- FRANCA OTTINO,Romanticismo Privato, Franz Liszt e
Marie d'Agoult,Prefazione di Maria Luisa Spaziani
- Ediz. Firenze Libri 1997 - pag . 250 - L
21.000
- In libreria: distribuz. Book Service
- Diffusione: EDI-LIBRA - TEL/ FAX o55 - 701493
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- I have reached that
solemn moment of existence in which past and future part,
somehow, from conscience, in which one feels the youth
detaching and little by little acquiring the absolute
state of completed things, while the days and the hours
glide towards the last goal.
- The exasperated awareness of the passing of
time, by contrast, pushes me to profit by the uncertain
present. ... One project must have priority over the
others, one project I have cultivated for years and still
tragically incomplete and unsolved: writing my memories
down.
- Inability is not the cause: since infancy I
have been familiar with writing. Agenda and personal
diaries ... accompany all the events of my life. Even in
the moment of passion, when the heat of feeling fills my
heart so as to overwhelm me, confound me, shake the
balance of my whole being, the only way for regaining
control of myself lies in the written page.
- ... in order to run through my past again,
besides the help of memory, which is sometimes imperfect
and deceitful, I have the opportunity of tying together
and reassembling the multitude of fragments trusted to
writing along the way: Arianna's thin thread guiding me
in the labyrinth of the rediscovery of my life.
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- This is the beginning of the book. The female
protagonist, Marie d'Agoult, who has been given the role
of the narrator, goes through the stages of her intense
love-story. Paris around the 30ies; he, Franz, very young
and a prodigiously gifted musician; she, related to the
oldest French nobility, subjected to an unhappy marriage
of convenience. Their casual meeting is the sparkle to a
strong passion. But their love has a long prelude.
- Moved by the same interests: "to discover" their
time, to look for the deep motives of the dominating
ideology in the works of the new poets, writers and
social reformers, they end up by absorbing and making the
values of Romanticism their own.
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- Supremacy of feeling over reason, refusal of
tradition and of the past, wish for a free and renewed
life, these are the principles mostly young people
follow.
- Franz and Mary's decision to live their story
openly, challenging, the woman in particular, the
inflexible rules of the society of her time, makes show
of two ideals: love as the art that best of all rescues
man from materialism elevating him to the life of
spirit.
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- « ... the memory until now has revived the
origin, the assertion and the outburst of love in their
passionate hearts, extremely sensitive to the romantic
word. From now on the reaserch of the past will follow
the direction of the contrast between one's ideal world
and daily life.»
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- During the "pilgrimage years', their couple life,
far from the world, devoted to music, and sole warrant of
their happiness, is more and more obstructed by the
artistic career of Liszt.
- On one side, Franz travels from Italy to Vienna
for a series of concerts and has the occasion to meet
great success and the fanatic admiration of his audience,
women in particular. On the other side, Marie, with her
poor health, lives in deep anxiety caused by her
loneliness and her disappointed goals.
- Once the crisis is over, love between the two
flourishes again. Yet the beginning of Liszt's great
tournées all over Europe discloses the problem of
Marie's return to Paris. Here, with the help of Liszt,
she conquers again the prestigiuos position she used to
have. But with a great difference: her world is no more
that of the conservative nobility, but the sphere of the
political and cultural élite of the time.
- A rich correspondence (the letters,
"Correspondance de Liszt et de la comtesse Marie
d'Agoult", are rich of emotions and vivid lyrism) and
short meetings nourish their love. Meetings that are
moments of deep happiness for the lovers only if lived in
intimate discretion.
- « ... one more year of trials and, maybe, of
expiation» writes Franz to Marie in September 1840
«and then quietness, happiness ... at unreachable
depth ... We shouldn't complain or accuse those intense
strength which indirectly cause our pain. It doesn't
matter if we are what we are forced to be, if only in few
moments we are allowed to feel what we could be, what we
are in front of God, and ourselves».
- «A little more than three years has
passed», writes Marie. «A steady unhappiness is
the essence of my amorous life: an unhappiness made of
uncertainty, jealousy, resentment and exasperation ...
The intolerance I feel with regard to that moral and
material disparity I (or women in general?) am subjected
to becomes stronger and stronger. I feel a growing need
of breaking with that servile compliance to which women
have ever conformed: the urgent need of living love as
the embrace of two worlds different in their equality
...»
-
- Marie finds the strength to break the bond against
Liszt will. But the end hasn't arrived yet. After a
stormy while, whose suffering is to be beared by their
three children, their old correspondence begins again,
with renewed and deep reflection and nostalgy.
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- «Could I only maintain an untouched hope in
my broken heart» writes Liszt «it would be to
tell you, in one of our autumn evening, that you were not
mistaken about me ... Before God I would confirm our love
and our life whole; the aspirations, the will and the
frantic heights of love which you could still find intact
in me, would be the sole glorious and sad justification
before the only judge martyrs can appeal to».
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- Conclusion. In the many biographies of Lizst,
whose existence distinguishes for its complexity and its
exceptionality, the relationship with Marie d'Agoult has
been given scarse relevance; the female figure in
particular remains in shadow. Marie will receive the due
cultural recognition only in a stately work (4 volumes)
about the "countess d'Agoult", published in France in the
second half of the XX century.
- In the precise reconstruction, proved by
documents, of the long love story between Marie and
Franz, the life of Liszt adds to its wealth of the new
aspect of his youth, incredibly rich of fascination and
almost completely unknown.
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