In 1861 Liszt moved to Rome with the intent of marrying his longtime companion, Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who was seeking a Papal annulment of her previous marriage. After many vicissitudes, her application proved unsuccessful, but Liszt nevertheless remained in Rome, where he became friendly with Pope Pius IX and other high-ranking Catholic officials. He devoted much of his time to the study and composition of church music, and in 1865 he took holy orders; from then on, he was called Abbé Liszt.

From 1869 until his death, Liszt maintained homes in Rome (where the Princess still lived), Budapest, and Weimar; he travelled among them each year. Earlier in his career he had served as music director in Weimar, while Budapest was the capital of his native Hungary. (Liszt never learned to speak Hungarian, but he identified strongly with the Hungarian national cause, especially in his later years.) During this period Liszt redoubled his pedagogical efforts; although he accepted no fees, he spent much of his time teaching his famous master classes, which were attended by many of the best young pianists, as well as a variety of other admirers and music lovers. He performed in public infrequently, but his demonstrations in these classes showed that he retained his unparalleled abili­ties at the keyboard. (Despite Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877, nearly a decade before his death, Liszt apparently never made any record­ings; we know his playing only through the accounts of those who heard him.) He continued to compose, and our exhibit includes three works from this period: two annotated copyist’s manuscripts (“Sunt lacrimae rerum” and “Sursum
Corda”) from the Années de pélerinage, 3é Année, as well as Liszt’s manuscript additions to a piano etude by Jean Louis Nicodé. In April 1886 he spent three weeks in England, where he gave several public recitals, and also performed privately for Queen Victoria. Despite his rapidly declining health, that summer he attended the Wagner festival at Bayreuth (now headed by his daughter Cosima), but he died there on July 31, 1886.