Praise for A Book of Liszts

(Variations on the theme of Franz Liszt)

Ingenious and entertaining, John Spurling’s .....bio-fiction spans the keyboard of Liszt’s life in 15 polymorphous chapters. Like the composer’s variations, they navigate among disparate forms with a sumptuous promiscuity.

Spurling’s book offers many pleasures. It fully inhabits the world of Liszt, and is a tremendous achievement.

Spurling has produced a fascinatingly hybrid and various book - perfectly suited to its subject and of great interest to both lovers of 19th-century music and anyone attracted to innovative forms of biography.

A most ingenious and original solution to the moral and aesthetic problems thrown up by the cult of biographical fiction....a brilliant set of supple variations encircling the life and career of the great virtuoso Franz Liszt.

A sophisticated, erudite entertainment.