Liszt and the Spirit of Weimar

Liszt’s activities and aesthetic ideas during the Weimar period were comprehensively inspired by the Golden Era of German literature and the parallel musical traditions. Not only the performances of Wagner, Schumann, and Berlioz, but also his literary publications and musical compositions pursued the idea of presenting a new type of synthesis of poetry and music. The key to his new aesthetic concept of instrumental music was his idea to create equivalents to the different types of poetry. Liszt’s ideas would have remained mere speculation without the Weimar traditions of memorial culture and the activities of his “Fortschrittspartei.” As fruitful as Liszt’s regeneration of the spirit of Weimar was, there was no bridge between the mental confrontation of two different worlds: between the European Franz Liszt and the keepers of the holy Grail of the past