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Reflections on Liszt.

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Reflections on Liszt. By Alan Walker. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. [xii, 277 p. ISBN 0-801-44366-6. $39.95.] Illustrations, music examples, bibliography, index.

Few scholars can be given more credit for reinvigorating a critical investigation of the life and music of Franz Liszt than Alan Walker. For almost forty years he has been the most vocal exponent of a more nuanced--even sympathetic--consideration of the composer and pianist. When the final volume of his three-part Franz Liszt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987-1996) appeared, it brought to conclusion an immense project that encompassed more than 1,600 compellingly detailed pages, incorporating overlooked and entirely unknown primary-source material that radically altered the inherited notions of just who and what Liszt was to himself and his contemporaries. Walker's account has become the starting point for today's Liszt scholars from all walks of life who previously had to rely on the fulsome yet highly problematic studies by Lina Ramann (Franz Liszt. Als Kunstler und Mensch [Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1880-1894]) and Peter Raabe (Franz Liszt. 2d rev. ed. [Tutzing: H. Schneider, 1968]) for biographical and analytical insight. But even Walker's comprehensive treatment of Liszt and his world was far from exhaustive, with the author admitting as much in the prologue to his new Reflections on Liszt: "there were some things that could be mentioned only in passing, and others not at all" (p. xiii). Like Liszt, who seemed irresistibly drawn to his compositions long after they were published, Walker revises and expands upon material previously...

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