Liszt, My Travelling Circus Life

Franz Liszt, a dominant figure in the romantic movement, has been the subject of a number of recent scholarly studies. In their effort to capture the broad sweep of his life, earlier works have excluded much of the story of his encounters with the English provinces, Scotland, and Ireland during the two long tours he made in 1840 and 1841. David Allsobrook uses Liszt's letters home and extracts and line drawings from the diaries of John Parry, a baritone comic singer and one of Liszt's professional companions, to provide for the first time a narrative rich with all the fascinating and varied details of Liszt's encounter with this largely philistine audience.