Pauline ApelLiszt's housekeeper at Weimar
Pauline ApelLiszt's housekeeper at Weimar
Here Goethe and Schiller once promenaded in a company that has become historic. And cannot Weimar lay claim to aTannhäuserperformance as early as 1849, the Lohengrin production in 1850, and the Flying Dutchman in 1853? What a collection of musical manuscripts, trophies, jewels, pictures, orders, letters—I saw one from Charles Baudelaire to Liszt—and testimonials from all over the globe, which accumulated during the career of this extraordinary man!
The Steinway grand pianoforte, once so dearly prized by the master, has been taken away to make room for the many cases containing precious gifts from sovereigns, the scores of the Christus, Faust Symphony, Orpheus, Hungaria, Berg Symphony,Totentanz, andFestklänge. But the old instrument upon which he played years ago still stands in one of the rooms. Marble casts of Liszt's, Beethoven's, and Chopin's hands are on view; also Liszt's hand firmly clasping the slender fingers of the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein. Like Chopin, Liszt attracted princesses as sugar buzzing flies.
There is a new Weimar—not so wonderful as the two old Weimars—the Weimar of Anna Amalia and Karl August, of Goethe, Wieland, Herder, and Schiller, Johanna Schopenhauer and her sullen son Arthur, the pessimistic philosopher—andnot the old Weimar of Franz Liszt and his brilliant cohort of disciples; nevertheless, a new Weimar, its intellectual rallying-point the home of Elisabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, the tiny and lovable sister of the great dead poet-philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche.
To drift into this delightful Thuringian town; to stop at some curious old inn with an eighteenth century name like the Hotel Zum Elephant; to walk slowly under the trees of the ducal park, catching on one side a glimpse of Goethe's garden house, on the other Liszt's summer home, where gathered the most renowned musicians of the globe—these and many other sights and reminiscences will interest the passionate pilgrim—interest and thrill. If he be bent upon exploring the past glories of the Goethe régime there are bountiful opportunities; the Goethe residence, the superb Goethe and Schiller archives, the ducal library, the garden house, the Belvidere—here we may retrace all the steps of that noble, calm Greek existence from robust young manhood to the very chamber wherein the octogenarian uttered his last cry of "More light!" a cry that not only symbolised his entire career, but has served since as a watchword for poetry, science, and philosophy.
If you are musical, is there not the venerable opera-house wherein more than a half century ago Lohengrin, thanks to the incredible friendship and labour of Franz Liszt, was first given a hearing? And this same opera-house—now nomore—is a theatre that fairly exhales memories of historic performances and unique dramatic artists. Once Goethe resigned because against his earnest protest a performing dog was allowed to appear upon the classic boards which first saw the masterpieces of Goethe and Schiller.
But the new Weimar! During the last decade whether the spot has a renewed fascination for the artistic Germans or because of its increased commercial activities, Weimar has worn another and a brighter face. The young Grand Duke Ernst, while never displaying a marked preference for intellectual pursuits, is a liberal ruler, as befits his blood.
Great impetus has been given to manufacturing interests, and the city is near enough to Berlin to benefit by both its distance and proximity. Naturally, the older and conservative inhabitants are horrified by the swift invasion of unsightly chimneys, of country disappearing before the steady encroachment of railroads, mills, foundries, and other unpicturesque but very useful buildings. And the country about Weimar is famed for its picturesque quality—Jena, Tiefurt, Upper Weimar, Erfurt, museums, castles, monuments, belvideres, wayside inns, wonderful roads overhung by great aged trees. But other days, other ways.
Weimar has awakened and is no longer proud to figure merely as a museum of antiquities. With this material growth there has arisen a fresh movement in the stagnant waters of poetic andartistic memories—new ideas, new faces, new paths, new names. It is a useless, though not altogether an unpleasant theme, to speculate upon the different Weimar we would behold if Richard Wagner's original plan had been put into execution as to the location of his theatre. Most certainly Bayreuth would be a much duller town than it is to-day—and that is saying much. But emburgessed prejudices were too much for Wagner, and a stuffy Bavarian village won his preference, thereby becoming historical.
However, Weimar is not abashed or cast down. A cluster of history-making names are hers, and who knows, fifty years hence she may be proud to recall the days when one Richard Strauss was her local Kapellmeister and that within her municipal precincts died a great poetic soul, the optimistic philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche.
Now, Weimar is the residence and the resort of a brilliant group of poets, dramatists, novelists, musicians, painters, sculptors, and actors. Professor Hans Olde, who presides over the imposing art galleries and art school, has gathered about him an enthusiastic host of young painters and art students.
There have been recently two notable exhibitions, respectively devoted to the works of the sculptor-painter, Max Klinger, and the French sculptor, Auguste Rodin. Nor is the new artistic leaven confined to the plastic arts. Ernst von Wildenbruch, a world-known novelist and dramatist (since dead); Baron Detlev von Liliencron,one of Germany's most gifted lyric poets; Richard Dehmel, a poet of the revolutionary order, whose work favourably compares with the productions of the Parisian symbolists; Paul Ernst, poet; Johannes Schlaf, who a few years ago with Arno Holz blazoned the way in Berlin for Gerhart Hauptmann and the young realists—Schlaf is the author of several powerful novels and plays; Count Kessler, a cultured and ardent patron of the fine arts and literature, and Professor van de Velde, whose influence on architecture and the industrial arts has been great, and the American painter Gari Melchers, are all in the Weimar circle.
