Wilhelm von Lenz was a a personal acquaintance of the famous romantic composers of the mid 19th century. His accounts tell us how the author experienced and evaluated the lives and careers of Franz Liszt, Fréderic Chopin, Carl Tausig and Adolf von Henselt.

Excerpt from The Great Piano Virtuosos of Our Time From Personal Acquaintance: Liszt, Chopin, Tausig, Henselt All the great pianists of the first half of the century, were personally known to me: Field, Hummel, Moscheles, Kalkbrenner. From the school which we now already call "old" (excluding Field, who went his own peculiar way), a school which, if not founded by Hummel, was at least essentially influenced by him, I came to the new era of the pianoforte, to Liszt and Chopin. Liszt is a phenomenon of universal musical virtuosity, such as had never before been known: not simply a pianistic wonder. Liszt is a phenomenon spreading over the whole domain of musical production, and creating a universal standard of comparison. Liszt does not merely play piano; he tells, at the piano, the story of his own destiny, which is closely linked to, and reflects, the progress of our time. Liszt is a latent history of the keyboard, himself its crowning glory. To him the piano becomes an approximate expression of his high mental cultivation, of his views, of his faith and being. What does piano-playing matter to him! About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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An unprecedented exploration of Stravinsky's use of the piano as the genesis of all his music - Russian, neoclassical and serial.