LISZT 215 Anniversary Concert with Michael Kaykov
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Join us to experience a musical portrait of the influence of the 1830s and the remarkable decade in which Franz Liszt became Liszt: the restless traveler, Romantic visionary, dazzling virtuoso, and imaginative interpreter of the music of others. Heard together, this program traces a continuous artistic journey from France to the Swiss landscapes and Italian melodies of Liszt’s youthful travels, through the brilliance of the operatic fantasy, to the poetry, spirituality, and generosity of his mature years. At its heart is the idea that defined Liszt throughout his career: the piano as a meeting place for music, poetry, landscape, memory, friendship, and the wider world.

~ Program ~

Liszt: Chapelle de Guillaume Tell
Liszt/Donizetti: Nuits d’été à Pausilippe – Trois amusements sur des motifs de l’album de Donizetti
Barcajuolo – Barcarola; L’alito di bice – Notturno; La torre di Biasone – Canzona napoletana
Liszt/Bülow: Dantes Sonett Tanto gentile e tanto onesta von Hans von Bülow
Liszt/Rossini: Fantaisie sur des motifs de La pastorella dell’Alpi e Li marinari des Soirées musicales

The opening Chapelle de Guillaume Tell provides a unique connection Liszt's years of wandering with Marie d’Agoult. Its origins lie in the music he conceived during and after his Swiss travels of the mid-1830s, later reshaped for the first volume of Années de pèlerinage. Evoking the Swiss hero William Tell and the struggle for liberty, the piece joins landscape with an ideal of freedom which was a resonant theme for Liszt who was increasingly engaged with the political and humanitarian currents of his age. The program then turns toward Italy, whose landscape, poetry, opera, and popular song profoundly affected Liszt. His three Nuits d’été à Pausilippe pieces after Donizetti, Barcajuolo, L’alito di Bice, and La torre di Biasone, all date from 1838, and transform Donizetti’s Neapolitan-inspired melodies into intimate piano miniatures. The two fantasies on themes from Rossini’s Soirées musicales were both were conceived in 1835–36, at the very moment when Liszt's life was shifting from the Paris salons toward the travels and artistic discoveries in his “years of pilgrimage.”

The Rossini and Donizetti pieces show one of the defining features of Liszt’s artistry: his ability to take music that audiences already knew from opera, song, or the concert stage, and then reinvent it through the piano. Inspired in part by Paganini’s astonishing virtuosity, Liszt sought to make the piano capable of suggesting an entire orchestra, a singing voice, or the drama of the opera house. The Rossini fantasies combine lyrical melody with brilliant pianistic display and foreshadow the spectacular style that soon after captivated Europe during the “Lisztomania" years, where the piano was his theatrical instrument: it sang, declaimed, danced, and transformed borrowed melodies into intensely personal Romantic statements.

~ Intermission ~

Liszt: Weimars Volkslied No.1 in C Major
Liszt/Meyerbeer: Le moine
Liszt/Lassen: Löse, Himmel, meine Seele – Lied von Eduard Lassen [1st version]
Liszt: Gestorben war ich [1st version]
Liszt/Rossini: Grande fantaisie sur des motifs de La serenata e L'orgia des Soirées musicales

After intermission, the works belong largely to later periods of Liszt’s life, but they reveal how deeply the artistic impulses of the 1830s remained with him. Le moine after Meyerbeer, published in Liszt’s transcription in 1842, continues the fascination with vocal and dramatic music that had flourished during his Paris years. Gestorben war ich, composed as a song in 1845–46 and later transformed for solo piano, shows another side of the same impulse: rather than displaying virtuosity for its own sake, Liszt translates the expressive intimacy of the human voice into purely instrumental terms. His arrangement of Hans von Bülow’s Dante sonnet, Tanto gentile e tanto onesta, dates from 1874, yet its inspiration reaches back toward the Italy that had captivated Liszt in the 1830s and toward his lifelong fascination with Dante Aligheri, poetry, and the union of literature and music.

The remaining works reveal the mature Liszt looking outward toward a new generation of musicians. Weimars Volkslied belongs to his Weimar years and dates from 1857, when the former touring virtuoso had become a composer, conductor, teacher, and champion of contemporary music. Likewise, the first version of his transcription of Eduard Lassen’s Löse, Himmel, meine Seele dates from 1861.