In the summer Conrad Ansorge, a man not unknown to the New York musical public, gathers around him in pious imitation of his former master, Liszt, a class of ambitious pianists. A former resident of New York, Max Vogrich, pianist and composer, has taken up his residence at Weimar. In its opera-house, which boasts an excellent company of singers, actors, and a good orchestra, the première of Vogrich's opera Buddha occurred in 1903. Gordon Craig, the son of Ellen Terry, often visits the city, where his scheme for the technical reform of the stage—lighting, scenery, costumes, and colours—was eagerly appreciated, as it was in Berlin, by Otto Brahm, director of the Lessing Theatre. Mr. Craig is looked upon as an advanced spirit in Germany. I wish I could praise without critical reservation the two new statues of Shakespeareand Liszt which stand in the park; but neither one is of consummate workmanship or conception.
When I received the amiable "command" of Elisabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, bidding me call at a fixed hour on a certain day, I was quite conscious of the honour; only the true believers set foot within that artistic and altogether charming Mecca at the top of the Luisenstrasse.
The lofty and richly decorated room where repose the precious mementos of the dead thinker is a singularly attractive one—it is a true abode of culture. Here Nietzsche died in 1900; here he was wheeled out upon the adjacent balcony, from which he had a surprising view of the hilly and delectable countryside.
His sister and devoted biographer is a comely little lady, vivacious, intellectual, bright of cheek and eye, a creature of fire and enthusiasm, more Gallic than German. I could well believe in the legend of the Polish Nietzskys, from whom the philosopher claimed descent, after listening to her spirited discussion of matters that pertained to her dead brother. His memory with her is an abidingly beautiful one. She says "my poor brother" with the accents of one speaking of the vanished gods.
His sister showed me all her treasures—many manuscripts of early and still unpublished studies; his original music, for he composed much during his intimacy with Richard Wagner; the grand pianoforte with which he soothed his torturednerves; the stately bust executed by Max Klinger; the painful portrait etched by Hans Olde, and many other souvenirs.
Mrs. Foerster-Nietzsche, who once lived in South America—she speaks English, French, and Italian fluently—assured me that she sincerely regretted the premature publication in English of The Case of the Wagner. This book, so terribly personal, is a record of the disenchanting experiences of a shattered friendship.
Madame Foerster spoke most feelingly of Cosima Wagner and deplored the rupture of their intimate relations. "A marvellous woman! a fascinating woman!" she said several times. What with her correspondence in every land, the publication of the bulky biography and the constant editing of unpublished essays, letters and memorabilia, this rare sister of a great man is, so it seems to me, overtaxing her energies. The Nietzsche bibliography has assumed formidable proportions, yet she is conversant with all of it. A second Henrietta Renan, I thought, as I took a regretful leave of this very remarkable woman, not daring to ask her when Nietzsche's unpublished autobiography,Ecce Homo, would be given to the world. (This was written in 1904;Ecce Homohas appeared in the meantime.)
Later, down in the low-ceilinged café of the Hotel zum Elephant, I overheard a group of citizens, officers, merchants—all cronies—discussing Weimar. Nietzsche's name was mentioned, and one knight of this round table—a giganticofficer with a button head—contemptuously exclaimed:—"Nietzsche Rauch!" (smoke). Yes, but what a world-compelling vapour is his that now winds in fantastic spirals over the romantic hills and valleys of the new Weimar and thence about the entire civilised globe! Friedrich Nietzsche, because of his fiery poetic spirit and ecstatic pantheism, might be called the Percy Bysshe Shelley of philosophers.
My first evening in Budapest was a cascade of surprises. The ride down from Vienna is not cheery until the cathedral and palace of the primate is reached, at Gran, a superb edifice, challenging the valley of the Danube. Interminable prairies, recalling the traits of our Western country, swam around the busy little train until this residence of the spiritual lord of Hungary was passed. After that the scenery as far as Orsova, Belgrade, and the Iron Gates is legendary in its beauty.
To hear the real Hungarian gipsy on his own heath has been long my ambition. In New York he is often a domesticated fowl, with aliens in his company. But in Budapest! My hopes were high. The combination of that peppery food, paprika gulyas, was also an item not to be overlooked. I soon found an establishment wherethe music is the best in Hungary, the cooking of the hottest. After the usual distracting tuning the band splashed into a fierce prelude.
Fancy coming thousands of miles to hear the original of all the cakewalks and eat a preparation that might have been turned out from a Mexican restaurant! It was too much. It took exactly four Czardas and the Rakoczy march to convince me that I was not dreaming of Manhattan Beach.
But this particular band was excellent. Finding that some of the listeners only wished for gipsy music, the leader played the most frantically bacchanalian in his repertory. Not more than eight men made up the ensemble! And such an ensemble. It seemed to be the ideal definition of anarchy—unity in variety. Not even a Richard Strauss score gives the idea of vertical and horizontal music—heard at every point of the compass, issuing from the bowels of the earth, pouring down upon one's head like a Tyrolean thunderstorm. Every voice was independent, and syncopated as were the rhythms. There was no raggedness in attack or cessation.
Like a streak of jagged, blistering lightning, a tone would dart from the double bass to the very scroll of the fiddles. In mad pursuit, over a country black as Servian politics went the cymbalom, closely followed by two clarinets—in B and E flat. The treble pipe was played by a jeweller in disguise—he must have been a jeweller, so fond was he of ornamentation and cataractsof pearly tones. He made a trelliswork behind which he attacked his foes, the string players. In the midst of all this melodic chaos the leader, cradling his fiddle like something alive, swayed as sways a tall tree in the gale. Then he left the podium and hat in hand collected white pieces andkronen. It was disenchanting.
The tone of the band was more resilient, more brilliant than the bands we hear in America. And there were more heart, fire, swing and dash in their playing. The sapping melancholy of theLassanand the diabolic vigour of theFriskaare things that I shall never forget. These gipsies have an instinctive sense of tempo. Their allegretto is a genuine allegretto. They play rag-time music with true rhythmic appreciation for the reason that its metrical structure is grateful to them.
