A Dream of Love

Before he produced and narrated Technicolor travelogues for MGM, James A. Fitzpatrick got his start in the late silent era producing and directing early musical shorts. Although he had been doing his Traveltalks for five years by the time this short came out, he still sometimes produced a musical short, heavy on the shmaltz. Usually he picked some old-timey composer like Stephen Foster. Here, it's Franz Lizst, who gets the kitschy treatment.

I hasten to agree that Liszt did have a romance with a young woman whose uncle broke it off, just as this short subject would have you believe. However, he also lived five years with a countess ("a rich countess with money" as my grandfather would have said), got married, and had children. All of us have had romances that ended badly. We get over them.

The music is quite beautiful. It's Liszt's music, after all. The arrangements are too ornate.