Death and Resurrection Motifs in Narratives of Berlioz’s and Liszt’s Lives: D’Ortigue, Ramann, and Berlioz’s Mémoires

ABSTRACT The ways in which biographers mythologize their subjects’ lives (and the way they mythologize their own lives) have long been a topic of research in life-writing. Even though several musicologists have identified mythologizing “motifs,” the mythologizing function of “death” and “resurrection” remains under-theorized in relation to musical biography. Such motifs appear in biographies of Berlioz and Liszt written during their lifetimes, beginning with the earliest biographies of the composers, which were written by a friend, the music critic Joseph d’Ortigue. The meanings of these episodes changed when they appeared in auto/biographies written towards the end of their lives: Berlioz’s Mémoires and Lina Ramann’s Franz Liszt als Künstler und Mensch (the first “official” biography of Liszt, written partly under his guidance). In both of d’Ortigue’s biographical sketches, “resurrection” is associated with the broader social regeneration taking place in Paris in the wake of the July 1830 Revolution, thereby magnifying the composers’ importance. The ability to understand and conquer death is also positioned as an integral part of the composers’ apprenticeships, further inflating and mythologizing their status as artists.

In autumn 1828, several French newspapers incorrectly reported the tragic news that the remarkably gifted pianist Franz Liszt was dead. The obituary of the 17-year -old virtuoso was published in Le Corsaire, citing reports that had circulated as a result of Liszt's long retreat from the public eye following the death of his father, his disappointed love affair with Caroline Saint-Cricq (daughter of Charles X's minister of commerce), and a prolonged illness. Friends rebutted the rumors with their own press notices and gradually Liszt returned to the musical life of Paris. Biographers have placed considerable significance on this seemingly inconsequential misunderstanding, even though the period of his retreat from the public was hardly productive for Liszt: he did not compose anything substantial during this time, nor did he teach, perform, or even practice much. Nonetheless, authors have treated his "death" as a quasi-religious, revelatory experience. 1 In Liszt biographies, this "death" is followed by a glorious "resurrection," after which he composed his earliest significant works: the Revolutionary Symphony, later revised as the symphonic poem Héroïde funèbre, and the experimental Apparitions and Harmonies poétiques et religieuses.
Motifs of "death" and "resurrection" are not unique to Liszt biographies. Berlioz, in his Mémoires, describes a similar episode, which occurred after watching Harriet Smithson's performances in Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet in 1827. This was a revelatory experience for the composer, both in terms of encountering Shakespeare and seeing Smithson, with whom he famously became obsessed and later married. In the Mémoires, Berlioz recalls entering a "death-like sleep brought on by physical exhaustion." 2 His "resurrection" formed a watershed between the works of his youth and his new outlook as a mature, dramatic artist, suggesting that some of his most major works came about as a direct result of this experience: namely, Symphonie fantastique, Lélio, and Roméo et Juliette. 3 In both cases, the timing of these "deaths" and "resurrections" is crucial: "resurrection" precedes the composition of the subjects' first important works. In this way, "resurrection" motifs take on a structural role within their associated biographical narrative, marking the beginning of a new period in the composer's life and output. Their melodramatic nature and the connotations they evoke mean that they also have a mythologizing role, which is the focus of study in this article.
The ways in which biographers mythologize their subjects' lives (and the ways they mythologize their own lives, in the Berlioz example) have long been a topic of research. 4 Several musicologists have identified mythologizing "motifs." 5 Nevertheless, scholars are yet to examine the mythologizing function of "death" and "resurrection" in particular. This article examines the function and meaning of such motifs in biographies of Liszt and Berlioz written during their lifetimes. It begins by examining the earliest biographies of the composers, which were written by a friend: the music critic, Joseph d'Ortigue. It then considers how the meanings of these episodes had changed by the time they appeared in auto/biographies written towards the end of the composers' lives: Berlioz's Mémoires 6 and Lina Ramann's Franz Liszt als Künstler und Mensch (the first "official" biography of Liszt, written partly under his guidance). 7 In both cases, "resurrection" is associated with the broader social regeneration taking place in Paris in the wake of the July Revolution of 1830, thereby magnifying the composers' importance. The ability to understand and conquer death is also positioned as part of the composers' apprenticeships, further inflating and mythologizing their status as artists.

