Franz Liszt: The Final Years, 1861–1886

How to review such a gigantic and magnificent biography as Alan Walker's on Franz Liszt and do full justice to its three bulky volumes and its about 1700 pages, all of them well stuffed with information? Almost impossible! This is probably one of the best biographies ever written, one of the most fascinating, one of the most readable and attractive. It is not only a ravishing story of a composer's life that is more riveting than most composers', glorious in its palmy days as well as a little tragic and sentimental in the third volume's account for his old age and its decay and fall, full of alcoholism, depression and diseases; sensationally super-romantic in his relationship with women and illegitimate children as well as sympathetically generous and open-handed in his contacts with other musicians and composers and musical disciples - and ultimately the pious Catholic Abbé Liszt taking holy orders. It is also a biography covering Liszt's music with initiated though always very lisible analyses, a great surplus in a biography, as biographies often turn their backs on the real reason why a composer, a writer, a painter is well worth being biographied. Finally, it gives a grandiose survey of the musical and cultural life in Europe in the middle of the 19th century, stunningly rich and meaty and well-informed, continuously offering you new aspects of an extremely enthralling field. Walker's ambition has been to weed in the marshland of legends and errors and inaccuracies in the prevalent image of Liszt's life, spread since the composer's own lifetime. It is the scholarly result of his incredible efforts to get a clearer picture of his life. This is a truer picture of a mysteriously legendary composer than we have had earlier - though it is a very kind and maybe a bit uncritical portrait we get of this charismatic super-genius. Liszt's position in European music and culture in all during his active life was incomprehensibly great, maybe greater and more influential than any composer ever had. It is a tremendous adventure to read about all his glorious triumphs as a virtuoso pianist and as a composer, a conductor, a teacher and a musical promotor, a writer, a freedom symbol and patriot, a friend of Chopin's and Wagner's and many other activities and characteristics. I have been rapturously plunged into these three volumes for a very long time, and I wish every music lover to enjoy them as much as I have. All three of them!

All three volumes are outstanding. Rife with detail, impeccable research and scholarship, very readable. If you are interested in the history of music, this biography is essential.

This volume of Alan Walker’s biography of Alan Walker’s Liszt biography covers the last 25 years of Liszt’s life, from 1861 to 1886. Walker shows how Liszt set the paradigm for the master class where pianists, singers and instrumentalists go to a senior figure of international for guidance in matters of interpretation of music. Walker also give detailed analysis of how Liszt’s music anticipated much of the development of music in the 20th-century with piano pieces embracing atonality and tonal clusters. Where Liszt’s earlier music anticipated the music of Wagner and even Debussy, his later music looked forward to Arnold Schoenberg and Bela Bartok. The personal drama of Liszt’s life is well-covered with his complicated relationships with friends and family. In short, a highly recommended book.

Walker spent a good portion of his life producing I believe 5 volumes on Liszt's life. His writing style flows and is enjoyable. The info in those books is astounding. Walker presents a true picture of Liszt's amazing life. I would highly recommend all of the volumes. Because of Walker, Liszt's music is getting better known though much prejudice still exists from Liszt's time to this very day against his music esp. here in the USA.

This is the third and final volume of Alan Walker's lengthy and in-depth biography of Liszt. It so happens to be the third volume I purchase. This is the most informative and entertaining biography I've ever read (including footnotes and the appendices). Mr. Walker goes beyond the call of duty (or defines it), by having done extensive travels during his years researching for this masterwork on the master of Romantic music, Franz Liszt. He was even granted access to the Vatican's Secret Archive to study what happened during Liszt and Carolyne's struggle to get married. Anyone truly interested in reading the definitive biography on Liszt cannot consider anything else but these three volumes by Mr. Walker. I came upon them by chance, and now do I consider myself very lucky. He has since the publication of the third volume released some complimentary books, with more specific topics and correspondence of the time. Alan Walker is indeed The Liszt erudite. Period!

All 3 books in this series are simply a must have for anyone with any interest in Liszt as a man and a performer

I purchased this version(Kindle Version)just for convenience!I have regular print copies of the Alan Walker Liszt Vol. 1,2,&3 series already.I wanted another choice of "method of reading",and it's easier to read my Kindle Fire in the dark and ANYWHERE whenever..Alan Walker is an EXCELLENT author and I re-read his books and always find them interesting each time.There is so much information in his writings,one needs to read things a few times regardless of what one reads them on.

Mr. Walker’s Liszt biographies should be classified as Liszt encyclopedias with enormous amounts of details and some glaring omissions. Unless one is a musician, the many, many pages with musical reproductions don’t mean anything unless one can read music and understand the fine nuances of Liszt’ s ideas. Also, the endless descriptions of meetings with all the names and totally unnecessary details of each person’s life become so tedious since most of the names of these people might have meant something at that time but certainly not in this century. All these details distract from the pleasure of a good story. That 10 to 20% of the book consists of footnotes should make it clear that these books are not for the average reader who only wants to know about the life of Liszt himself and who he was. One glaring omission is the absence of a complete listing or index of his works. I had hoped that at least at the end of the third and final book it would provide this information but no luck. Another omission for instance, for which I really found no excuse, was Mr. Walker going into detail about a certain photographer who made hundreds of pictures of Mr. Liszt, living nearby, with descriptions of the scenes photographed, but not a picture in this book. Just like the lengthy descriptions of the author’s visit to the monastery where Liszt lived for years and supposedly composed some of his most important work. The author described the importance of this monastery, the environment, the views etc. But a picture (that would be worth a thousand words!), no such luck.