Reflections on Liszt

Alan Walker is Professor Emeritus of Music at McMaster University, Canada, and author of numerous books, including The Death of Franz Liszt Based on the Unpublished Diary of His Pupil Lina Schmalhausen; Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811–1847 (volume 1); The Weimar Years, 1848–1861 (volume 2); and The Final Years, 1861–1886 (volume 3), all from Cornell, and Hans Von Bülow: A Life and Times. He has been awarded the Music Teachers National Association 2010 Achievement Award, the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize, and the medal Pro Cultura Hungarica, presented by the President of Hungary.

The collection of essays is a sort of appendix to Alan Walker's three-volume biography of Liszt. That was not a study of the music, though it commented selectively on the music as part of the composer's life, but it was—is—one of the most readable and engrossing biographies of any subject ever written.- Adrian Jack (BBC Music Magazine) Walker is unashamedly a Lisztian, of course, but his advocacy is never fanatical. Rather, it is mantled in terse, accomplished prose, supported by faultless research, and buttressed by copious musical examples and musicological argument. In this indispensable book, Walker has strengthened his case for a reevaluation of the composer's accomplishments with care, detail, and—the word is not too strong—virtuosity.- Conor Farrington (Times Literary Supplement) No one knows more about Franz Liszt than Alan Walker.- Malcolm Bowie (Times Literary Supplement)