Meanings of death and resurrection in the nineteenth century
Resurrection stories have been recorded from the Middle Ages until today, and encompass mythology, religion, literature, and "real life" accounts. They have generated a variety of meanings, reflecting changing attitudes to death. 8 Religious readings tend to associate the resurrection of individuals with purification and the promise of eternal life in paradise. In Christianity and Judaism, the resurrection of individuals is often related to broader social regeneration. According to Kevin J. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson, resurrection in Judaism was linked to "the expectation of the dawning new age, to the belief that God was about to make a new creation and to vindicate his loyal people." 9 Similarly, Jesus' resurrection was interpreted by early Christians as a sign that a new age was imminent that would see the restoration of Israel and the judgement of sinners. 10 The concept of social regeneration was naturally popular in the Paris of the 1830s in which Liszt and Berlioz lived, and which had witnessed substantial political upheaval. The French Revolution from 1789-99 had sent shockwaves across Europe, and with the overthrow of the monarchy, the concept of the violent death of the old order followed by a new hopeful regime had become a reality. However, the Revolution had been followed by the French Revolutionary Wars, during which France attempted to expand her borders under the military leadership of Napoleon, who became Emperor of the French beginning in 1804. Following Napoleon's abdication in 1814, France was in a state of disarray. they had lost in the Revolution-proved extremely unpopular. The ensuing unrest culminated in an uprising in Paris in 1830, known as the July Revolution, which was seemingly successful: Charles X was forced to abdicate. The provisional government placed Louis Philippe of the House of Orléans on the throne as a constitutional monarch. Although the July Monarchy was overthrown in 1848, the July Revolution initially produced optimism and sparked similar uprisings elsewhere in Europe. 11 Again, there was the sense of a new beginning, in which society would experience greater freedom, democracy, and equality. Alongside this political turmoil, the nineteenth century saw a revival of Catholicism, which offered consolation for the suffering caused by the revolutions, and which turned the religion itself almost into a social movement, through the influence of writers and thinkers such as Chateaubriand and Lamennais. 12 Life-after-death stories, which had waned after the Reformation, became prominent again in connection with the popularity of spiritual movements. 13 Poets such as Victor Hugo associated death with social renewal (such as the equality promised by the revolutions) and redemption. 14 Many theologians began to struggle with the concept of another world existing after death. They felt, in the words of Bernard Reardon, that Somehow or other eternal life has to be seen to be lived here and now, eternity itself to be a dimension of the present order of things, the basic Christian values rooted in this world, Jesus Christ to be the man in whom all men may see their own idealized reflection. 15 The shifting of emphasis from the hope of a paradise after death, to a paradise on earth, resonated with those trying to make sense of the violence and turmoil of revolution. The idea that the conflict and destruction caused by the revolutions was necessary to the dawning of a new, harmonious age was a popular one that was taken up by the religious and social thinker Pierre Ballanche in his unfinished Essais de palingénésie sociale, and by the Saint-Simonians, the most influential social movement of the time, founded in 1825 by disciples of the deceased philosopher Henri de Saint-Simon. 16 Because their ideas had a significant influence on d'Ortigue and colored his discussion of Liszt's and Berlioz's "resurrections," it is necessary to consider them briefly. The idea of social and artistic regeneration, with strong connotations of a general resurrection, was central to the Saint-Simonians and to Ballanche. The Saint-Simonians viewed history as the alternation of "organic ages" and "critical ages." As noted by Arthur McCalla, in organic ages, "a common set of values, embodied in religion, war, etc., binds society together and gives meaning to individual lives." 17 However, eventually these ages disintegrate and are replaced by critical ages "in which reason and irony destroy the dearest values of the preceding age and sever individual lives from transcendent meaning." 18 Once these values have been destroyed, the critical age is followed by another organic age and the cycle of destruction and regeneration continues. Critical ages are characterized by "antagonism" or violence, and organic ages by "association" or harmony. The Saint-Simonians did not believe in purposeless, never-ending alternations: as the cycle progresses, antagonism decreases and harmony increases, and with each cycle society moves closer to total harmony. Following the critical age of the Enlightenment and the "antagonism" of the French Revolution, the Saint-Simonians believed they were on the cusp of a new organic age, which would see society united by the values of Saint-Simonism itself. They believed that art was central to uniting humanity and guiding them to this new era.
