Franz Liszt

Urban civilization is creeping ever closer, but it's still easy to understand the allure of a point along the "romantic Rhine" where the river becomes wider and splits off in three directions. The river fork forms two islands, and the name of the smaller of the two - Nonnenwerth - owes to a nunnery established as early as the beginning of the 12th century. Today, 25 Franciscan nuns live there in a late Baroque structure.

Filled with old trees and nestled along the Siebengebirge range of hills, Nonnenwerth is a symbol of the romanticism of the Rhine. Painters and poets in the 18th and 19th centuries gushed about the "meadow filled with innumerable bird songs." After Napoleon abolished the island's convent in 1802, the building was turned into an inn - but with little success.

That changed, however, in the summer of 1841, when a couple with three small children and countless suitcases made their way across the river on a ferry. Both adults were eye-catching. He was tall, thin with striking features and a long, flowing hair, while she had a delicate profile and lovely blond locks.

Even before television, people easily recognized the stars of the day. The news spread across Europe that the continent's most famous couple had landed on a little island in the Rhine: Franz Liszt, the "Paganini of the piano," and his lover, Marie d'Agoult. The celebrated Parisian beauty abandoned her first marriage to a count - leaving husband and children behind - to follow the virtuoso and composer. Six years of travel followed, and Liszt and d'Agoult had three children together - daughters Blandine and Cosima and son Daniel, who was two years old when the quintet arrived at Nonnenwerth.

The family was ready to enjoy some summer time peace and quiet.



Island full of guests

"But that's not what they got!" chuckled sister Hildegarda. The Franciscan nun, who now lives at Nonnenwerth, is an expert on Liszt's time on the island.

"Nearly every day, boats from Bonn, Cologne and Koblenz came to the island filled with people who wanted to see Liszt."

Since large steamboats couldn't dock there, they simply sailed around the island. Male choirs stood on deck, singing Rhenish songs for the "world-famous wizard from the land of Hungary."

Lina Ramann, author of one of the first biographies on Liszt, wrote that on August 22, 1841 - just two weeks after the composer's arrival - an impressive 340 members of Cologne's Philharmonic Society came to the little island. A brass band played, and a well-trained male choir honored the master, who agreed to do a concert to benefit the Cologne cathedral.

The visit ended with a fest full of wine - so much for summertime relaxation.

"But he seemed to enjoy it all, otherwise he wouldn't have stayed so long," said sister Hildegarda, noting that Liszt's children and d'Agoult enjoyed Nonnenwerth too.

"They definitely didn't do anything other than what kids today still do - run around in the long corridors of the abbey and play in the water and fields," the nun said.

An 'electrifying' presence

The island's owner, a noblewoman from Frankfurt named Margarete von Cordier, also stopped by. Full of pride that such a famous couple had opted to spend time in "her paradise," she brought her daughter and a valuable piano along for the trip. Liszt was fully taken with her hospitality.

Contemporary fans of the composer can also thank von Cordier for something: her journal. Nearly every day, she recorded her impressions of Franz Liszt and the other island guests in an elegant leather-bound book, preserved carefully today in the convent's library. Her style is lively, the observations keen, and her tongue rather sharp.

"It's striking that how the presence of such a significant person can turn everything on its head," she wrote.

"Liszt electrifies everyone who comes into contact with him. He's more like the opposite of 'beauty' - his eyes glow with an inner fire that exudes from his entire being!"

But when George Sand, a former lover of the composer, visited, von Cordier characterized her as "a nervous theater harlot."

170 years ago

With a key that may be just as old as the tale of Liszt and Nonnenwerth itself, sister Hildegarda opens a door to the convent's museum dedicated to the composer. The museum's most prized possession stands alongside portraits and drawings: a silver chalice that Liszt received from his admirers on October 22, 1841, his 30th birthday. A party was celebrated in a ballroom within the convent.

Young women presented a laurel wreath in honor of the celebration and joined a feast that included oysters, pastries and a cake topped with thirty candles and a figure bearing a Hungarian flag. Liszt himself was in a great mood, playing piano and a round of blind man's bluff with the ladies in attendance. He also planted a tree, which, according to von Cordier, went on to "rise toward the heavens, a symbol of his genius."

Today, the sycamore Liszt planted is one of the largest trees on Nonnenwerth, but it's not the only reminder of his stay on the island. Many of the composer's works were created here, including the elegy "Nonnenwerth" for violin and piano and the song "Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth," which drew on the text of a poem by Prince Felix Lichnowsky. It ends with the words, "This - the last of my songs - calls to you: Come again, come again!"

Listzt and d'Agoult returned to the island twice in the years 1842 and 1843 in times of immense crisis for their relationship. They separated after their last stay on Nonnenwerth.

But, as sister Hildegarda remarked, "Let's not get into that."

Author: Anastassia Boutsko / gsw
Editor: Sam Edmonds