He toured Europe at an unprecedented scale, from Portugal, Ireland, Turkey, Romania, and Russia. It is estimated that he performed over 1,000 solo concerts, an average of 3 or 4 a week. Between 18, Liszt had a brilliant career as a touring concert pianist. His mesmerizing technical brilliance had not been seen before in the romantic music era. This reputation clearly added to the seductive quality of his performances.įranz Liszt was a firecracker at the piano.
Gossip speculated about how many hearts (and beds) he had won. Out of these two affairs with well-connected women - and many more mistresses - Franz Liszt became known as quite a Casanova. Though her relationship with Liszt simmered down to a platonic friendship, the two were close companions for 40 years and beneficiaries in each other’s will.
In vain, Carolyne sought an annulment from her first husband. But that didn’t stop the couple from falling in love and living together. In 1847, Franz Liszt tickled the fancy of another noblewoman, the Polish Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who saw Liszt in concert. By the time his career as a performer was underway, he had risen from obscurity to public notoriety as a charmer who was unafraid to court scandal.ĭaguerreotype of Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, 1847, via EuropeanaĪnd he did it again. 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. Franz Liszt and Lisztomania Portrait of Franz Liszt by Ary Scheffer, via The British Museum, London
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