Ballanche's ideas had much in common with Saint-Simonism. 19 Ballanche saw the progression of history as a means of man's rehabilitation from the Fall described in Genesis. As in Saint-Simonian doctrine, Ballanche argued that society progresses through a series of different social orders in which humankind's tendency to destruction is gradually repressed and replaced at each stage by greater social harmony. With each cycle, a greater proportion of humanity therefore understands the spiritual, redemptive nature of society. Ballanche referred to these enlightened people as "patricians," and to the remainder as "plebeians." According to McCalla, for Ballanche, a new social order would occur when "a group of plebeians, who, through suffering endured, merit accession into the rights and privileges of society, are initiated into the social order by patricians." 20 Eventually, everyone would be initiated and humanity would have achieved its earthly phase of rehabilitation. According to Ballanche, the transition between each social order is traumatic, incurring violence and chaos. Again, echoes of Saint-Simonism are apparent in Ballanche's belief that at the birth of a new age, "the values of the old order are destroyed before those of the new order are established." 21 Much of Ballanche's theory exercised the language of death and resurrection: he referred to the concept as a whole as "palingenesis," or spiritual rebirth. Such concepts of death and resurrection were particularly evocative for those living in the heady environment of 1830s Paris, when the first biographies of Liszt and Berlioz were written, to which we now turn.

D'Ortigue on Berlioz and Liszt
Joseph d'Ortigue arrived in Paris as a lawyer in 1827, but soon switched careers to that of music critic, publishing his first brochure, De la guerre des dilletanti, in 1829. D'Ortigue was a fervent Catholic who was interested in the volatile political landscape of his time. His personal religious philosophy was imbued with Ballanche's ideas and the beliefs of Saint-Simonism. He argued that music should be connected to contemporary social developments, and saw this as a means of music achieving its new spiritual regeneration. Borrowing Ballanche's term, he even published an article entitled "Palingénésie musicale" in 1833, in which he divided the history of music into periods along the lines of palingenesis. 22 D'Ortigue believed that, at each stage, musical developments corresponded to the social conditions of the time and music altered and renewed itself in line with the necessary broader regeneration. As in Ballanche's theory, d'Ortigue held that some eras were destructive and others productive, arguing that certain musical developments needed to languish and die in order to make way for new ones. He traced the development of music beginning with the organ music of the Middle Ages, during which time both music and civilization were in harmony with the values of Christianity. He argued that music later became divorced from Christianity and developed in two different directions: keyboard and orchestral music. He predicted the dawning of a new age, beginning with the school of Beethoven-as opposed to Rossini. In this new school, music and religion would once again be united, as would keyboard and orchestral music, as composers applied orchestral effects to music for the piano. 23 The concepts of death and regeneration were central to d'Ortigue's understanding of both the development of society, and the (entwined) progression of music history. D'Ortigue was a close friend to Berlioz, promoting his music throughout his life. His short biographical sketch of the composer appeared in the Revue de Paris on December 23, 1832. It was mostly written by d'Ortigue, but Berlioz also supplied a few paragraphs, which are differentiated in bold type in Sylvia L'Écuyer's modern edition of the article. 24 D'Ortigue's access to his subject might be considered a strength of the biography, but we must also recognize that Berlioz's role in its formulation offered the composer a unique opportunity to construct and control his public image.
L'Écuyer's edition reveals that Berlioz supplied most of the material about his love for Harriet Smithson and his experience of her performances of Shakespeare. The melodramatic account is instructive as an example of the mythologizing strategies used in nineteenth-century biography. Berlioz's narrative, as mediated through d'Ortigue's sketch, tells us that during the third year of his "inconceivable" passion, the composer heard of a terrible "slander" about Smithson from a friend. In reaction, he disappeared from Paris for two days. His friends searched everywhere for him, even the morgue. Walking aimlessly, he ended up spending the night in a field, lying on some bales of wheat. The next day he continued to wander without eating anything. Finally, depleted by starvation and fatigue, he fell down in a ditch, in which he slept deeply. He returned to Paris in the middle of the following night to the great surprise of his friends, who had assumed he was dead. 25 Berlioz's deep sleep appeared similar to a vegetative, trance-like state. The account ends with a simple sentence: "Six months later, Symphonie Fantastique had been written." 26 Berlioz had significantly compressed the time between seeing Smithson in Hamlet and the composition of Symphonie Fantastique, a period of some three years, creating the impression that the symphony was a direct consequence of this experience. Something comparable to death is implied in Berlioz's absence and deep sleep, and the Symphonie Fantastique correspondingly symbolizes a musical rebirth.