In Paris the cakewalk is a thing of misunderstood, misapplied accents. The Budapest version of the Rakoczy march is a revelation. No wonder Berlioz borrowed it. The tempo is a wild quickstep; there is no majestic breadth, so suggestive of military pomp or the grandeur of a warlike race. Instead, the music defiled by in crazy squads, men breathlessly clinging to the saddles of their maddened steeds; above them hung the haze of battle, and the hoarse shouting of the warriors was heard. Five minutes more of this excitement and heart disease might have supervened. Five minutes later I saw the band grinning over their tips, drinking and looking absolutelyincapable of ever playing such stirring and hyperbolical music.
After these winged enchantments I was glad enough to wander next morning in the Hungarian Museum, following the history of this proud and glorious nation, in its armour, its weapons, its trophies of war and its banners captured from the Saracen. Such mementos re-create a race. In the picture gallery, a modest one, there are some interesting Munkaczys and several Makarts; also many specimens of Hungarian art by Kovacs, Zichy (a member of a noble and talented family), Székely, and Michael Zichy's cartoon illustrations to Mádach's The Tragedy of Mankind.
Munkaczy's portrait of Franz Liszt is muddy and bituminous. Two original aquarelles by Doré were presented by Liszt. I was surprised to find in the modernSaalthe Sphynx of Franz Stuck, a sensational and gruesome canvas, which made a stir at the time of first hanging in the Munich Secession exhibition. Budapest purchased it; also a very characteristic Segantini, an excellent Otto Sinding, and Hans Makart's Dejanira. A beautiful marble of Rodin's marks the progressive taste of this artistic capital.
It would seem that even for a municipality of New York's magnitude the erection of such a Hall of Justice and such a Parliament building would be a tax beyond its purse. Budapest is not a rich city, but these two public buildings, veritable palaces, gorgeously decorated, proclaim her as a highly civilised centre. The opera-house,which seats only 1,100, is the most perfectly appointed in the world; its stage apparatus is better than Bayreuth's. And the natural position of the place is unique. From the ramparts of the royal palace in Buda—old Ofen—your eye, promise-crammed, sweeps a series of fascinating façades, churches, palaces, generous embankments, while between its walls the Danube flows torrentially down to the mysterious lands where murder is admired and thrones are playthings.
In the Liszt museum is the old, bucolic pianino upon which his childish hands first rested at Raiding (Dobrjàn), his birthplace. His baton; the cast of his hand and of Chopin's and the famous piano of Beethoven, at which most of the immortal sonatas were composed, and upon which Liszt Ferencz played for the great composer shortly before his death in 1827. The little piano has no string, but the Beethoven—a Broadwood & Sons, Golden Square, London, so the fall-board reads—is full of jangling wires, the keys black with age. Liszt presented it to his countrymen—he greatly loved Budapest and taught several months every winter at the Academy of Music in the spacious Andrassy strasse.
A harp, said to have been the instrument most affected by Marie Antoinette, did not give me the thrill historic which all right-minded Yankees should experience in strange lands. I would rather see a real live tornado in Kansas than shake hands with the ghost of Napoleon.
The pianoforte virtuoso, Richard Burmeister, and one of Liszt's genuine "pet" pupils, advised me to look at Liszt's hotel in the Vicolo Alibert, Rome. It is still there, an old-fashioned place, Hotel Alibert, up an alley-like street off the Via Babuino, near the Piazza del Popolo. But it is shorn of its interest for melomaniacs, as the view commanding the Pincio no longer exists. One night sufficed me, though the manager smilingly assured me that he could show the room wherein Liszt slept and studied. A big warehouse blocks the outlook on the Pincio; indeed the part of the hotel Liszt inhabited no longer stands. But at Tivoli, at the Villa d'Este, with its glorious vistas of the Campagna and Rome, there surely would be memories of the master. The Sunday I took the steam-tramway was a threatening one; before Bagni was reached a solid sheet of water poured from an implacable leaden sky. It was not a cheerful prospect for a Liszt-hunter. Arrived at Tivoli, I waited in the Caffé d'Italia hoping for better weather. An old grand pianoforte, the veriest rattletrap stood in the eating salle; but upon its keys had rested many times the magic-breeding fingers of Liszt. Often, with a band of students or with guests he would walk down from the villa and while waiting for theircarriages he would jestingly sweep the keyboard. At the Villa d'Este itself the cypresses, cascades, terraces, and mysterious avenues of green were enveloped in a hopeless fog. It was the mistiest spot I ever visited. Heaven and earth, seemingly, met in fluid embrace to give me a watery welcome. Where was Liszt's abode is a Marianite convent. I was not permitted to visit his old room which is now the superior's. It was at the top of the old building, for wherever Liszt lived he enjoyed a vast landscape. I could discover but one person who remembered the Abbate; the conciêrge. And his memories were scanty. I wandered disconsolately through the rain, my mood splenetic. So much for fame. I bitterly reflected in the melancholy, weedy, moss-infested walks of the garden.
As I attempted to point out to our little party the particular window from which Liszt saw the miraculous Italian world, I stepped on a slimy green rock and stretched my length in the humid mud. There was a deep, a respectful silence as I was helped to my feet—the gravity of the surroundings, the solemnity of our recollections choked all levity; though I saw signs of impending apoplexy on several faces. To relieve the strain I sternly bade our guide retire to an adjacent bosky retreat and there roar to his heart's content. He did. So did we all. The spell broken we returned to the "Sirene" opposite the entrance to the famous Tivoli water-falls and there with Chianti and spaghetti triedto forget the morning's disappointments. But even there sadness was invoked by the sight of a plaster bust of Liszt lying forlorn in the wet grass. The head waiter tried to sell it for twenty liri; but it was too big to carry; besides its nose was missing. He said that the original was somewhere in Tivoli.
