AUSSTELLUNGEN EXHIBITIONS - Lisztomania 2011

Haydn House Eisenstadt
Franz Liszt
Pioneer and Kapellmeister Extraordinaire
Haydn House, outside view
© KSB / Voglhuber
8
exhibitions
The point of departure for the exhibition
at Haydn House Eisenstadt is the fact that
both Liszt and Haydn were epoch-making
court composers. The exhibition will
focus on Liszt’s years at Weimar, which
are generally seen as his most important
creative period.
From 1848 to 1861, Franz Liszt served as Kapellmeister Extraordinaire
at the Weimar court. Almost a century earlier, Joseph Haydn
had been Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Esterházy.
A painting shows Liszt at the conductor’s stand, dressed in tails and
conducting with the same self-confidence that characterised his
earlier performances as a concert pianist. His intensity is expressed
in every line of his body.
With Liszt, Weimar experienced a musical heyday. In his “Symphonic
Poems”, Liszt gave musical expression to the great Romantic
writers of Weimar, such as Goethe and Schiller. Numerous centenary
celebrations, such as the 100th anniversary of Goethe’s birth,
provided occasions for new compositions and world premieres. At
the unveiling of the monument of Goethe and Schiller, Beethoven’s
9th Symphony was performed, a work which Liszt had venerated
since childhood. This occasion is represented in the exhibition by
a first print of the work and illustrations.
At the same time, the villa Altenburg, where he resided with Princess
Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, became a centre of the arts
which manifested an alternative lifestyle to that of the Weimar
court. The exhibition includes a lithograph showing the princess
and her seven-year-old daughter Marie.
Franz Liszt at the conductor’s
stand
© Landesmuseum Burgenland
Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein
with her daughter
© Landesmuseum Burgenland
Franz Liszt, manuscript page
© Landesmuseum Burgenland