Composer Liszt’s bronze bust for School of Music

The Hungarian government has presented a bust of composer Franz Liszt to Cork to mark his historic connections to the city.

The 16-stone bronze piece, by the distinguished Hungarian sculptor, Katalin Gero, was unveiled at the CIT Cork School of Music’s Fleischmann Library over the weekend by the deputy speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly, István Jakab.

Liszt was a renowned 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher.

In 1840 and 1841, he performed in Dublin, Limerick and in Cork where he performed in the Clarence Hall of the Imperial Hotel, before he went on to tour the country studying traditional Irish music.

The wife of the great Aloys Fleischmann, Tilly, also studied in Munich where she was taught by two of Liszt’s star pupils.

The bust presentation was arranged through the offices of Hungary’s ambassador to Ireland, Dr Tamás Magyarics, a classical music fan who asked for a tour of CIT’s School of Music shortly after his appointment. He said his government wanted to mark Liszt’s connection to Ireland, but especially his link to Cork, home to what he described as one of the country’s greatest music schools.

Ms Gero’s busts of Liszt are widely acclaimed — one is sited in the centre of Budapest, another was donated by Budapest to Warsaw on the occasion of the Liszt bicentenary in 2011, and the third is in Belgrade’s Manjez Park, near the Serbian Faculty of Music.

“We are profoundly honoured that the fourth cast is to be located in its Fleischmann Library,” said Dr Geoffrey Spratt, the director of the CIT School of Music.

The unveiling ceremony was preceded by a short recital by young Hungarian pianist, Dávid Szilasi.