Sgambati in Rome keeps green the memory of the master in his annual recitals; but of the churchly compositions no one I encountered had ever heard. At Santa Francesca Romana, adjoining the Forum, Liszt once took up his abode; there I saw in the cloister an aged grand pianoforte upon which he had played in a concert given at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore many years ago. About an hour from Rome is the Oratory of the Madonna del Rosario on Monte Mario. There Liszt lived and composed in 1863. But his sacred music is never sung in any of the churches; the noble Graner Mass is still unheard in Rome. Even the Holy Father refers to the dead Hungarian genius as, "il compositore Tedesco!" It was different in the days of Pius IX, when Liszt's music was favoured at the Vatican. Is it not related that Pio Nono bestowed upon the great pianist the honour of hearing his confession at the time he became an abbé? And did he not after four or five hours of worldly reminiscences, cry out despairingly to his celebrated penitent:
"Basta, Caro Liszt! Your memory is marvellous. Now go play the remainder of your sinsupon the pianoforte." They say that Liszt's playing on that occasion was simply enchanting—and he did not cease until far into the night.
Liszt's various stopping-places in and around Rome were: Vicolo de Greci (No. 43), Hotel Alibert, Vicolo Alibert, opposite Via del Babuino; Villa d'Este with Cardinal Hohenlohe, also at the Vatican; in 1866 at Monte Mario, Kloster Madonna del Rosario, Kloster Santa Francesca Romana, the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein first resided in the Via del Babuino, later (1881) at the Hotel Malaro. Monsignor Kennedy of the American College shows the grand piano upon which Liszt once played there.
Perhaps Rome, at a superficial glance, still affects the American as it did Taine a half century ago, as a provincial city, sprawled to unnecessary lengths over its seven hills, and, despite the smartness of its new quarters, far from suggesting aWeltstadt, as does, for example, bustling, shining Berlin or mundane Paris. But not for her superb and imperial indifference are the seductive spells of operatic Venice or the romantic glamour of Florence. She can proudly say "La ville c'est moi!" She is not a city, but the city of cities, and it needs but twenty-four hours' submergence in her atmosphere to make one a slave at her eternal chariot wheels. The New York cockney, devoted to his cult of the modern—hotels, baths, cafés and luxurious theatres—soon wearies of Rome. He prefers Paris or Naples. Hasn't some one said, "See Naplesand die—of its smells?" As an inexperienced traveller I know of no city on the globe where you formulate an expression of like or dislike so quickly. You are Rome's foe or friend within five minutes after you leave its dingy railway station. And it is hardly necessary to add that its newer quarters, pretentious, cold, hard and showy, are quite negligible. One does not go to Rome to seek the glazed comforts of Brooklyn.
The usual manner of approaching the Holy Father is to go around to the American Embassy and harry the good-tempered secretary into a promise of an invitation card, that is, if you are not acquainted in clerical circles. I was not long in Rome before I discovered that both Mgr. Kennedy and Mgr. Merry del Val were at Frascati enjoying a hard-earned vacation. So I dismissed the ghost of the idea and pursued my pagan worship at the Museo Vaticano. Then the heavy hoofs of three hundred pilgrims invaded the peace of the quiet Hotel Fischer up in the Via Sallustiana. They had come from Cologne and the vicinity of the Upper Rhine, bearing Peter's pence, wearing queer clothes and good-natured smiles. They tramped the streets and churches of Rome, did these commonplace, pious folk. They burrowed in the Catacombs and ate their meals, men and women alike, with such a hearty gnashing of teeth, such a rude appetite, that one envied their vitality, their faith, their wholesale air of having accomplished the conquest of Rome.
Their schedule, evidently prepared with greatforethought and one that went absolutely to pieces when put to the test of practical operation, was wrangled over at each meal, where the Teutonic clans foregathered in full force. The third day I heard of a projected audience at the Vatican. These people had come to Rome to see the Pope. Big-boned and giantlike Monsignor Pick visited the hotel daily, and once after I saw him in conference with Signor Fischer I asked him if it were possible——
"Of course," responded the wily Fischer, "anything is possible in Rome." Wear evening dress? Nonsense! That was in the more exacting days of Leo XIII. The present Pope is a democrat. He hates vain show. Perhaps he has absorbed some of the Anglo-Saxon antipathy to seeing evening dress on a male during daylight. But the ladies wear veils. All the morning of October 5 the hotel was full of eager Italians selling veils to the German ladies.
Carriages blocked the streets and almost stretched four square around the Palazzo Margherita. There was noise. There were explosive sounds when bargains were driven. Then, after the vendors of saints' pictures, crosses, rosary beads—chiefly gentlemen of Oriental persuasion, comical as it may seem—we drove off in high feather nearly four hundred strong. I had secured from Monsignor Pick through the offices of my amiable host a parti-hued badge with a cross and the motto, "Coeln—Rom., 1905," which, interpreted, meant "Cologne—Rome." Ifelt like singing "Nach Rom," after the fashion of the Wagnerians in act II ofTannhäuser, but contented myself with abusing my coachman for his slow driving. It was all as exciting as a first night at the opera.
The rendezvous was the Campo Santo dei Tedeschi, which, with its adjoining church of Santa Maria della Pieta, was donated to the Germans by Pius VI as a burying-ground. There I met my companions of the dining-room, and after a stern-looking German priest with the bearing of an officer interrogated me I was permitted to join the pilgrims. What at first had been a thing of no value was now become a matter of life and death.
