Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Author

Franz Liszt(1811–1886)

Franz Liszt is documented in Fuller’s published essays and manuscripts (1839–1846). 2 distinct works are named, most often in Mr. Fontana., and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.

Engagement
ExcerptedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in
Essays · Manuscripts
Documented
1839–1846
Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this author is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

Confirmed reading

Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had Franz Liszt’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.

  • undatedWork not namedAttested

    “From a letter of Liszt read 1st June - apropos I think_ For a musician now to travel in Italy it is necessary that he should be, like myself, greedy of the sun”

    Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers) · read 1st June

    Explicit reading statement 'From a letter of Liszt read 1st June' with dated first-person reading claim.

In Fuller’s words

“From a letter of Liszt read 1st June - apropos I think_ / For a musician now to travel in Italy it is necessary that he should be, like myself, greedy of the sun rather than of glory, more desirous of repose than of money, enamoured of painting and sculpture because he understands nothing of them - very much tired of music because he understands something of it.”
Lettres d'un bachelier ès musique [Letters of a Traveling Bachelor of Music], in Gazette musicale de Paris · On Poesy, Love, and Dreams · 1839

When Fuller engaged with Franz Liszt

I. Childhood
II. Adolescence
III. Self-Directed
IV. Transcendentalist1record
V. New York
VI. Europe3records
✦. Memoirs (1852)
1810
1820
1832
1836
1844
1846
1850

This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.

Liszt in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.

1839—

On Poesy, Love, and Dreams

p2
excerpted · quoted · readSearch Digital Fuller (page unverified)
“From a letter of Liszt read 1st June - apropos I think_ / For a musician now to travel in Italy it is necessary that he should be, like myself, greedy of the sun rather than of glory, more desirous of repose than of money, enamoured of painting and sculpture because he understands nothing of them - very much tired of music because he understands something of it.”

Fuller, Margaret. "On Poesy, Love, and Dreams." Houghton Library, Harvard University; MS Am 1450.

Inferred Fuller identifies the source only as 'From a letter of Liszt read 1st June.' The letter is almost certainly one of Liszt's published 'Lettres d'un bachelier ès musique' (Letters of a Traveling Bachelor of Music), a series of open letters published in the Gazette musicale de Paris during 1837–41, several of which describe his Italian travels of 1837–39. The specific letter cannot be identified without consulting the full series. Title inferred as the published letter series.

Fuller identifies the source only as 'From a letter of Liszt read 1st June.' The letter is almost certainly one of Liszt's published 'Lettres d'un bachelier ès musique' (Letters of a Traveling Bachelor of Music), a series of open letters published in the Gazette musicale de Paris during 1837–41, several of which describe his Italian travels of 1837–39. The specific letter cannot be identified without consulting the full series.

1846—

Mr. Fontana.

“Mr. Fontana.”
mentioned2 selected passages
“He confined himself entirely to the new and fashionable school of Liszt and Thalberg, and exhibited all the force and dazzling brilliancy of this difficult Music.”
“The three Fantasias, the first on some very striking Spanish airs, composed by himself, the second on the Finale of Lucia di Lamermoor, by Liszt, and the last on the Huguenots, by Thalberg, were all executed with great perfection.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Mr. Fontana." New-York Daily Tribune, 6 January 1846.

1846—

Mr. Fontana’s Concert.

“Mr. Fontana’s Concert.”
mentioned
“we know there are such persons as Liszt, Chopin, Thalberg, &c. but know little of their works”

Fuller, Margaret. "Mr. Fontana’s Concert." New-York Daily Tribune, 3 January 1846. · 3 January 1846