Motifs of death and resurrection are not yet explicitly included in this account; that would come later in the Mémoires. Nonetheless, Berlioz's biographical anecdote seemed to speak to d'Ortigue. From this point onwards, d'Ortigue takes over the narrative. He begins by arguing that this episode in the composer's life was indispensable for understanding Berlioz's music, asserting that it is imperative that the listener understand the circumstances in which Berlioz wrote his music, and how he felt at the time. D'Ortigue placed his criticism of the music against the backdrop of Berlioz's experience of awakening from a death-like state to write the Symphonie Fantastique, arguing for a close connection between Berlioz's near-death experience and his music.
It is perhaps natural that d'Ortigue would make this connection, given the program of Symphonie Fantastique, in which "the artist" (widely believed at the time to refer to Berlioz himself) famously experiences an opium-induced dream in which he witnesses his own execution. Then, in the "Witches' Sabbath" movement, he is terrified by a gathering of ghosts and ghouls who have come to attend his funeral. However, d'Ortigue went further than the particular content of Symphonie Fantastique. He discussed Berlioz's contribution to music explicitly in terms of regeneration, alluding to the dawning of a new age for society and music. His language is brimming with the fervor of revolution, declaring that "there are volcanic periods when human intelligence, concealing new elements, becomes isolated, smolders, kindles an unknown fire and produces a tremendous explosion." 28 He described those who did not understand Berlioz's music as being "washed up on the banks of our century by the tide of the last." Such people were obstacles to progress: "they stand motionless as they watch the crowd moving forward with an air of astonishment and they ask them 'Where are you going? Turn back. '" 29 This section recalls Ballanche's divide between "plebeians" and "patricians," and his idea that in each epoch, a greater proportion of people understand the spiritual nature of society, become civilized, and attain freedom. D'Ortigue's hyperbolic language presented Berlioz's music as part of a new stage in the historical progression of music: "We believe we can see in Berlioz's symphony the prelude to a revolution in instrumental music and a new dramatic development." 30 It is clear that d'Ortigue saw Berlioz as the harbinger of a new age. Although it was not the finished product, Berlioz's music represented "one more step towards this age of musical regeneration at which we will arrive through the progress of instrumentation." 31 D'Ortigue followed Berlioz's own description of his awakening from a death-like state with a discussion of the composer's role in musical and social rebirth. He did not directly link the specific biographical episode to the musical discussion, 28 Ortigue, Écrits sur la musique, 284. All translations are my own. The original reads: "Se doutent-ils qu'il est des époques volcaniques où l'intelligence humaine, recelant des éléments nouveaux, s'isole, fermente, couve un feu inconnu et produit une explosion formidable?". 29 Ortigue, Écrits sur la musique, 283. "Déposés aux bords de notre siècle par le flot du siècle passé, ils regardent, immobiles et d'un air étonné, la foule qui marche en avant, et lui disant: « Où allez-vous? Retournez donc arrière »." 30 Ortigue, Écrits sur la musique, 287. "Nous croyons voir dans la symphonie de Berlioz le prélude d'une révolution dans la musique instrumentale et un nouveau développement dramatique." 31 Ortigue, Écrits sur la musique, 288. "Oui, c'est là un pas de plus vers cette époque de régénération musicale à laquelle nous arriverons par les progrès de l'instrumentation." but the concept of an end and a new beginning, of casting off the old to enable regeneration, is central to both. As d'Ortigue developed his ideas on musical palingenesis, he would make more direct links between the motifs of "death" and "resurrection" and the unfolding of a composer's life in his biographical essay on Liszt, published in the Gazette musicale de Paris on June 14, 1835. By this point, d'Ortigue's ideas on musical and social regeneration were more advanced: he positions Liszt's "resurrections" as central to the composer's development as an artist. D'Ortigue describes two symbolic "resurrections": Liszt's first "death" occurred after the passing of his father, which d'Ortigue treats as revelatory, because it represented Liszt's first encounter with the mysteries of death: Like a wilted stem bending gradually towards the ground, young Liszt was imperceptibly expiring, bending toward the earth that carried within it the remains of his father, when his eyes moved away from the past, where a tomb was all he could still see, to look at the future. Then, his life appeared to him divided into two parts: on the one side, he saw that his career of obedience had spent itself; on the other side, he glimpsed a career of freedom to be fulfilled. Proudly raising his lowered head, still enveloped in the shadows of death, he resolved to walk straight toward the light that shone in the distance. 32 D'Ortigue describes an out-of-body experience, during which Liszt almost died, but was determined to live. D'Ortigue believed that Liszt learned an important lesson about how his work should progress in future, his "resurrection" creating a dividing line between a past career in which he was obedient to others, namely his father and the whims of the public, and the future in which he would have freedom to forge his own independent path as a mature artist. The result, d'Ortigue suggests, was that Liszt purged his playing technique of mannerisms, concessions, and the influences of others.
