Last year was a busy time for Franz Liszt. Although dead for well over a century, he seemed to spring to life again in 2011, as the bicentennial of the Hungarian composer’s birth was celebrated around the world. There were concerts (especially piano recitals), recordings, colloquia and, of course, publications.
Aptly, this was the year in which the musical scholar Alan Walker chose to bring out a softcover version of one of his books about the composer who has been central to his work. Reflections on Liszt, originally published in 2005, is a collection of essays on various Liszt-related topics. Walker finds pathways to follow that are well worth the effort, if sometimes verging on the obscure.
No living person has a better knowledge of all things Lisztian than Walker. His monumental three-volume biography of Liszt, published between 1983 and 1996, took him a quarter century to write, and ranks with Ernest Newman’s volumes on Wagner for its...
Colin Eatock is a Toronto-based writer, critic and composer. Last year his book Remembering Glenn Gould was published by Penumbra Press, and his compact disc Colin Eatock: Chamber Music was released on the Centrediscs label.
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