TWO NEW RECIPIENTS OF THE LISZT MEDAL NAMED BY ALS BOARD
At its most recent meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Board of Directors
of the American Liszt Society voted to award the Medal of the American Liszt Society
to Dr. Elyse Mach and Dr. Rena Mueller. The medal is the Society's highest honor,
given to those who have distinguished themselves in their professional field as
outstanding advocates for the music and ideals of Franz Liszt.
Dr. Elyse Mach will receive the medal on Thursday evening, October 7, 2010,
during the Great Romantics Festival in Hamilton, Ontario. The citation submitted to
the Board regarding Dr. Mach reads:
"It is both a privilege and a pleasure to nominate Dr. Elyse Mach as a recipient of
the ALS Medal. Dr. Mach has published ten books in the course of her scholarly career,
some of which occupy honored places on our bookshelves, and have meanwhile brought her
to international attention. Among them are:
"Great Contemporary Pianists Speak for Themselves (2 volumes, 1980). This major
publication has done yeoman service across the years, has appeared both in hardback and in
paperback, and also in Japanese and Korean translations. Sir Georg Solti wrote the
introduction to the Dover paperback edition of 1991.
"The Liszt Studies: Essential Selections from Liszt's Own Technical Studies,
which includes the first English edition of the Lesson-Diary kept by Mme. Auguste Boissier
as a record of her daughter Valérie's lessons with Liszt (1831-32), translated here by
Elyse Mach, 1973.
"Franz Liszt: Rare and Familiar, with an Introduction by Liszt's great-granddaughter,
Blandine Ollivier de Prevaux, 1982.
"In addition, Dr. Mach has given us more than 100 articles in the course of her career,
many of them dealing with aspects of the life and work of Franz Liszt.
She has also done considerable service as a musical journalist, particularly through
the columns of Clavier Magazine (now Clavier Companion). Nor should her
considerable achievements in the field of piano pedagogy be overlooked, to whose
literature she has made significant contributions.
"It calls for a special literary gift to present Liszt to the world as the significant
and attractive personality that he was, a gift that Dr. Mach possesses in abundance,
and which she has been able to demonstrate through her writings, through her
personal presentations, and through her work in film biography."
Dr. Rena Mueller will receive the medal on Thursday evening, February 17, 2011
during the American Liszt Society Bicentennial Festival. The citation submitted
to the board regarding Dr. Mueller reads:
"In the last decade, Dr. Mueller's essays and chapters on various aspects of
Liszt research have been published in books from Editio Musica Budapest and
the university presses of Cambridge, Princeton, and Rochester. Since 1986
she has presented 22 papers on topics pertaining to Liszt at conferences in
Berlin, Budapest, Vienna, Eisenstadt, Stockholm, London, Bristol, Guildford,
Dublin, Angers, New York, San Francisco, Cleveland, Washington, DC, Baltimore,
Arizona State University, Rutgers University, and Bard College. To this must
be added her three editions of major works of Liszt for Editio Musica Budapest
and G. Henle Verlag.
"Dr. Mueller's greatest professional achievement, a joint effort with
Maria Eckhardt (ALS Medal recipient, 1985), is found in The New Grove Dictionary
of Music and Musicians (2001) -- "Franz Liszt: List of Works." These 87 pages
are an indispensable, fundamental tool for researchers and performers throughout
the world. The value of this work should not be measured by the number of pages,
but by the almost two decades of research preceding its publication.
"After considering the totality and indisputably major impact of Dr. Mueller's
scholarly contributions, we find her worthy of strong consideration for the ALS Medal."
Congratulations to these two outstanding Lisztians on this honor!