In d'Ortigue's sketch, Liszt's second "resurrection" follows soon after his first. Delicately alluding to Liszt's affair with Saint-Cricq, which had been forbidden by her father, d'Ortigue reports that this prompted a spiritual separation, in which Liszt removed himself from earthly distractions to contemplate the divine. 33 For the first time the reader encounters Liszt as a composer, rather than a performer, and more specifically, his plans to compose religious music. The language used by d'Ortigue suggests that Liszt again became detached from the world. For d'Ortigue, Liszt's music "depicted the world as he glimpsed it in his lofty detachment from earthly things." 34 D'Ortigue does not mention death, but suggests an out-of-body experience during which Liszt "contemplated the divine" and "supernatural life." D'Ortigue's language suggests a visionary, transformational experience.
Nevertheless, Liszt's body could not cope with the soaring of his soul in such ethereal realms; d'Ortigue reports that Liszt was then plunged into the illness that prompted the premature notices of his death in the press: When a soul gets the taste of the supernatural life with such plenitude and superabundance, it is usually at the expense of the life of the body. Liszt fell ill; his vital faculties soon wore themselves out in the prodigious activity of his intelligence and sensitivity. A decline that lasted six months, the progress of which was terrifying, persuaded some that he was dying. 35 D'Ortigue structures the rest of Liszt's life around relapses and regenerations. These episodes were prompted by a dichotomy that d'Ortigue (and many others) noted in Liszt's character: the spiritual and the sensual. D'Ortigue interprets these episodes as spiritual experiences, during which Liszt disconnected from everyday life and afterwards composed religious music. In many cases, d'Ortigue notes that these experiences were followed by destructive periods, during which Liszt became cynical, mocked religion, was distracted by sensuous Italian music, and became caught up in the rational literature of his age rather than spiritual texts. These relapses and regenerations echo the Saint-Simonians' organic ages of religious harmony, and critical ages in which reason destroyed commonly held values and life became severed from transcendent meaning. D'Ortigue's writing of Liszt's life in this way also complements his own personal theory of the dialectical development of music history as a series of regenerations. Liszt's spiritual regenerations correspond with d'Ortigue's view of the role of art as intimately connected to society, and the role of music in civilizing and uniting society. For d'Ortigue, Liszt's "resurrections" enabled him to compose the religious music that would achieve these broader goals.

"Death and "resurrection" in later auto/biographies of Berlioz and Liszt
The "death" and "resurrection" motifs found in d'Ortigue's early biographies of Berlioz and Liszt also appeared in auto/biographies published towards the end of the composers' lives. In both cases, the presentation and meaning of these motifs changed slightly. In d'Ortigue's biographies, "death" and "resurrection" motifs are mythologizing to a degree: they certainly contribute to the impression that both composers were producing work of profound importance. Nonetheless, their main function was to illustrate the socio-religious role of music within d'Ortigue's personal philosophy. In d'Ortigue's biographies, "death" is metaphorical. The composers' deaths are akin to entering a different mental statewhether a deep sleep, as in the Berlioz biography, or a spiritual, out-of-body experience, as in Liszt's. In later life-writing, the motifs are exaggerated and the 35 Ortigue, "The First Biography," 320.
composers' deaths appear more real and physical, creating the impression that the composers have learned to conquer death; accordingly, the motifs assume a mythologizing role.
