Here's a few more anecdotes (from A. Walker's bio of Liszt,vol.2 the Virtuouso Years):

When Liszt was 11 years he played Bach's Fugue in C-min for Beethoven. Bethoven asked the boy if he could play it in a different key, whereupon Liszt said he was able to do so. He recalled the event w/ Beethoven many years later to one of his (Liszt) pupils with tears in his eyes.

When Liszt was 14 years old he was asked if he could accompany a flute player during a recital whose flute was out of tune with the piano such that the flute was a semitone sharp. Liszt read and transposed the piece at sight during the recital.

“…Joachim never forgot how Liszt accompanied him in the Finale of Mendelssohn’s Violin concerto, all the time holding a lighted cigar between 1st & middle fingers of the right hand. Linda Raman relates a similar story. She once told Liszt that L. Boehner played fugues on the organ inspite of 2 lame fingers. Liszt pondered this for a while… then seated himself at the piano and played a difficult fugue by Bach with only 3 fingers of each hand…”

Rather gifted! Eh?

Dude list spent like all of his time practicing didnt he have to work or go to school or something?

To make $$$$$

(and yes i know he mad $$ performing)

He made MEGABUCKS performing.

That's not entirely accurate. Liszt often performed for charity, and if he did make money from a concert, he always donated much of it to orphanages, etc. And if he wasn't generous enough, Wagner mooched off Liszt whilst living as an outcast in Switzerland. Liszt was never rich, per se. He regularly sent sums of money to his children in Paris, where Liszt's mother was raising them. It should also be noted that he never charged a dime to any of his students (He did however have very high standards, so if a student didn't show much potential, Liszt never took him in).

I knew I've been addicted to Liszt for a good reason. My teacher was also a Liszt addict, she never charged me a dime for lessons.

Is list the most skilled pianist of all time?

(yes I know its a tough question)

Yeah, I know you don't check your spelling, but "list"? C'mon, kid!

Sheesh!

list? (and with a lowercase?)

c'mon! show some respek!

lordlactose, list[/b] is definitely on the top of the list[/b] of top pianists. List[/b]ing all the pieces list[/b] list[/b]ened to and played immediately will only yield a very long list[/b] of list[/b]enings including many of list[/b]'s own work. List[/b]ing list[/b]'s abilities as a pianist and a musician will only give us a longer list[/b]. And take care while making such a list[/b] lest[/b] you forget something. As I told you .. list[/b]wise list[/b] is definitely the best.

As for list[/b]ening to list[/b]'s works one after the other .. this will be a very long list[/b]ening, but I do not recommend such a huge and tiring effort.

Have you attempted this? Which volume in Leslie Howard's Hyperion series are you up to now?

Yeah and the lead singer from Nirvana was Kurt Cobain. It appears there are several members here from Seattle and they might appreciate a bit more respect for the departed.

When I said he made megabucks performing I meant exactly that implying that he didn't need any other job that took away from his practice time. I never said he kept it.

lordlactose, list is definitely on the top of the list of top pianists. Listing all the pieces list listened to and played immediately will only yield a very long list of listenings including many of list's own work. Listing list's abilities as a pianist and a musician will only give us a longer list. And take care while making such a list lest you forget something. As I told you .. listwise list is definitely the best.

Basio that was uncalled for

sad part is i used to think you were one of the cooler people on this forum

Not all of us ride around on the internet trying to sound smart becuz we are INSECURE about ourselves
you dont have to be a jerk
im sure people dont like u as it is

As for list[/b]ening to list[/b]'s works one after the other .. this will be a very long list[/b]ening, but I do not recommend such a huge and tiring effort. [/qb][/QUOTE]

Lordlactose - coming from a kid himself... "take a chill pill!" You are relativly new to the forum, and this is probably the first flame you've ever gotten here. It happens to me all the time (I rarely check my spelling either)

One tip - slang is not appreciated here such as ... U for you, becuz for because, and never ever never ever ever use list for Liszt! Thats a cardinal sin!

Try to be a little more considerate to those who may not understand your abbrieviations...

Thanks,
Matt

Behave.

These are wonderful anecdotes. My favorite concerns the meeting of young Liszt with Beethoven. Now Beethoven had been a prodigy himself and had little time for them as an adult. Czerny brought Liszt to him. Beethoven heard him play one of his (Beethoven's) sonatas and was mildly impressed. Then he had Liszt play one of Bach's fugues. Again OK. So he asked Liszt to play it in a different key, which the youth did on the spot. At this Beethoven really was impressed and told Czerny that Liszt would be heard from.
Sorry about the paraphrase, but this story is old to me, so certain details might not be exact and I don't have any reference in front of me. I read of this when studying Beethoven, so it may be in Thayer. Or it might be in "Men, women and pianos" by Loesser

[/QB][/QUOTE]

lordlactose, I am truly sad that this really degenerated into this kind of name-calling.

