The chapter focuses on the materiality of emotions
from the perspective of the rise of musical celebrities in the early
nineteenth-century Europe. It concentrates on Franz Liszt and his affective
gravitation, especially on his relationship with the active, often fanatic
audience who participated in the performances and was ready to express openly
its emotions. Heinrich Heine coined the term “Lisztomania” to describe the
hysterical relationship of the audience towards the famous virtuoso. In many
contemporary reviews Liszt’s emotional contagiousness and those mysterious
powers that drew people towards him were intensively discussed. The chapter
analyzes the materiality of emotions both from the perspective of the
emotionality of the audience but also by focusing on how Liszt was interpreted
as a generator of emotionality, as an assemblage of human and non-human forces.
The chapter draws on a wide array of contemporary sources, newspapers and
journals, images, letters and memoirs.