Anybody out there remember Beatlemania back in the 1960s?
Maybe you've heard about the commotion when Elvis burst upon the scene a few years earlier.
Lisztmania was like that in Europe in the 1840s.
Audiences went berzerk at this virtuoso pianist who played music considered unplayable except by himself.... or the devil.
So, did Liszt sell his soul in exchange for his skill -- as blues musician Robert Johnson was said to have done at that Mississippi crossroads a century later?
Well, of course not -- but the idea was good for the image, and Liszt was a showman after all.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
We'll look at the Demonic Liszt this week, then continue with the cycle of the Schubert Symphonies, and hear Beethoven's final complete work, the String Quartet in F.
Thursday at 10 only on 89.5 FM and streaming live at WFIT.org and on the NPR Music App.
