Carl Tausig

Tausig was born in Warsaw to Jewish parents and received his first piano lessons from his father, the pianist and composer Aloys Tausig, a student of Sigismond Thalberg. At fourteen his father introduced him to Franz Liszt in Weimar. He quickly became a favourite pupil, travelling with Liszt on concert tours and studying counterpoint, composition and orchestration as well as the piano. At sixteen he met Richard Wagner and became a devoted follower and friend; he also formed a lasting admiration for Johannes Brahms. He made piano arrangements of many of Wagner’s operas and introduced Wagner to his friend Peter Cornelius.

In 1858 he made his Berlin debut at a concert conducted by Hans von Bülow. Some critics admired his technical feats; others found the playing noisy and overbearing, and even sympathetic listeners thought the “Lisztian eccentricities” would settle with maturity. He toured German towns in 1859–60 from a base in Dresden, then moved to Vienna in 1862, where he gave concerts of modern orchestral music, including some of his own symphonic poems. The series was only partly successful artistically and a failure financially.

After several years out of public view, during which he married the pianist Seraphine von Vrabely (1841–1931), he returned to the platform with a broader, more dignified style. He settled in Germany and in 1865 opened a piano school in Berlin, which soon closed. He toured throughout Europe, but the strain of travelling weakened his health. He died in Leipzig of typhoid at the age of twenty-nine. His grave is preserved in the Protestant Friedhof III der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde in Berlin-Kreuzberg, south of Hallesches Tor.