Abbess Liszt: Piano Concerto No 1

Prince Nikolaus was a head-to-toe selfish man. Divorced and remarried, he was not willing for his former wife to do the same. As soon as he learned of Franz Liszt's purpose to marry Carolyne de Sayn-Wittgenstein, he devoted himself full-time to lobby every Holy See's authorities to prevent it. The visit of the Pope's emissary to Carolyne announcing that the marriage authorization was to be revised was the fruit of all his intrigues.

But such amount lobbying efforts had an impact on his state of health. In 1864, the prince left this world. It was the ideal occasion for Liszt and Carolyne to unite in holy matrimony, without any obstacle. But at the same time the love relationship was fading away —Franz, believing that he was not up to that sort of things; Carolyne, just about to be convinced that such an accumulation of difficulties was but a warning of future failure.

This being the case, Liszt made the decision of his life, surprising everyone, friends, colleagues and the audiences. In the year 1865, at 54 years old, the famous pianist and composer was given the "minor religious orders", thus becoming the respected Abbess Liszt. Nonetheless, this did not prevent him from continuing with his career, in his well-known areas of pianist, composer ... and lover, since legend says that he had more than one affair after being given religious orders.

But Franz never stopped maintaining contact with Princess Carolyne. For several years they would exchange thousands of letters, until the day Liszt passed away, on July 31, 1886. Six months later, without fuss, Carolyne went after him.

Piano Concerto N ° 1 in E flat major
In the course of his long life, Liszt wrote two concerts for piano and orchestra. The most celebrated and the one that has most attracted the attention of the public and performers is the first of them. It took about 26 years for Liszt to compose it. The first sketches date back to 1830 when Franz was only 19 years old. In the course of the composer's long and lively life, the concert No. 1 would undergo a series of modifications, culminating, apparently, in 1853 with the latest changes. Two years later the concerto premiered in Weimar with the composer at the piano and his friend Hector Berlioz conducting. With a couple of further modifications, it was published in 1856.

The concerto lasts about 20 minutes and consists in four movements played with no interruption.

The outstanding Argentine pianist Martha Argerich is accompanied by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

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