After standing above the dust and buried bones of illustrious and forgotten Germans we went into the church and were cooled by an address in German from a worthy cleric whose name I cannot recall. I remember that he told us that we were to meet the Vicar of Christ, a man like ourselves. He emphasised strangely, so it appeared to me, the humanity of the great prelate before whom we were bidden that gloomy autumnal afternoon. And then, after intoning a Te Deum, we filed out in pairs, first the women, then the men, along the naked stones until we reached the end of the Via delle Fundamenta. The pilgrims wore their everyday clothes. One even saw the short cloak and the greenjägerhut. We left our umbrellas at a garderobe; its business that day was a thriving one. We mounted innumerablestaircases. We entered the Sala Regia, our destination—I had hoped for the more noble and spacious Sala Ducale.
Three o'clock was the hour set for the audience; but His Holiness was closeted with a French ecclesiastical eminence and there was a delay of nearly an hour. We spent it in staring at the sacred and profane frescoes of Daniele da Volterra, Vasari, Salviati and Zucchari staring at each other. The women, despite their Italian veils, looked hopelessly Teutonic, the men clumsy and ill at ease. There were uncouth and guttural noises. Conversation proceeded amain. Some boasted of being heavily laden with rosaries and crucifixes, for all desired the blessing of the Holy Father. One man, a young German-American priest from the Middle West, almost staggered beneath a load of pious emblems. The guilty feelings which had assailed me as I passed the watchful gaze of the Swiss Guards began to wear off. The Sala Regia bore an unfamiliar aspect, though I had been haunting it and the adjacent Sistine Chapel daily for the previous month. An aura, coming I knew not whence, surrounded us. The awkward pilgrims, with their daily manners, almost faded away, and when at last a murmur went up, "The Holy Father! the Holy Father! He approaches!" a vast sigh of relief was exhaled. The tension had become unpleasant.
We were ranged on either side, the women to the right, the men to the left of the throne, whichwas an ordinary looking tribune. It must be confessed that later the fair sex were vigorously elbowed to the rear. In America the women would have been well to the front, but the dear old Fatherland indulges in no such new fangled ideas of sex equality. So the polite male pilgrims by superior strength usurped all the good places. A tall, handsome man in evening clothes—solitary in this respect, with the exception of the Pope's body suite—patrolled the floor, obsequiously followed by the Suiss in their hideous garb—a murrain on Michelangelo's taste if he designed such hideous uniforms! I fancied that he was no less than a prince of the royal blood, so masterly was his bearing. When I discovered that he was the Roman correspondent of a well-known North German gazette my respect for the newspaper man abroad was vastly increased. The power of the press——!
"His Holiness comes!" was announced, and this time it was not a false alarm. From a gallery facing the Sistine Chapel entered the inevitable Swiss Guards; followed the officers of the Papal household, grave and reverend seigniors; a knot of ecclesiastics, all wearing purple; Monsignor Pick, the Papal prothonotary and a man of might in business affairs; then a few stragglers—anonymous persons, stout, bald, officials—and finally Pope Pius X.
He was attired in pure white, even to the sash that compassed his plump little figure. A cross depended from his neck. He immediately andin the most matter of fact fashion held out his hand to be kissed. I noted the whiteness of the nervous hand tendered me, bearing the ring of Peter, a large, square emerald surrounded by diamonds. Though seventy, the Pope looks ten years younger. He is slightly under medium height. His hair is white, his complexion dark red, veined, and not very healthy. He seems to need fresh air and exercise; the great gardens of the Vatican are no compensation for this man of sorrows, homesick for the sultry lagoons and stretches of gleaming waters in his old diocese of Venice. If the human in him could call out it would voice Venice, not the Vatican. The flesh of his face is what the painters call "ecclesiastical flesh," large in grain. His nose broad, unaristocratic, his brows strong and harmonious. His eyes may be brown, but they seemed black and brilliant and piercing. He moved with silent alertness. An active, well-preserved man, though he achieved the Biblical three-score and ten in June, 1905. I noted, too, with satisfaction, the shapely ears, artistic ears, musical ears, their lobes freely detached. A certain resemblance to Pius IX there is; he is not so amiable as was that good-tempered Pope who was nicknamed by his intimate friend, the Abbé Liszt,Pia Nina, because of his musical proclivities. Altogether, I found another than the Pope I had expected. This, then, was that exile—an exile, yet in his native land; a prisoner in sight of the city of which he is the spiritual ruler; a prince over allprincipalities and dominions, yet withal a feeble old man, whose life might be imperilled if he ventured into the streets of Rome.
The Pope had now finished his circle of pilgrims and stood at the other end of the Sala. With him stood his chamberlains and ecclesiastics. Suddenly a voice from the balcony, which I saw for the first time, bade us come nearer. I was thunder-struck. This was back to the prose of life with a vengeance. We obeyed instructions. A narrow aisle was made, with the Pope in the middle perspective. Then the voice, which I discovered by this time issued from the mouth of a bearded person behind a huge, glittering camera, cried out in peremptory and true photographer style:——
"One, two, three! Thank your Holiness."
And so we were photographed. In the Vatican and photographed! Old Rome has her surprises for the patronising visitors from the New World. It was too business-like for me, and I would have gone away, but I couldn't, as the audience had only begun. The Pope went to his throne and received the heads of the pilgrims. A certain presumptuous American told him that the church musical revolution was not much appreciated in America. He also asked, rash person that he was, why an example was not set at St. Peter's itself, where the previous Sunday he had heard, and to his horror, a florid mass by Milozzi, as florid and operatic as any he had been forced to endure in New York before the neworder of things. A discreet poke in the ribs enlightened him to the fact that at a general audience such questions are not in good taste.
