Smithsonian Associates: Great Composer-Pianists: Mendelssohn, Liszt, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff, Lecture 2 – Franz Liszt

Popular speaker and concert pianist Rachel Franklin provides a unique look at the monumental keyboard talents of four great composer-pianists and how their performing virtuosity influenced the piano works audiences enjoy today.

With a legacy of printed compositions but almost no recordings, how can we get closer to the white-hot moments of creation and performance when these artists poured out their genius for fortunate and astonished listeners? How did the composers’ musical imaginations and their signature performance styles influence the development of how pianos would be constructed and sound? And did their contemporary audiences even comprehend what they were hearing?

Franklin offers a fascinating exploration into the creative minds—and hands—of a quartet of piano pioneers celebrated for their prowess as composers and performers. She concludes each lecture by performing a work by the spotlighted composer.

British-born Franklin has been a featured speaker for organizations including the Library of Congress and NPR, exploring intersections among classical and jazz music, film scores, and the fine arts.​

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Liszt’s mesmerizing pianism was so extraordinary that many believed he had supernatural powers, and his thousands of concerts frequently left pianos in sad smoking heaps. The astonishing technical demands of his music remain as daunting now as when he first performed and published, and the legacy of his many superb students continues to be carried forward through modern conservatories onto the world’s great concert stages.