Vienna, spring 1823. Two musicians, separated by more than 40 years, meet in a room - the already deaf Ludwig van Beethoven and the 11-year-old Franz Liszt, who is yet to become the most famous pianist of the 19th century. From this meeting, a story remains stronger than many documents: Beethoven listens to the boy, goes on stage and kisses him on the forehead.
This is one of the most famous mysteries surrounding Liszt. The meeting between the two is confirmed, but the famous scene with the “kiss of dedication“ cannot be established with certainty. Thus, a real conversation gradually becomes a myth about the passing of the musical torch.
The meeting is real, the scene remains controversial
Liszt arrived in Vienna in 1822 and began studying with Karl Czerny - a pianist and composer who was himself a student of Beethoven. It was Czerny who arranged the meeting between his talented pupil and the great composer.
In Beethoven's conversation notebooks there is an entry related to the young Liszt's visit and his invitation to a concert. This is an important documentary trace. The Vienna Society “Beethoven“ however, states that Beethoven did not attend Liszt's concert in the Small Redoubt Hall on 13 April 1823. The later version that he was in the audience and kissed the boy in front of everyone after the performance is not supported by the available records.
This does not mean that the two did not meet. Beethoven did indeed receive Liszt into his home a few days before the concert. It is not certain, however, whether he listened to the performance that later became the center of the legend.
Liszt's own account
In his old age, Liszt told the pianist Ilka Horowitz-Barnay that Beethoven had asked him to play a piece of his. After the performance, according to this recollection, the composer hugged him, kissed him on the forehead, and told him that he would bring joy to many people.
are the words that Liszt attributed to his own experience. The story was transmitted decades after the event, when the memories were already part of the constructed image of the great pianist. Therefore, music historians consider it both as a possible memory and as a carefully crafted personal myth.
The myth becomes part of the legacy
Regardless of whether the kiss actually happened, the story is significant for Liszt's career. It places him in a direct spiritual line with Beethoven - as his musical heir. Later, Liszt devoted enormous effort to his work, creating piano transcriptions of all nine of his symphonies and preserving a piano that Beethoven had played.
Liszt remained not only a virtuoso, capable of captivating audiences with almost incredible technique. He is a composer of symphonic poems, a teacher of generations of pianists and one of the people who changed the very idea of a concert. “My piano is a repository of everything that has excited my nature“, he says.
That is why the mystery of Beethoven's kiss continues to live on. The story is not completely proven, but it is strong enough to explain how a boy from Hungary began to perceive himself as a person who had received a blessing from Beethoven himself.
Sources: classicfm.com, csmonitor.com, limelight-arts.com.au