The Pope spoke a few words in a ringing barytone voice. He said that he loved Germany, loved its Emperor; that every morning his second prayer was for Germany—his first, was it for the hundredth wandering sheep of the flock, France? That he did not explain. He blessed us, and his singing voice proved singularly rich, resonant and pure in intonation for an old man. Decidedly Pius X is musical; he plays the pianoforte it is said, with taste. The pilgrims thundered the Te Deum a second time, with such pious fervour that the venerable walls of the Sala Regia shook with their lung vibrations. Then the Papal suite followed the sacred figure out of the chamber and the buzzing began. The women wanted to know—and indignant were their inflections—why a certain lady attired in scarlet, hat and all, was permitted within the sacred precincts. The men hurried, jostling each other, for their precious umbrellas. The umbrella in Germany is the symbol of the mediæval sword. We broke ranks and tumbled into the now sunny daylight, many going on the wings of thirst to the Piazza Santi Apostoli, which, notwithstanding its venerable name, has amber medicine for parched German gullets.
Pius X is a democratic man. He may be seen by the faithful at any time. He has organised a number of athletic clubs for young Romans,taking a keen interest in their doings. He is an impulsive man and has many enemies in his own household. He has expressed his intention of ridding Rome of its superfluous monks, those unattached ones who make life a burden by their importunings and beggaries in Rome.
His personal energy was expressed while I was in Rome by his very spirited rebuke to some members of the athletic clubs at an audience in the Vatican. There was some disorder while the Pontiff spoke. He fixed a noisy group with an angry glance:—"Those who do not wish to hear me—well, there is the open door!"
Another incident, and one I neglected to relate in its proper place;—As Pius proceeded along the line of kneeling figures during the German audience he encountered a little, jolly-looking priest, evidently known to him. A smile, benign, witty, delicately humourous, appeared on his lips. For a moment he seemed more Celt than Latin. There was no hint of the sardonic smile which is said to have crossed the faces of Roman augurs. It was merely a friendly recognition tempered by humility, as if he meant to ask:—"Why do you need my blessing, friend?" And it was the most human smile that I would imagine worn by a Pope. It told me more of his character than even did his meek and resigned pose when the official photographer of the Vatican called out his sonorous "Una, due, tre!"
Here is a list of the pupils who studied with Liszt. There are doubtless a thousand more who claim to have been under his tutelage but as he is dead he can't call them liars. All who played in Weimar were not genuine pupils. This collection of names has been gleaned from various sources. It is by no means infallible. Many of them are dead. No attempt is made to denote their nationalities, only sex and alphabetical order is employed.Place aux dames.
Vilma Barga Abranyi, Anderwood, Baronne Angwez, Julia Banholzer, Bartlett, Stefanie Busch, Alice Bechtel, Berger, Robertine Bersen-Gothenberg, Ida Bloch, Charlotte Blume-Ahrens, Anna Bock, Bödinghausen, Valerie Boissier-Gasparin, Marianne Brandt, Antonie Bregenzer, Marie Breidenstein, Elisabeth Brendel-Trautmann, Ingeborg Bronsart-Stark, Emma Brückmann, Burmester, Louisa Cognetti, Descy, Wilhelmine Döring, Victoria Drewing, Pauline Endry, Pauline Fichtner Erdmannsdörfer, Hermine Esinger, Anna Mehlig-Falk, Amy Fay, Anna Fiebinger, Fischer, Margarethe Fokke, Stefanie Forster, Hermine Frank, H.von Friedländer, Vilma von Friedenlieb, Stephanie von Fryderyey, Hirschfeld-Gärtner, Anna Gáll, Cecilia Gaul, Kathi Gaul, Ida Seelmuyden, Geyser, Gilbreth, Goodwin, Gower, Amalie Greipel-Golz, Margit Groschmied, Emma Grossfurth, Ilona Grunn, Emma Guttmann von Hadeln, Adele Hastings, Piroska Hary, Howard, Heidenreich, Nadine von Helbig (née Princesse Schakovskoy), Gertrud Herzer, Hippins, Hodoly, Höltze, Aline Hundt, Marie Trautmann Jaell, Olga Janina (Marquise Cezano), Jeapp, Jeppe, Julia Jerusalem, Clothilde Jeschke, Helene Kähler, Anna Kastner, Clemence Kautz-Kreutzer, Kettwitz, Johanna Klinkerfuss-Schulz, Emma Koch, Roza Koderle, Manda Von Kontsky, Kovnatzka, Emestine Kramer, Klara Krause, Julia Rivé King, Louisè Krausz, Josefine Krautwald, Isabella Kulissay, Natalie Kupisch, Marie La Mara (Lipsius), Adèle Laprunarède (Duchesse de Fleury), Vicomtesse de La Rochefoucauld, Julie Laurier, Leu Ouscher, Elsa Levinson, Ottilie Lichterfeld, Hedwig von Liszt, Hermine Lüders, Ella Máday, Sarah Magnus-Heinze, Marie von Majewska-Sokal, Martini, Sofie Menter, Emilie Merian Genast, Emma Mettler, Olga de Meyendorff (née Princesse Gortschakoff), Miekleser, Von Milde-Agthe, Henrietta Mildner, Comtesse de Miramont, Ella Modritzky, Marie Mösner, De Montgolfier, Eugenie Müller-Katalin, Herminie de Musset, Ida Nagy, Gizella Neumann, Iren Nobel, Adele Aus der Ohe, Sophie Olsen, Paramanoff, GizellaPaszthony-Voigt de Leitersberg, Dory Petersen, Sophie Pflughaupt-Stehepin, Jessie Pinney-Baldwin, Marie Pleyel-Mock, Pohl-Eyth, Toni Raab, Lina Ramann, Kätchen von Ranuschewitsch, Laura Rappoldi-Kahrer, Duchesse de Rauzan, Ilonka von Ravacz, Gertrud Remmert, Martha Remmert, Auguste Rennenbaum, Klara Riess, Anna Rigo, Anna Rilke, Rosenstock, M. von Sabinin, Comtesse Carolyne Saint-Criq d'Artignan (Liszt's first love), Gräfin Sauerma, Louise Schärnack, Lina Scheuer, Lina Schmalhausen, Marie Schnobel, Agnes Schöler, Adelheid von Schorn, Anna Schuck, Elly Schulze, Irma Schwarz, Arma Senkrah (Harkness), Caroline Montigny-Remaury (Serres), Siegenfeld, Paula Söckeland, Ella Solomonson, Sothman, Elsa Sonntag, Spater, Anna Spiering, H. Stärk, Anna Stahr, Helene Stahr, Margarethe Stern-Herr, Neally Stevens, Von Stvicowich, Hilda Tegernström, Vera von Timanoff, Iwanka Valeska, Vial, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, Hortense Voigt, Pauline von Voros, Ida Volkmann, Josephine Ware, Rosa Wappenhaus, Ella Wassemer, Olga Wein-Vaszilievitz, Weishemer, Margarethe Wild, Etelka Willheim-Illoffsky, Winslow, Janka Wohl, Johanna Wenzel-Zarembska.
