Thalberg this, Thalberg that..

[mitch24]

All this talk about Thalberg has me wondering if he was a better pianist that Liszt.

From what I learned in my history lessons he was an excellent pianist but in terms of vrituosity he wasn't anything much. well not compared to Saint-Saens, Clara Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, etc.


Right?

[jeremyjchilds]

It's not like I have heard both of them play

But from what I've read, I would probably say taht Liszt was better for sure. I would love to be the proponent of the "not so widely known" but in my opinion, liszt was better.

[da jake]

Judging by what we have from contemporary accounts and considering all factors, Liszt was the greatest pianist who ever lived. No question.

[rob47]

"thalberg is the leading pianist in teh world today; Liszt is the only"

or something like that by some random chick who held a competition for the two.

[jas]

"thalberg is the leading pianist in teh world today; Liszt is the only"

or something like that by some random chick who held a competition for the two.

Yeah, it was a woman called Princess Something-Or-Other Belgiojoso (I might be spelling it wrong). She held the competition because Paris was in a bit of an uproar about who was the best of the two. Even the newspapers had got involved. Thalberg had Fetis (a critic) on his side and Liszt had people like Chopin and Berlioz.

From what I gather, they had completely different styles. There were little statues made of both of them by someone whose name I can't remember. The Liszt one has arms, legs and hair flying everywhere. It's very much "in motion." The Thalberg is very upright but has more than the usual number of fingers. Liszt seems to have been more of a wacky showman while Thalberg was quite refined. He also had the "three-hand" technique in his favour, which amazed people because they couldn't work out how it was done. He was nicknamed "Old Arpeggio" because of it.

Also, Thalberg's alleged aristocratic (though illegitimately so) background annoyed Liszt rather a lot as he was always trying to get in with the aristos.

But Liszt was the one with the shrieking, fainting, cigar-butt-stealing fans. Although Thalberg had his advocates, he just wasn't the phenomenon Liszt was. He wasn't the musician Liszt was, either. So I think Liszt was likely to have been the best.

Jas

[thalbergmad]

It is difficult to say if he was a better pianist or not when compared to Liszt as both pianists had their team of supporters.

What i think we can say with certainty, is that he was vastly different and that Liszt knew he had a rival.

Liszt was a showman with hands flying all over the piano. Thalberg was the opposite, and remained motionless.

Much was made about Thalbergs supposed defeat at the hands of Liszt in their pianistic duel. However, Thalberg still concertised for many years after and was the first of the great European Pianists to tour the Americas.

I am a great lover of his music and at the moment i am working on re-creating the famous duel by learning Liszt's Niobe Fantasy and the Moses by Thalberg.

This has already been done on CD by a pianist called Stephen Meyer. Well worth seeking out.

[Bob]

"Thalberg!  Thalberg!  Thalberg!"  ("Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!")


I'm interested because I haven't heard of him before.

Is it possible that Thalberg egged Liszt on to do a little more showmanship then?

[Skeptopotamus]

hmm... well Liszt thought Alkan was even better than he was so I guess we should go with him XD

[janice]

"Thalberg!  Thalberg!  Thalberg!"  ("Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!")

ROFL ROFL
Bob, you are sooooo funny!!!  I am totally amazed at how your mind works!!!

[Nightscape]

It really has become irrelevant how well Liszt played while he was alive - in today's pianistic culture he has become the Messiah of piano playing.  If you told anyone that there was a pianist who played better Liszt, it would be like telling a Christian that there's someone alive today who is less sinful/more holy than Jesus.  Imagine the response!

We'll never know how Liszt played.  We can assume he was at least good enough to play his own music extremely well - and that puts him near the top anyway.  But how would he be able to handle the impressionists?  What about 20th century music, like Bartok, Ligeti, Finnessy, Xenakis?  This we'll never know either.

As far as contempory accounts of Liszt's performances, these are probably skewed with exaggeration.  It's not like they were music critics who listened to a CD and put thier educated responses down.  In many cases, the so-called listener would hear a concert by Liszt, and perhaps mention it in a diary or letter a month or two later - by then the concert would have become distorted one way or another in thier own minds.

As far as his amazing musicianship skills like sight-reading concertos and transposing/adding octaves, etc.... well there are many pianists alive and dead who can do the exact same things - some in thier teens.  (For example, the late Walter Gieseking (sp?) could memorize a large, difficult work in a single evening.)

As far as women swooning and fainting at his concerts - well for one thing this happens a lot at popular music concerts - all I can say is that that sort of behavior has since fallen out of fasion in classical piano concerts.  In fact, audiences today are taught to suppress any outward signs of emotion - other than tasteful clapping - during concerts.  This was certainly not the case in the 1800s, when audiences could become very worked up (either in a good or bad way.)

So I guess we'll never know.  But what we do know is that he made incredible achievements in piano playing, composition, and teaching.  That is enough to place him in my list of favorites, regardless of whether or not he was the greatest pianist to have lived.