21 biographers in particular those of ramann and

21
biographers — in particular those of Ramann and Newman.
62
This scholarly tactic, hinted at by
Saffle, is made explicit by Gibbs and Gooley:
Over the past twenty years scholars have shown an impressive determination to organize
and clean up Liszt’s shop, which was left messy by a huge output of letters and music, by
the geographical dispersion of his papers, and by an enduring capacity for mythmaking
on the part of his admirers as well as his detractors…. A disadvantage of these
preoccupations is that they have tended to isolate Liszt studies in a hermetic world,
relatively out of touch with the larger field of musicology…. The resulting lo ss of
intellectual vitality has found poor compensation in the defensive or even righteous tone
that one characteristically finds in liner notes and biographies…. [Liszt] is defended to
his detriment….
63
It is unfortunate that avoiding musical criticism should be necessary because of the zealotry of
Liszt crusaders, but it may have been historically unavoidable. Today’s cultural studies provide a
way to study Liszt in his context while avoiding unnecessary involvement in debates on Liszt’s
character and compositional value.
Liszt as Avant-Garde Prophet
But what of those who engage with the music, confronting the issue of compositional
value head-on? Liszt’s exp erimental approach toward form, harmony, and program has been
well-known among Lisztians for many years, and their determined efforts have ensured that
Liszt’s influence is now widely known.
64
The fragmentary and harmonically mysterious late
62
Lina Ramann’s biography i s frequently cited and censured; a relatively even-handed
introduction to the project and its troubles appears in Walker, III: 275- 79. Newman’s The Man
Liszt has provoked much criticism: Walker refers to the work as a “foolish character
assassination” and a “one - man crusade against Liszt,” while Adrian Williams calls it
“disparaging and inaccurate”; see Walker, I: 25 and 210n; and Williams, Portrait of Liszt: By
Himself and His Contemporaries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 277n.
63
Gibbs and Gooley, xv-xvii.
64
For a study from the 1970s, see Lajos Bárdos, “Ferenc Liszt, the Innovator,” Studia
Musicologia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 17, Fasc. 1/4 (1975): 3-38.

22
works fascinate theorists, yet they generally ignore the aesthetic experience of the music.
65
This
is a particularly foreign approach to Liszt’s works , as his compositional style is arguably the
most performance-driven of any nineteenth-century composer —as Rosen claims, “Liszt is
perhaps the first composer of instrumental music whose music is, for the most part, conceived
absolutely for public performance. ”
66
Although Liszt did not expect or even desire performance
of his late music during his lifetime, it seems unlikely that he would create this music
hermetically, without even a future listener in mind. In addition, the idea that Liszt had
abandoned the listener is absurd when one considers his lifetime of polemical writings on the