During the ten years which have elapsed since I embarked on the present volume, my travels have taken me to many different parts of the world—Germany, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, England, and America—in pursuit of authentic material connected with Liszt. I have made many friends in the course of my long tours abroad, and without their assistance this volume would not have achieved its final form. In particular I owe a debt of gratitude to my colleagues in Hungary, and especially to Veronika Vavrinecz of the National Széchényi Library, Budapest, who acted as my assistant and guide on all my visits to that city. Her devotion to my work has been a source of encouragement to me, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge that fact here. Among the Hungarian musicologists with whom I enjoyed personal contact over the years, and who generously placed the fruits of their scholarship at my disposal, were Mária Párkai-Eckhardt, Dr. Dezsö Legány, Miklós Forrai (secretary-general of the Budapest Liszt Society), Imre Achátz, Dr. László Eösze, and Dr. István Kecskeméti (head of the Music Division of the Széchényi Library). They showered me with hospitality and information in almost equal profusion, and I enjoyed many happy hours in their company; few were the occasions, in fact, when they failed to illuminate some obscure corner or other of Liszt’s life and personality, and many of the remote details of Liszt’s career which I have woven into the narrative of this work were first brought to my attention in that country. In the case of Dezsö Legány a simple expression of thanks is hardly adequate. In countless ways he proved himself to be a staunch ally, and his unrivalled grasp of the minutiae of Liszt’s life always ensured that my encounters with him were both stimulating and rewarding.
Weimar remains by far the largest centre for Liszt research today. The Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv not only holds most of Liszt’s papers and manuscripts relating to his years of permanent residence there (1848–61), but also many personal items of interest to the biographer (e.g., passports, civic honours, citations, newspaper files, and photographs); it contains as well the holographs of thousands of letters to and from Liszt which span his career. Weimar also has on permanent display an important museum collection of Lisztiana in the Hofgärtnerei, Liszt’s occasional home for the last seventeen years of his life, and the site of his world-famous masterclasses. On all my trips to Weimar I was received with courtesy and kindness, and I wish to extend to the officials there, but particularly to Dr. Gerhard Schmid and the staff of the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, my grateful thanks for making my visits so productive. My sojourns were further enlivened by Dr. Horst Förster, who arranged forays into Eisenach, Jena, and other nearby towns in the old kingdom of Thuringia which still echo with Liszt’s presence, and to him too I owe thanks.
Vienna, Eisenstadt, Unterfrauenhaid, and Raiding all contain documents which must be consulted before the biographer of Liszt can claim that his work is complete; dispersed throughout the tiny villages of the Burgenland and western Hungary are the parish registers which record the movement of the Liszt family from one community to another throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. My tours of these villages, which took place mainly during the years 1977 and 1978, were made in the company of Dr. Karl Emmerich Horvath, to whom I am indebted for some details about Liszt’s childhood in Raiding and its environs.
Bayreuth contains many of Liszt’s unpublished family letters, between Liszt and his mother on the one hand, and Liszt and his three children on the other. Much of this legacy was passed down through Cosima Liszt-Wagner and is now in the paradoxical position of being part of the city of Bayreuth’s Wagner archives, kept in the former home of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. I want to thank the director of the Archive, Dr. Manfred Eger, and the Wagner Stiftung for permission to work there and for giving me unrestricted access to these documents.
Most of my research in Italy was carried out in the Vatican Library. Monsignor Charles Burns helped me to smooth over many a difficulty, and I am particularly grateful to him for his assistance in procuring microfilms of rare material. Nor should I forget to extend my thanks to the administrators of the Canadian Academic Centre in Rome for making my stay there so comfortable.
For the staffs of the British Library in London and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., I have nothing but praise. Across the years they helped me to locate a great variety of material with efficiency and despatch, and my sojourns in these halls of learning were among the highlights of my transatlantic travels. As for the many libraries, archives, and museums in other parts of the world which so readily answered my calls for assistance, it is impossible for me to thank them all individually, although I have a duty to mention the following: the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the Royal Library, Windsor; the National Library of Wales; McMaster University Library, Ontario; the Burgenland Museum, Eisenstadt; the City of Bratislava Museum, Czechoslovakia; and the Liszt Museum in Sopron, Hungary. I am especially grateful to Frau Hedwig Jusits of this last institution for drawing my attention during a visit there to some of Liszt’s hitherto unpublished concert programmes, which give details of his recitals in Sopron (Oedenburg) in 1840. Other institutions that provided materials or answered specific requests for information include the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa, the Paris Conservatoire of Music, the Geneva Conservatoire of Music, the City of Geneva Archive, and the City of Boulogne-sur-Mer Archive. It is a special pleasure for me to acknowledge the assistance of Pierre-André Wimet, president of the Department for Historical Monuments in Pas-de-Calais, whose knowledge of the history of Boulogne is unrivalled and who traced for me a number of rare documents relating to Liszt’s stays in that city and to Adam Liszt’s death there in 1827. Various other scholars were good enough to deal with sporadic inquiries of a specialized nature, including Edward Waters, former chief of the Music Division of the Library of Congress, Dr. Charles Suttoni, Professor Jacques Vier, Professor Gabriele Erasmi, and Dr. Bálint Sárosi, Hungary’s leading expert on Gypsy music, and I am happy to record my appreciation here. It was a stroke of good fortune that brought in Eva Resnikova as my copy editor at the house of Knopf. From the start, she treated my text with the same respect as if it had been her own. Many of her helpful suggestions were incorporated into the narrative and helped to produce a better book.
Last but first, I want to mention two people who helped me with much of the research, who sifted through hundreds of microfilms, photocopies, and magazine articles, prepared synopses, paraphrases, and translations, and generally did all that they could to lighten my burden. To Pauline Pocknell, my loyal assistant, who holds with Blake the “holiness of the minute particular” and has saved me from many an inconsistency, I extend my warmest personal regards. As for László Jambor, music librarian at McMaster University, Ontario, his unflagging energy in the face of an unremitting hail of questions, challenges, and rebuttals over half a decade has won my lasting admiration. In both cases, the work of these individuals went far beyond the call of duty, and I shall long remember our years of toil together.
Weimar, May 1982