Szabolcsi Bence: The twilight of Ferenc Liszt (Budapest, 1959)
Prof. Szabolcsi, the reputed musicologist, analyzes in this monograph the last 15 years (1871-1886) of Liszt’s life. Once a world-famous pianist, a widely celebrated composer, Liszt had become by that time a lonely man, a solitary figure who, detached from his former surroundings and separated from his friends of yore, had to face new human, social and artistic problems. Hence the profound, not to say revolutionary, renascence of Liszt’s art in his late compositions. The question why Liszt has to be regarded as belonging to Hun gary, as also his connections with Hungary’s cultural life, further the artist’s relationships to Germany, France and Russia are thoroughly analyzed in the work. The author examines the principal types of Liszt's last compositions (funeral pieces, dance phantasies, landscape music), scrutinizes their novel features, reveals their European sources and demonstrates their influence on modern European musical art. The book shows Liszt’s art as a characteristically East European phenomenon and points to Béla Bartók as an artist who continued Liszt’s work in an unbroken line. The Appendix of the volume contains the following six of Liszt’s less-known late piano and choral compositions : “László Teleki” “Evil Star”, “Grey Clouds”, “Csárdás obstiné”, “Farewell” and “Ossa Arida”.