztomania, as it was named by the poet Heinrich Heine-as he toured Europe. Franz Liszt’s life proved stranger than romantic fiction and every bit as colorful.

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