Franz Liszt (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, and teacher. Liszt became renowned throughout Europe for his great skill as a performer during the 1800s. He is said to have been the most technically advanced and perhaps greatest pianist of all time. He was also an important and influential composer, a notable piano teacher, a conductor who contributed significantly to the modern development of the art, and a benefactor to other composers and performers, notably Richard Wagner and Hector Berlioz. As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the "Neudeutsche Schule" ("New German School"). He left behind a huge and diverse body of work, in which he influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated some twentieth-century ideas and trends. Some of his most notable 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. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.