7 Franz Liszt 7composition with Antonio Salieri, the musical director at
the Viennese court.
Liszt moved with his family to Paris in 1823, giving
concerts in Germany on the way. Liszt’s Paris debut on
March 7, 1824, was sensational. Other concerts quickly
followed, as well as a visit to London in June. He toured
England again the following year, visiting Manchester,
where his New Grand Overture was performed for the first
time. This piece was used as the overture to his one-act
opera Don Sanche, which was performed at the Paris Opéra
on Oct. 17, 1825. In 1826 he toured France and Switzerland,
returning to England again in the following year. Suffering
from nervous exhaustion, Liszt went with his father to
Boulogne to take seabaths to improve his health; there
Ádám died of typhoid fever. Liszt returned to Paris and
sent for his mother to join him; she had gone back to the
Austrian province of Styria during his tours.
In 1828, while living mainly as a piano teacher in Paris,
Liszt fell ill and subsequently underwent a long period of
depression and doubt about his career. For more than a
year he did not touch the piano. During this period Liszt
took an active dislike to the career of a virtuoso. He made
up for his previous lack of education by reading widely,
and he came into contact with many of the leading artists
of the day. With the July Revolution of 1830 resulting in
the coronation of Louis-Philippe, he sketched out a
Revolutionary Symphony.
Between 1830 and 1832 he met three men who were to
have a great influence on his artistic life. At the end of 1830
he first met Hector Berlioz and heard the first performance
of his Symphonie fantastique. From Berlioz he inherited the
command of the Romantic orchestra and also the diabolic
quality that remained in his work thereafter. He achieved
the seemingly impossible feat of transcribing Berlioz’s