Among the men were: Cornel Abranyi, Leo d'Ageni, Eugen d'Albert, Isaac Albeniz, C. B. Alkan, Nikolaus Almasy, F. Altschul, Conrad Ansorge, Emil Bach, Walter Bache, Carl Baermann, Albert Morris Bagby, Josef Bahnert, Johann Butka, Antonio Bazzini, J. von Beliczay,Franz Bendel, Rudolf Bensey, Theodore Ritter, Wilhelm Berger, Arthur Bird, Adolf Blassmann, Bernhard Boekelmann, Alexander Borodin, Louis Brassin, Frederick Boscovitz, Franz Brendel, Emil Brodhag, Hans von Bronsart, Hans von Bülow, Buonamici, Burgmein (Ricordi), Richard Burmeister, Louis Coenen, Herman Cohen ("Puzzi"), Chop, Peter Cornelius, Bernhard Cossmann, Leopold Damrosch, William Dayas, Ludwig Dingeldey, D' Ma Sudda-Bey, Felix Draeseke, Von Dunkirky, Paul Eckhoff, Theodore Eisenhauer, Imre Elbert, Max Erdsmannsdörfer, Henri Falcke, August Fischer, C. Fischer, L. A. Fischer, Sandor Forray, Freymond, Arthur Friedheim, W. Fritze, Ferencz Gaal, Paul Geisler, Josef Gierl, Henri von Gobbi, August Göllerich, Karl Göpfurt, Edward Götze, Karl Götze, Adalbert von Goldschmidt, Bela Gosztonyi, A. W. Gottschlag, L. Grünberger, Guglielmi, Luigi Gulli, Guricks, Arthur Hahn, Ludwig Hartmann, Rudolf Hackert, Harry Hatch, J. Hatton, Hermann, Carl Hermann, Josef Huber, Augustus Hyllested, S. Jadassohn, Alfred Jaell, Josef Joachim, Rafael Joseffy, Ivanow-Ippolitoff, Aladar Jukasz, Louis Jungmann, Emerich Kastner, Keler, Berthold Kellermann, Baron Von Keudell, Wilhelm Kienzl, Edwin Klahre, Karl Klindworth, Julius Kniese, Louis Köhler, Martin Krause, Gustav Krausz, Bela Kristinkovics, Franz Kroll, Karl Von Lachmund, Alexander Lambert, Frederick Lamond, Siegfried Langaard, Eduard Lassen, W. WaughLauder, Georg Leitert, Graf de Leutze, Wilhelm Von Lenz, Otto Lessmann, Emil Liebling, Georg Liebling, Saul Liebling, Karlo Lippi, Louis Lönen, Joseph Lomba, Heinrich Lutter, Louis Mass, Gyula Major, Hugo Mansfeldt, L. Marek, William Mason, Edward MacDowell, Richard Metzdortf, Baron Meyendorff, Max Meyer, Meyer-Olbersleben, E. Von Michalowich, Mihlberg, F. Von Milde, Michael Moszonyi, Moriz Moszkowski, J. Vianna da Motta, Felix Mottl, Franz Müller, Müller-Hartung, Johann Müller, Paul Müller, Nikol Nelisoff, Otto Neitzel, Arthur Nikisch, Ludwig Nohl, John Orth, F. Pezzini, Robert Pflughaupt, Max Pinner, William Piutti, Richard Pohl, Karl Pohlig, Pollack, Heinrich Porges, Wilhem Posse, Silas G. Pratt, Dionys Prückner, Graf Pückler, Joachim Raff, S. Ratzenberger, Karoly Rausch, Alfred Reisenauer, Edward Remenyi, Alfonso Rendano, Julius Reulke, Edward Reuss, Hermann Richter, Julius Richter, Karl Riedel, F. W. Riesberg, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Karl Ritter, Hermann Ritter, Moriz Rosenthal, Bertrand Roth, Louis Rothfeld, Joseph Rubinstein, Nikolaus Rubinstein, Camille Saint-Saëns, Max van de Sandt, Emil Sauer, Xaver Scharwenka, Hermann Scholtz, Bruno Schrader, F. Schreiber, Karl Schroeder, Max Schuler, H. Schwarz, Max Seifriz, Alexander Seroff, Franz Servais, Giovanni Sgambati, William H. Sherwood, Rudolf Sieber, Alexander Siloti, Edmund Singer, Otto Singer, Antol Sipos, Friederich Smetana, Goswin Söckeland, WilhelmSpeidel, F. Spiro, F. Stade, L. Stark, Ludwig Stasny, Adolph Stange, Bernhard Stavenhagen, Eduard Stein, August Stradal, Frank Van der Stucken, Arpad Szendy, Ladislas Tarnowski, Karl Tausig, E. Telbicz, Otto Tiersch, Anton Urspruch, Baron Vegh, Rudolf Viole, Vital, Jean Voigt, Voss, Henry Waller, Felix Weingartner, Weissheimer, Westphalen, Joseph Wieniawsky, Alexander Winterberger, Theador de Witt, Peter Wolf, Jules Zarembsky, Van Zeyl, Geza Zichy (famous one-armed Hungarian pianist), Hermann Zopff, Johannes Zschocher, Stephen Thoman, Louis Messemaekers, Robert Freund. And how many more?