About Pianist: Dr. Michal Kaykov

The American pianist and educator was born into a musical family and gave his first public performance at the age of six. At seven, he enrolled at the Special Music School of America (New York City). He earned his undergraduate degree from Mannes College of Music, master's degree from the Juilliard School and in 2020, he earned his DMA at the Manhattan School of Music. Kaykov is a Steinway Educational Partner.

About Franz Liszt:

Franz Liszt was born in 1811 in Doborján, in the Kingdom of Hungary, a village known today as Raiding, Austria. His parents, Ádám Liszt and Anna Maria Lager, raised a primarily German-speaking family in the culturally diverse borderlands of the Habsburg Empire, Liszt grew up at the crossroads of Hungarian, Austrian, and broader Central European traditions. His father was a musician and administrator who worked in the service of the Esterházy family, and he recognized his son’s extraordinary musical gifts at an early age.

Although Liszt spent much of his life in Vienna, Paris, Weimar, Rome, and other European cultural centers, he consistently identified himself as Hungarian. His connection to Hungary deepened throughout his life, finding meaningful expression in his charitable and fundraising work, his support for Hungarian musical institutions, and compositions inspired by Hungarian themes, most famously the Hungarian Rhapsodies. Cosmopolitan by experience yet Hungarian by conviction, Liszt embodied the richly interconnected cultural world of nineteenth-century Europe.

Liszt's life in the 1830s:

The 1830s marked one of the most transformative decades in the life of Franz Liszt, as the celebrated prodigy evolved into a revolutionary virtuoso and one of the defining figures of European Romanticism. Living in Paris at the beginning of the decade, Liszt moved within an extraordinary artistic circle that included Victor Hugo, Eugène Delacroix, Hector Berlioz, and Frédéric Chopin. A decisive moment came in 1832, when he heard the legendary violinist Niccolò Paganini perform and became determined to achieve an equally astonishing level of virtuosity at the piano. Liszt devoted himself to intense practice and experimentation, expanding both the technical possibilities and expressive power of the instrument. His personal life was equally dramatic. In 1833 he began a relationship with the married Countess Marie d’Agoult, and in 1835 the couple left Paris for Switzerland before traveling extensively through Italy. The landscapes, literature, art, and cultural history encountered during these journeys would later find musical expression in Liszt’s celebrated Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage). Liszt and Marie also had three children during these years, while their unconventional relationship remained the subject of considerable public attention.

By the late 1830s, Liszt again asserted himself on the European concert stage and reshaped the very idea of the pianist as a public performer. His celebrated rivalry with Sigismond Thalberg culminated in a famous 1837 Paris appearance often described as a “piano duel,” reinforcing Liszt’s reputation for daring, theatricality, and technical brilliance. He also began developing the style of solo performance that can be closely associated with the modern piano recital: playing substantial programs from memory, presenting the piano so audiences could clearly see the performer, and placing a single pianist at the center of an entire concert. His growing fame was accompanied by a strong sense of social responsibility. After devastating floods struck (Buda)Pest in 1838, Liszt gave benefit concerts in Vienna to raise relief funds, an experience that strengthened his connection to his Hungarian heritage. By 1839, as his relationship with Marie d’Agoult came under increasing strain from his constant travels, Liszt embarked upon an ambitious European concert tour. This decade laid the foundations for the phenomenon soon known as “Lisztomania,” when his performances would captivate audiences across the continent and establish him as one of the century’s first true international musical superstars.

ABOUT: AFHLE, Hungarian House, now celebrating its 60th year of operation, offers cultural programming and community activities that build the American Hungarian community and its local Yorkville neighborhood in NYC. As a non-governmental and non-denominational cultural center in NYC since 1966, the community center has served children, adults, and seniors and as an educational resource for those of Hungarian descent to learn and stay in touch with their customs, traditions and cultural heritage. As a bridge to our American community, many offered programs are in both English and Hungarian and include Hungarian music, history, literature, science, film, theater, language, youth leadership/scouting, dance, and seasonal heritage activities. For newly immigrated Hungarians becoming accustomed to American society, we serve as a springboard to integration while providing services that facilitate staying in touch and celebrating Hungarian and Hungarian-American ancestry.