The Letters of Franz Liszt to Marie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein

Harvard University Press has partnered with De Gruyter to make available for sale worldwide virtually all in-copyright HUP books that had become unavailable since their original publication. The 2,800 titles in the “e-ditions” program can be purchased individually as PDF eBooks or as hardcover reprint (“print-on-demand”) editions via the “Available from De Gruyter” link above. They are also available to institutions in ten separate subject-area packages that reflect the entire spectrum of the Press’s catalog. More about the E-ditions Program »

It is well known that Franz Liszt was one of the great figures of the Romantic Age—famed as a pianist, composer, and “champion of new music.” These letters, spanning the period 1848–1886, reveal that this flamboyant showman was a generous and sensitive friend as well as a remarkable judge of character. Howard Hugo’s thirty-one “prefaces” serve to keep us informed of the progress of Liszt’s compositions in addition to his extremely active life, and they point up the meaning of the tantalizing allusions in these letters which cover the entire second half of the musician’s long and useful career.