Throughout his career as a critic, Berlioz had published autobiographical fragments recounting episodes from his life. 36 In March 1848, he decided that the time had come to write his Mémoires. Although some of the material of the Mémoires (not including the episode concerning Harriet Smithson) was based on earlier articles, which Berlioz revised and shaped into a coherent account, he composed the majority of the book in the final months of 1848. 37 Berlioz's description in his Mémoires of the experience of seeing Smithson in Hamlet reveals some differences from the one related by d'Ortigue in 1832. Intriguingly, he emphasizes the aspects of the narrative that concern the "death." He shortens the time between attending the Shakespeare performance and feeling physical pain, which, in the account in his Mémoires, begins immediately. He also provides greater detail concerning his trancelike wanderings. Instead of merely recalling that his friends believed him dead because they could not find him, he introduces waiters into the story, who mistake his seemingly lifeless body for a corpse. We also learn that every further encounter with Smithson brought on similar symptoms, pushing Berlioz to the brink of death: I had been lying since the previous evening crushed, moribund on my bed, when at three in the afternoon I got up mechanically to the window and looked out … I saw Miss Smithson get into her carriage … It is difficult to put into words what I suffered-the longing that seemed to be tearing my heart out by the roots, the dreadful sense of being alone in an empty universe, the agonies that thrilled through me as if the blood were running ice-cold in my veins, the disgust with living, the impossibility of dying. 38 Berlioz's language is melodramatic, playing up the importance of his experiences of "death." He amplifies his description, lengthening it, and emphasizing his physical symptoms. The reader learns that after watching Smithson in Hamlet, he was "hardly able to breathe-as though an iron hand gripped me by the heart-I knew that I was lost.' 39 This is not the vegetative state or spiritual out-of-body experience described by 36 See Citron, "The Mémoires," 129-30, for details of these fragments. Berlioz's music criticism could also be considered autobiographical to a certain extent, since he regularly refers to himself within it. d'Ortigue. The death-like symptoms depicted here are physical: constricting the airways, causing pain, and chilling the blood. 40 The reader is left with the impression that to overcome this experience would not merely mean waking from a deep sleep or coming out of a trance, but fighting back against death itself.
Christopher Wiley has examined the motivations behind autobiographical revisionism in the case of Ethel Smyth, arguing that differences in her discussions of other female composers were motivated by her desire to position herself as a lone female pioneer in the masculine world of music composition. 41 Berlioz's revisions seem to be motivated by a similar desire to refashion his own image for posterity. In his later version, the "resurrection" motifs are part of a romanticizing, mythologizing process, creating the impression that Berlioz had somehow succeeded in mastering death.
Indeed, Berlioz's Mémoires incorporate further experiences with death in addition to this episode. His writing suggests that, during his formative years in Paris and his time in Italy as winner of the Prix de Rome, not only did he frequently encounter death, but his experiences formed an important part of his musical apprenticeship. For example, he juxtaposes his studies of death as a medical student with his influential first experiences of the Opéra. The two become intertwined: "I sang Danaüs' aria 'The kindly strokes of destiny' as I sawed my 'subject's' skull." 42 Other anecdotes throughout his Italian years contributed to this apprenticeship in death. He examines tombs 43 ; amid an outbreak of influenza, he follows cartloads of dead bodies to a church, observing the organic forces of putrefaction 44 ; and he pays to enter a church so that he can view the corpse of a beautiful young woman before she was interred. 45 He also tests his mortality by climbing dangerous precipices and allowing himself to be soaked to the skin, retrospectively commenting that "I did things then that would kill me now." 46 All of these anecdotes create the impression that Berlioz's apprenticeship in Italy involved him learning about death from medical, spiritual, and artistic perspectives. They suggest that understanding and conquering death were necessary to Berlioz's becoming a mature composer. Significantly, from the time he returned to Paris in 1832 to resume his career, there are substantially fewer references to death in the Mémoires; Berlioz employed death and resurrection motifs principally to dramatize and mythologize the period of his transition to maturity as an artist. 