Mailbag: “Liszt’s Funérailles”

January 19, 2010

Dear Michael,

Just a few minutes ago you introduced a piece that was transcribed for the organ from a Liszt composition. You were close in describing what gave Liszt the impetus to compose it. The actual reason was on Oct. 6, 1849, that the highest level officers, thirteen of them, of the Hungarian army that fought in the 1948-49 revolution against the armies of emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, helped by the armies of Russia, were executed by the Austrians. Of the thirteen four were shot, the rest hanged.

George

 

George,

Well, as you say, I was close

 

jmb

 

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