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| Portrait of Franz Liszt by Wilhelm von Kaulbach |
What’s the first name you think of when you hear the term “Rock Star”? Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, Chuck Berry, John Lennon, Joan Jett? You have to admit the list is pretty long… What about the first Rockstar?
We’ve got to go WAY back for the answer: Franz Liszt.
Huh? You mean the guy who wrote and played Piano Concertos? HE DIDN’T EVEN PLAY THE GUITAR!
Yes. Franz “Rock Your Socks Off” Liszt.
Over 200 years ago, he was tearing up the “polite” salons and concert halls with performances that drove audiences wild. Women would literally attack him: tearing bits of his clothing, fighting over broken piano strings and locks of his shoulder-length hair, even taking his cigar butts as souvenirs!
Yes, he was known as a “good looking” fellow but it was his revolutionary performances that really set the crowds ablaze. At the time, it was considered “poor taste” to play from memory, to consider that a solo pianist could hold an audience’s attention, or to even FACE the audience when you played.
He flipped all of those ideas (and more) upside down. His head whipping around while he played, his long hair flying, beads of sweat shooting into the crowd… He was the first performer to stride out from the wings of the concert hall to take his seat at the piano. He captured the audience with his performance in ways that the music alone never could.
His biographer Dr Oliver Hilmes wrote, “He was the first to perform the whole of the known keyboard repertory from Bach to his contemporary Chopin and he did so, moreover, from memory. As a composer and orchestrator, too, he was a revolutionary, writing pioneering works that opened up whole new worlds of expression.”
So, the next time you’re listening to his Hungarian Rhapsody on 90.9 WGUC, feel free to crank up the volume and “jam” out... I’m sure he wouldn’t want it any other way.
-Andy Ellis
His biographer Dr Oliver Hilmes wrote, “He was the first to perform the whole of the known keyboard repertory from Bach to his contemporary Chopin and he did so, moreover, from memory. As a composer and orchestrator, too, he was a revolutionary, writing pioneering works that opened up whole new worlds of expression.”
So, the next time you’re listening to his Hungarian Rhapsody on 90.9 WGUC, feel free to crank up the volume and “jam” out... I’m sure he wouldn’t want it any other way.
-Andy Ellis
