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  • Franz Liszt: Musician, Celebrity, Superstar by Oliver Hilmes
  • Michael Vitalino
Franz Liszt: Musician, Celebrity, Superstar. By Oliver Hilmes. Translated by Stewart Spencer. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016. [xiii, 353 p. ISBN 9780300182934 (cloth), $38; ISBN 9780300228755 (paperback), $25.] Illustrations, end-notes, bibliography, index.

Summarizing the life, career, music, and influence of Franz Liszt is a colossal undertaking. Oliver Hilmes approaches the task from the perspective [End Page 425] of Liszt's celebrity, comparing the Romantic-era virtuoso to superstars of today. Certainly an abundance of biographies that frame Liszt's life through spectacle already exist, but they often do little more than disseminate rumors and perpetuate myths, much to the vexation of modern scholars. Hilmes conveys the authentic alongside the astonishing by supporting this narrative with reliable sources. Engaging a wealth of prior scholarship, and incorporating several unpublished primary sources, he brings us a step closer to fully appreciating Liszt's superstardom. Stewart Spencer provides the English translation of Hilmes biography, originally published in German as Liszt: Biographie eines Superstars (Munich: Siedler, 2011).

Hilmes organizes the seven chapters of his text chronologically as a series of vignettes that divide Liszt's life into broad categories; most of the new scholarship appears in chapters one, five, six, and seven. Regarding unpublished sources, Hilmes draws from eleven archives, most extensively the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, the Nationalarchiv der Richard-Wagner-Stiftung Bayreuth, and the Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar. This material consists primarily of correspondence from Adam Liszt, Carolyne de Sayn-Wittgenstein, and Cosima Wagner. Although most of these documents do not significantly change current scholarship on Liszt, Hilmes includes some provocative entries.

Chapter 1, "Childhood and Adolescence," takes the reader from the background of Liszt's parentage through the death of his father, Adam, providing an overview of Liszt's training and success as a child prodigy. More importantly, this chapter presents a side of Adam that balances fatherly pride with entrepreneurship as he bolsters his son's budding career. Peculiar among Hilmes's sources is one of Adam's unpublished letters in which he states his plan to give a concert, yet his son is the one performing (p. 15). This misstatement could suggest evidence of teamwork, a duo of father and son. Hilmes establishes how Liszt's super-stardom resulted from Adam's unyielding advocacy among aristocratic patrons and wise entrepreneurial strategy.

Various influences from Liszt's early adulthood comprise much of chapter 2, "Rehearsing and Studying." Central to his argument is Hilmes' assertion that a reading of Liszt's life from this point forward must take audience perception into account. Citing the work of sociologist Max Weber (Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, trans. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978]) as a basis for his position, Hilmes explains, "What matters, therefore, is not whether Liszt actually possessed [extraordinary, supernatural, or superhuman] qualities, but that his contemporaries perceived them in him. This almost intimate interaction between Liszt and the women in his audience… meant that the music took second place, being effortlessly eclipsed by the pronounced element of eroticism and sex appeal. Like a modern pop star, Liszt was a blank surface on which to project secret desires and fantasies" (p. 42). Here, Hilmes's premise comes into focus: Liszt's colossal superstardom overshadows other features, making them supplementary by comparison.

The most striking examples of Liszt's personality with reference to his celebrity appear in "Années de pèlerinage" (chapter 3). Hilmes mixes instances of Liszt's humanitarianism and showmanship that counterbalance those of his immodesty and selfishness. Notable are the accounts of Liszt's rivalry with Sigismond Thalberg and tumultuous relationship with Marie d'Agoult. Interactions with Thalberg present a noteworthy point in Liszt's [End Page 426] life; jealousy and spitefulness appear for the first time among Liszt's more noble characteristics. Unfortunately, Hilmes favors these more sensational biographic details and does not give enough attention to Liszt's charitable work. This choice is surprising since Hilmes's narrative would have been well served by contextualizing Liszt's humanitarian contributions as a way to gain notoriety, with particular emphasis on his popularity in Hungary.

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