Lecture by Steven Cassedy
Liszt and the Macabre

Throughout his long life and career, Franz Liszt showed a pronounced fascination with death, the demonic, and the macabre. The titles of some of his best known compositions reflect this fascination: Funérailles, Danse Macabre, the Mephisto Waltz, to name only a few. Steven Cassedy examines how Liszt’s music expressed this fascination and how it continues to define the set of characteristics that the music of the macabre has come to possess.