47 As a sensationally famous, charismatic figure, fantastic stories swirled in biographies of Liszt throughout his lifetime. He often grumbled about this in private, but the fact that he chose not to set the record straight suggests that he may have enjoyed the myth-making surrounding his life story. 48 The closest we have to a memoir is Lina Ramann's Franz Liszt als Künstler und Mensch, which was written in consultation with Liszt, using questionnaires, interviews, and his correspondence. 49 Because Liszt had the opportunity to read and annotate the majority of the book before publication, we must once again consider the subject's role in fashioning his own image. 50 The book was commissioned in 1874 and the two volumes appeared in three parts in 1880, 1887, and 1894. Because Liszt died in 1886, Ramann was in a better position than d'Ortigue to determine how to integrate Liszt's "resurrection(s)" within the narrative of his life as a whole, and how that life might be mapped onto broader developments in nineteenth-century society and culture. Ramann describes two "resurrections"-one in childhood, and the other following the separation from Saint-Cricq-which she saw as related to each other. D'Ortigue also mentioned the first of these incidents, but did not ascribe to it the importance that Ramann did, and did not couple the "death" with a symbolic resurrection in this case. Ramann, conversely, reports that the young Liszt became so engrossed in music and his study of the piano that, Now all at once, his inner life experienced such an intensification, beyond his own limits, that his physical existence began to suffer from it. A change became noticeable. His whole nervous system seemed shaken, and was completely under the influence of the musical sounds he so passionately loved and sought. His body appeared to be ailing, and his strength to decline. He grew feverish, without any particular illness being pronounced with certainty. 51 Like Berlioz in the Mémoires, Liszt had experienced an artistic shock that caused his decline. Ramann also focuses on the physical symptoms of Liszt's "death" in a way similar to the Mémoires, although her description is not as graphic. She describes a fever, the collapse of Liszt's nervous system, and a declining of his strength that caused him to lose the ability to walk. 52 Much as Berlioz had introduced waiters into his story, Ramann also includes witnesses in her account, contributing to the impression that it really did seem that Liszt had died. She reports that Liszt's parents lost hope and the village carpenter began to build his coffin.
However, as in the regenerations in d'Ortigue's biographical sketch, Liszt returned to life transformed. Ramann does not describe what brought about Liszt's recovery, thereby adding to the mystery of the episode; instead, she moves straight on to its consequences. According to her, Liszt emerged a better pianist, a more spiritual person, stronger in his identity and convictions, and, significantly, beginning to compose for the first time: On the whole, after his illness, his musical and other qualities became fixed and more decided-he played by ear, he transposed into other keys. He still sought his Klängen, as he called his self-composed harmonies and modulations; also he began to indulge in free fantasias on certain melodies. He varied them, and played a wonderful game with them, now like a child who practices sleights of hand with his ball, and now like a grown man pouring out his overflowing heart.
His general characteristics also appeared more and more decisive. In the first place there was a strongly pronounced love of truth. He did not apologize for or deny his childish follies. He was fearless in his confessions. 53 Ramann attaches to this "resurrection" meanings similar to d'Ortigue's, suggesting that it prompted a spiritual and musical regeneration for Liszt.
As in d'Ortigue's biography, the second "resurrection" described by Ramann occurred after Saint-Cricq's father forbade her relationship with Liszt. Ramann indicates that Liszt suffered greatly and sought isolation and religious consolation. She suggests that the composer entered a trancelike state. As in d'Ortigue's account, music offered a means for him to journey to a higher, spiritual state: "the youth soared up in the streams of harmony to the realm of the supernatural." 54 Equally, we learn of the effect of the experience on Liszt's body: 52  A nervous exhaustion came on which became very serious. All the vital powers appeared to have run out, and mind and body broke down, refusing all activity.
