Liszt, the ‘Little Mozart’

Franz Liszt’s childhood reads like a sequel to Mozart’s legend. His musical gifts showed early, and he gave his first public concert when he was only nine.

Soon after, he played for a gathering of nobles at the palace of Prince Esterházy, where his father worked as an assistant steward. The performance made such an impression that six noblemen pledged six hundred gulden a year for six years so the prodigy could receive a proper education.

Liszt’s father, Adam, wrote to Johann Nepomuk Hummel—Mozart’s pupil—to ask if Hummel would teach the boy. Hummel’s terms were too high, so they went to Vienna and sought out Carl Czerny. Czerny was overloaded and at first refused to take another student. The young Liszt solved the problem in the simplest way: he sat down at the piano and played.

After hearing him, Czerny instantly changed his mind. He accepted Liszt as a pupil—and, impressed by the genius, refused to take any tuition money.

A few years later in Paris, the eleven‑year‑old was dubbed “the little Mozart.” One critic even claimed he now believed in metempsychosis, because Mozart’s spirit must have returned in the body of young Liszt.