Maybe you are right, maybe my joke was uncalled for. But you can notice that it does not point at you at all. (at least i did not criticize your spelling slogan even my spelling is weak )

I just like to joke a little, no harm and no flaming here. And believe me, since I joined here and until now people still make jokes at my comments. Be cool.

Still don't believe me and still think that was an insult .. then read these threads and get over it
Rachmaninov Mach3
Chopan vs Everyone

My sincere apologies for any insult taken on your behalf.

And here is a thread where I was caught in a very funny situation regarding a spelling mistake with bach enthusiast
Playing Octaves

Oh .. those were the days!

Strange enough, this thread has a spelling mistake in the title .. who wrote that? Frycek??

Add him to the list :p

I heard this story somewhere too, from what I remember Liszt was only 11 at the time, when this occurred.

Oh, thanks, Bassio: you're backing down. I have supported you in this thread and I never once thought you ever meant any harm. Frankly I fancied it all rather amusing.

If lordlactose cannot take the time to spell Liszt correctly, nor even spell Kurt Cobain correctly (in his signature), then I would guess he is not very detail oriented, is he? That is utterly fatal to a classical pianist.

And his inquiry re the Waldstein was a joke. He is simply not ready to confront the "big boys" on this forum. I have played that sonata in public and I can only say that its difficulties far surpass anything that any beginning pianist could possibly imagine. The Opus 106 is (rightly) considered Beethoven's most difficult sonata, yet it is not such a long way from the Opus 53. I rest my case.

I remember reading about this in Adam walker's Liszt biography. The fugue in question is c minor from WTC, though I know not which book. One thing that always caught my attention was that after saying that he was asked to transpose the fugue, he said "Fortunately I was able to do so." What is it exactly he was attributing to luck? Could it be luck that he had worked on transposing for some time, perhaps on this particular fugue? I don't know, I just always thought that to be interesting diction. Pure speculation.

Well I assume you mean Alan[/b] Walker. But, nah, I don't believe any of it. I suppose Liszt met Beethoven, but the great genius was so deaf by then that what difference would it have made? The only documentation we have about this encounter is from Liszt... at 11 years of age. Care to stand by your encounters at the same age?

Still, one hopes[/b] it is true. Beethoven would most certainly have read about "Franzie" -and I dearly hope they met- but who knows. Only the self-appointed psychics (those are the ones that tell us that the stars and planets actually influence us) might hazzard a guess. But they're always wrong and full of s***.

"Fortunately I was able to do so."

Sounds to me like he had never tried it with the particular piece: he might have bungled it, but didn't, so he was "fortunately" able to do it.

"The only documentation we have about this encounter is from Liszt... at 11 years of age. Care to stand by your encounters at the same age?"

Who *wouldn't* remember meeting his hero at 11, with all the essential details? C'mon! Liszt studied with Czerny back then, and Beethoven had long been his hero. It's only natural that he wanted to meet him, and being very talented, Czerny would help him meet Beethoven. As for Beethoven's deafness, yeah, what difference *does* it make? Had he been deaf *and* blind, then I would see a reason to be suspicious. (And why would Liszt have lied about it, anyway? Doesn't seem to fit his personality to lie about stuff like that. Even Wagner only "colored up" a few rather insignificant biographical details of his a bit.)

11 years old meeting his hero? Okay, fair enough.

I'm not saying Liszt lied about it, but there are so many variations to the story that it's hard to sort through them. Still, if Beethoven actually kissed Liszt, that seems a bit of a stretch. (But I suppose I hope it's true.)

Did Liszt actually write about this encounter? Or does it come down to us via people he told? That's where the inconsistencies may arise.

Yea I meant Alan Walker-- I don't know what I was thinking... Anyway, I believe it. It was recorded by one of his pupils, Ilka Horowitz-Barnay in 1875. It stands to reason that had he made it up, he probably would have made it a bit more dramatic, like some of his biographers had, n'est-ce pas? But instead, he told a simple story, nothing too outrageous about what Liszt played or how Beethoven reacted.

Of course, Liszt could have foreseen the doubts people would have and made it simple so as not to seem fake, but I don't think that is the kind of thing Liszt would do.

Keep in mind that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I trust Walker in having sorted through them. I'd recall that the kissing thing had, according to him, nothing to do with that particular meeting, and may have been only legend.

Don't sell yourself short. I like your posts on this board. But... (to quote you from a different thread) Wuh-evuh[/b].

What can I say? I'm... special...

Nice thread.

Bump.

So, is sight reading harder pieces at a slower tempo a good way to develop sight-reading skills? I much prefer this, and hope it is doing me good.

Colin Thomson

I don't think Liszt's sight reading abilities were essentially the result of constant practice. I think it was a natural gift, a special inclination of the mind and something he could do already when young. But there were limits:I recall reading somewhere that Liszt started sight reading Islamey and stopped because it was too difficult.