Love on the Range

Vladimir Jankélévitch argues that composer Franz Liszt was a leading champion of musical modernity who knew how to express the new aesthetic change of direction in 19th-century European music better than anyone, save Frédéric Chopin. This new style was the opposite of the abstract universality of the symphony and the totalitarianism of the Viennese conservatory. With the reinforcement of national and even provincial rights, the so-called savagery of rhapsody finally turned its back to solemn music, thus beginning the revolution of humility. Liszt gave voice to the land, much as Victor Hugo did for les misérables, and together with Mussorgsky, Bartók, and Albéniz broke into new musical territory and began the era of improvisation.