A similar condition to that in his childhood seized him. … Gradually his strength declined, until he could no longer leave the house. 55 Eventually Liszt's death was assumed and reported in l'Étoile, which his mother interpreted as a fatal omen. 56 According to Ramann, Liszt lingered in this death-like state until the July Revolution of 1830. Whereas d'Ortigue had only hinted at a connection between Liszt's "resurrections" and broader political events, Ramann positioned the Revolution as a vital catalyst for his return to health: "'C'est le canon qui l'a guéri' [The guns cured him]-his mother used to say when, in later years, she related these events." 57 As in d'Ortigue's account, Liszt returns regenerated. However, this regeneration was less spiritual than in d'Ortigue's reading. Ramann suggests that Liszt was physically and mentally stronger than before, and was now ready to assume a practical role within society: From the moment of the July Revolution, Liszt's nature became quite changed. He showed an increased resilience. Physical indisposition, associated with his previous illness, no longer overpowered him-"C'est le canon qui l'a guéri!" His sympathies and antipathies were decisive in all directions, and what was hitherto vague and fermenting in him, was now more clearly expressed. He no longer retreated to his religious exercises and reflections: he entered into life and placed himself, with his thirst for knowledge and his awakening zest for action, in the ground of issues of our time-a blazing and dangerous ground! 58 Ramann did not share d'Ortigue's agenda of using Liszt's biography as an outlet for philosophical ideas about social reform. Even so, she similarly places Liszt's "death" and "resurrection" against broader changes in society and art. Ramann uses language associated with resurrection, describing developments in terms of endings and new beginnings, and conflated the dawning of a new political age with the dawning of a new artistic one: The hot July days, with the play of military bands, were not only the splendid finale of the Restoration epoch, they were at the same time a significant prelude to new intellectual currents which, on the artistic side, produced the type of Romantic who, while not free from distorting disguises, could not hide the mind which was working seriously and seeking a higher truth. 59 Ramann was excited about the future of music and determinedly devoted to the agenda of the New German School, of which Liszt was a figurehead. The motif of resurrection plays an important role in Ramann's biography, as it does in d'Ortigue's, but she shifts its meaning. Like d'Ortigue, she suggests that Liszt's experience of "death" and "resurrection" enabled him to become a greater artist and man. However, at the same time, she sees a broader resurrection in the dawning of Romanticism, specifically the arrival of the New German School, rather than a new Ballanchian harmonious social age. Having experienced the failed 1848 revolutions, Ramann may also have been sceptical as to whether a new age of social harmony would ever arrive. Either way, her main focus was Liszt's music rather than political philosophy. Resurrection motifs are, therefore, an important part of Ramann's canonizing strategy, ensuring the position of the New German School within the history and future of music.
Like Berlioz, Ramann focuses on the physical details of Liszt's death. Again, this creates the impression that Liszt's "deaths" were not merely symbolic or spiritual, as they were for d'Ortigue. Instead, Liszt is portrayed as having overcome something physically. She also adds to the mystery of the two "resurrections." In the first she provides neither the cause for, nor the antidote to, Liszt's decline, merely suggesting that he became too engrossed in music. She also observes that these were the only times that Liszt was ever ill. 60 Having known Liszt only towards the end of his life, she would have known first-hand that this was not accurate, and therefore embellished the facts to make her subject appear superhuman. 61 Ramann's emphasis of these anecdotes, and the details she inserted, help to mythologize her subject, presenting him as an exceptional individual who had conquered death.

Conclusions
The biographies examined here employ resurrection motifs for similar purposes: to mythologize the subjects, making them appear superhuman, and to make their music seem profoundly important. Nonetheless, the meanings of resurrection inevitably changed in response to the cultural, religious, and political factors of the time in which the biographies were written, as well as to the particular motivations of the authors. In employing these motifs, biographers engaged with contemporary attitudes. As demonstrated here, d'Ortigue placed the "resurrections" of Liszt and Berlioz within his own philosophy of historical and musical progression. The composers regenerated as mature artists who were able to compose music that was in harmony with religion and society. Their advent marked the dawn of a new age for music, just as the Revolution marked the dawn of a new social era. Resurrection motifs are an equally important part of Ramann's project to canonize Liszt and to promote the agenda of the New German School.
The texts discussed have had an important influence on later ones, suggesting that the mythologizing role of death and resurrection motifs may have wider reach than the specific biographies mentioned here. Berlioz, as we have seen, embellished part of d'Ortigue's biographical sketch in his widely-read Mémoires. Several of the anecdotes in d'Ortigue's sketch of Liszt, such as the famous "Weihekuß" allegedly bestowed on Liszt by Beethoven, have appeared in numerous later biographies. 62 The way Ramann structured and interpreted Liszt's life has provided an influential model that was followed by many others, including Alan Walker, author of the most extensive English-language Liszt biography to date. Walker's chapters dealing with Liszt's "resurrection" following the Saint-Cricq affair are particularly indebted to Ramann. 63 Similarly, David Cairns included all of the references to death and "resurrection" examined here in his landmark biography of Berlioz, basing these episodes on the accounts given in the Mémoires and including extensive quotations. Given the considerable influence that early biographies of Berlioz and Liszt continue to exert on life-writing on these composers, it is vital to understand the mythologizing strategies they employ, including the function and meaning of "resurrection" motifs.