Icon in B Minor

I play the music, it resonates inside me. It wakes things up in me, and I think it does that because those things in me are the same as the things that were in Liszt.

– Michael Houstoun on his connection to Liszt in part one

When Liszt was in Weimar, he was absolutely on the cutting edge. He was introducing new music all the time — Berlioz’s music, Wagner’s music. It was all coming here, nobody had heard of this music before and as a result he was perpetually being criticised, put down…

– Michael Houstoun in part one

The sonata, more than anything else, reflects a certain preoccupation of Liszt’s with the idea of transformation. The idea that music, in itself, transforms people who hear music, who listen to it well, has a transforming effect. He argued, too, that the artist who performs music has to transform themself so that the music flows in its best possible way.

– Michael Houstoun on their shared philosophy of transformation in music in part one

I was the most famous man in Europe: the tours, frenzied audiences, the hysteria of so-called ‘Lisztomania’. I lived like a lord but despised the fact that my art was reduced to money.

– Words of Franz Liszt, read by Peter McCauley in part two

I love that he always told them not to look at the piano, that the inspiration would come if they raised their eyes from the keyboard. Such a challenging comment to throw out to people who play the piano, who are usually transfixed on watching their hands.

– Michael Houstoun on Liszt’s surprising advice to his students in part three