Women Composers in Liszt's Eyes

Storino, Mariateresa (2025) Women Composers in Liszt's Eyes. STUDIA MUSICOLOGICA: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY OF THE HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 66 (1-2). pp. 115-132. ISSN 1788-6244

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Abstract

Recently, the female entourage of Franz Liszt has been one of the main topics of Liszt research. Many scholars focus their attention on the role of women in Liszt's life and work; aside from his life companions, Countess Marie d’Agoult and Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, Liszt had an intellectual and artistic exchange with a wide circle of women. Some of his female friendships were with his pupils, others with his protégées ; while with some of them the composer had a love affair, with others a relationship based on reciprocal esteem, sharing the same ideals. This study aims to draw a portrait of Liszt's thought on female creativity and his interest in it. The steady growth of published research on women composers, in parallel with the new perspective of Liszt studies, allows us to start paying closer attention to this issue. His correspondence and mémoires reveal Liszt's interest not only in the works of famous nineteenth-century musicians (Augusta Holmès, Marie Jaëll, Sophie Menter, Pauline Viardot-Garcia) but also his continuous support for lesser-known and less-studied women composers. Liszt was an exception among his peers: he acted without prejudice in the evaluation of female creativity, encouraging women composers to go beyond conventions and follow their talents; in gender, as in music, he was a man of the future.

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