Born in the province of Posen, Liebling was from a prominent Jewish family of musicians.

[2] His three brothers, Georg, Emil, and Max Liebling, were also successful pianists, and all four of them were trained on the piano by Franz Liszt.

His older brother Max moved to New York City as a teenager having already had a career as a concert pianist in Europe.

[1] In addition to his time as a pupil of Liszt, Sally Liebling pursued further studies in music and the piano under Theodor Kullak, Franz Bendel and Carl Friedrich Weitzmann in Berlin.

[3] He made a number of concert tours in Germany, and with Theodore Thomas's orchestra in the United States (1875).