Franz Liszt, Adolf Bernhard Marx und die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts

Adolf Bernhard Marx was a prominent figure in German musical life in the nineteenth century. In contrast to his theory of composition ( Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, 4 vols., Leipzig, 1837–1847), his book Die Musik des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts und ihre Pflege: Methode der Musik (Leipzig, 1855) is little known today. Even less is the detailed review that Franz Liszt devoted to this volume in the same year. This rather lengthy essay appeared in the May 11 and 18, 1855 issues of Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, edited by Franz Brendel, framed by Liszt's two more prominent articles on Robert Schumann (March and April, 1855) and Hector Berlioz (“Berlioz und seine Haroldsymphonie”, July and August, 1855). It has been generally assumed that all three articles follow similar arguments: either as implicit responses to Schumann's short article “Neue Bahnen” ( NZfM, 1853) or to Eduard Hanslick’s Vom Musikalisch-Schönen (Leipzig, 1854). This article presents a critical approach to the content, intent, and genesis of the review as well as on intertextual relationships to other writings by Liszt or his contemporaries with the concept of “Zukunftsmusik” playing a prominent role in these debates