Hungary – 150th Anniversary of Franz Liszt 1961 Silver 50 Forint 33mm (19.76 grams) 0.750 Silver (0.4823 oz. ASW) Reference: KM# 559 MAGYAR NÉPKÖZTÁRSASÁG 50 FORINT BP 1961, Harp below denomination. LISZT FERENC EMLÉKÉV 1811 – 1961, Bust facing right.
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Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a prolific 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, organist, philanthropist, author, nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary during the Romantic era.
Liszt gained renown in Europe during the early nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was a friend, musical promoter and benefactor to many composers of his time, including Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Ole Bull, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka, and Alexander Borodin.
As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School (Neudeutsche Schule). He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work in which he influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated many 20th-century ideas and trends. Some of his most notable musical contributions were the invention of the symphonic poem, developing the concept of thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form, and making radical departures in harmony.
From the early 1860s there were attempts to obtain a position for Liszt in Hungary. In 1871 the Hungarian Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy made a new attempt writing on 4 June 1871, to the Hungarian King (the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I ), requesting an annual grant of 4,000 Gulden and the rank of a “Königlicher Rat” (“Crown Councillor”) for Liszt, who in return would permanently settle in Budapest, directing the orchestra of the National Theatre as well as musical institutions.
The plan of the foundation of a Royal Academy was agreed by the Hungarian Parliament in 1872. In March 1875 Liszt was nominated as President. The Academy was officially opened on November 14, 1875 with Liszt’s colleague Ferenc Erkel as director, Kornél Ábrányi and Robert Volkmann. Liszt himself came in March 1876 to give some lessons and a charity concert.
In spite of the conditions under which Liszt had been appointed as “Königlicher Rat”, he neither directed the orchestra of the National Theatre, nor did he permanently settle in Hungary. Typically, he would arrive in mid-winter in Budapest. After one or two concerts of his students by the beginning of spring he left. He never took part in the final examinations, which were in summer of every year. Some of the pupils joined the lessons which Liszt gave in summer in Weimar.
In 1873, on the occasion of Liszt’s 50th anniversary as performing artist, the city of Budapest instituted a “Franz Liszt Stiftung” (“Franz Liszt Foundation”), to provide stipends of 200 Gulden for three students of the Academy who had shown excellent abilities with regard to Hungarian music. Liszt alone decided the allocation of these stipends.
It was Liszt’s habit to declare all students who took part in his lessons as his private students. As consequence, almost none of them paid any fees to the Academy. A ministerial order of 13 February 1884 decreed that all those who took part in Liszt’s lessons had to pay an annual charge of 30 Gulden. In fact, the Academy was in any case a net gainer, since Liszt donated its revenue from his charity concerts.
Hungary is a sovereign state in Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Romania to the east, Serbia to the south, Croatia to the southwest, Slovenia to the west, Austria to the northwest, and Ukraine to the northeast. The country’s capital and largest city is Budapest. Hungary is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the Visegrád Group, and the Schengen Area. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe.
Following centuries of successive habitation by Celts, Romans, Huns, Slavs, Gepids, and Avars, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late 9th century by the Hungarian grand prince Árpád in the Honfoglalás (“homeland-conquest”). His great-grandson Stephen I ascended to the throne in 1000 CE, converting the country to a Christian kingdom. By the 12th century, Hungary became a middle power within the Western world, reaching a golden age by the 15th century. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526 and about 150 years of partial Ottoman occupation (1541-1699), Hungary came under Habsburg rule, and later formed a significant part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867-1918).
Hungary’s current borders were first established by the Treaty of Trianon (1920) after World War I, when the country lost 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, and 32% of ethnic Hungarians. Following the interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary came under the influence of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a four-decade-long communist dictatorship (1947-1989). The country gained widespread international attention regarding the Revolution of 1956 and the seminal opening of its previously-restricted border with Austria in 1989, which accelerated the collapse of the Eastern Bloc.
On 23 October 1989, Hungary again became a democratic parliamentary republic, and today has a high-income economy with a very high Human Development Index. Hungary is a popular tourist destination attracting 10.675 million tourists a year (2013). It is home to the largest thermal water cave system and the second-largest thermal lake in the world (Lake Hévíz), the largest lake in Central Europe (Lake Balaton), and the largest natural grasslands in Europe (the Hortobágy National Park).
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