Lisztomania - the History of the Fangirl

1841, Berlin.

A crowd of several thousand people have assembled.

Women decked in puffy gowns with layers and layers of petticoats, ignoring the abdominal tension caused by their bone-ribbed corsets. Men in their suits with neckerchiefs tied carefully into bows under their chins, cleanshaven, emphasising their rather long sideburns. A rather STIFF crowd of several thousand people, in fact, assembled in the Singakademie hall.

Something new and exciting is taking place, the first ever piano recital, and the man who came up with this concept will appear. The concept of one single pianist having a show all on his own. This man, Franz Liszt, arguably the most talentedpianist ever to live, enters the hall. He takes his seat at the piano and begins playing with skill the likes of which no-one has ever seen before, hands flying across the piano and yet producing delicate tones, moving on to more powerful and loud compositions.

Those who were critics are astonished. Those who said one man on a piano could not possibly entertain such a crowd were utterly wrong.

And upon finishing his set, Liszt threw his glove into the crowd.

The utter hysteria that took place, the women screaming and on some accounts fainting and the audience grabbing for that precious glove was completely incongruous in such a typically stiff era.

Spectators were afraid that those who watched this piano recital had lost their sanity.

Others thought some kind of fever had broken out.

Heinrich Heine, a writer called this phenomenon "Lisztomania".

Phoenix, a French band and one of my favorites released a song called "Lisztomania", and this forms my inspiration today.

It swept across Europe, with future audiences wearing Liszt's portrait on brooches and cameos, women grabbing for locks of his hair and broken piano strings to make bracelets. There are cases of women encasing his cigarette butts in lockets and never taking them off.

Liszt was the first rockstar of classical music to drive women wild, but nowadays screaming fangirls with posters of their favorite musicians lining their cupboard walls are not uncommon.

Fan girls can be described as female fanatics of a certain musician or band. They vary in extremity, with some merely appreciating the talent of their icons, others harboring crushes on them but knowing it is highly unrealistic that they will ever stand a chance, and some who go to great lengths arguing with fellow fangirls over who "owns" their muso of choosing.

Continuing our history lesson on fangirlism, we