All the names above mentioned were not pianists. Some were composers, later celebrated, conductors, violinists—Joachim and Remenyi, and Van Der Stucken, for example—harpists, even musical critics who went to Liszt for musical advice, advice that he gave with a royal prodigality. He never received money for his lessons. "Am I a piano teacher?" he would thunder if a pupil came to him with faulty technic.
Frl. Paraninoff Frau Friedheim MannsfeldtRosenthal Frl. Drewing LisztLiebling Silotti Friedheim Sauer Reisenauer GottschalgLiszt and His Scholars, 1884
Frl. Paraninoff Frau Friedheim MannsfeldtRosenthal Frl. Drewing LisztLiebling Silotti Friedheim Sauer Reisenauer GottschalgLiszt and His Scholars, 1884
What became of Part Third of the Liszt Piano Method? It was spirited away and has never been heard of since. In his Franz Liszt in Weimar, the late A. W. Gottschalg discusses the mystery. A pupil, a woman, is said to have been the delinquent. The Method, as far as it goes is not a work of supreme importance. Liszt was not a pedagogue, and abhorred technical drudgery.
As to the legend of his numerous children, we can only repeat Mark Twain's witticism concerning a false report of his death—the report has been much exaggerated. At one time or another Alexander Winterberger, a pupil (since dead), the late Anton Seidl, Servais, Arthur Friedheim, and many others have been called "sons of Liszt." And I have heard of several ladies who—possibly thinking it might improve their technic—made the claim of paternity. At one time in Weimar, Friedheim smilingly assured me, there was a craze to be suspected an offspring of the Grand Old Man—who like Wotan had his Valkyrie brood. When Eugen d'Albert first played for Liszt he was saluted by him as the "Second Tausig." That settled his paternity. Immediately it was hinted that he greatly resembled Karl Tausig, and although his real father was a French dance composer—do you remember thePeri Valse?—everyone stuck to the Tausig legend. I wonder what the mothers of these young Lisztians thought of their sons' tact and delicacy?
Liszt denied that Thalberg was the natural son of Prince Dietrichstein of Vienna, as was commonly believed. To Göllerich he said that his early rival was the son of an Englishman. Richard Burmeister told me when Servais visited Weimar the Lisztian circle was agitated because of the remarkable resemblance the Belgian bore to the venerable Abbé. At the whist-table—the game was a favourite one with theMaster—some tactless person bluntly put the question to Liszt as to the supposed relationship. He fell into a rage and growlingly answered: "Ich kenne seine Mutter nur durch Correspondenz, und so was kann man nicht durch Correspondenz abmachen." Then the game was resumed.
Liszt admired the brilliant talents of the young Nietzsche, but he distrusted his future. Nietzsche disliked the pianist and said of him in one of his aphorisms: "Liszt the first representative of all musicians, but no musician. He was the prince, not the statesman. The conglomerate of a hundred musicians' souls, but not enough of a personality to cast his own shadow upon them." In his Roving Expeditions of an Inopportune Philosopher, Nietzsche even condescends to a pun on Liszt as a piano teacher: "Liszt, or the school of running—after women" (Schule der Geläufigkeit).
Over a quarter of a century has passed since the death of Karl Tausig, a time long enough to dim the glory of the mere virtuoso. Many are still living who have heard him play, and can recall the deep impressions which his performances made on his hearers. Whoever not only knew Karl Tausig at the piano, but had studied his genuinely artistic nature, still retains a living image of him. He stands before us in all hisyouth, for he died early, before he had reached the middle point of life; he counted thirty years at the time of his death, when his great heart, inspired with a love for all beauty, ceased to beat; when those hands,Tes mains de bronze et des diamants, as Liszt named them in a letter to his pupil and friend, grew stiff in death.
It was through many wanderings and perplexities that Karl Tausig rose to the height which he reached in the last years of his life. A friendless childhood was followed by a period ofSturm und Drang, till the dross had been purged away and the pure gold of his being displayed. The essence of his playing was warm objectivity; he let every masterpiece come before us in its own individuality; the most perfect virtuosity, his incomparable surmounting of all technical means of expression, was to him only the means, never the end. Paradoxical as it may appear, there never was, before or since, so great a virtuoso who was less a virtuoso. Hence the career of a virtuoso did not satisfy him; he strove for higher ends, and apart from his ceaseless culture of the intellect, his profound studies in all fields of science and the devotion which he gave to philosophy, mathematics, and the natural sciences, what he achieved in the field of music possesses a special interest, as he regarded it as merely a preparation for comprehensive creative activity. Some of these compositions are still found in the programmes of all celebrated pianists, while the arrangements that he made for pedagogic purposes occupy aprominent place in the courses of all conservatories.
Karl Tausig came to Berlin in the beginning of the sixties. Alois Tausig, his father, a distinguished piano teacher at Warsaw, who had directed the early education of the son, whom he survived by more than a decade, had already presented him to Liszt at Weimar. Liszt at once took the liveliest interest in the astonishing talents of the boy and made him a member of his household at Altenburg, at Weimar, where this prince in the realm of art kept his court with the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, surrounded by a train of young artists, to which Hans von Bülow, Karl Klindworth, Peter Cornelius (to name only a few) belonged. With all these Karl Tausig formed intimate friendships, especially with Cornelius, who was nearest to him in age. An active correspondence was carried on between them, even when their paths of life separated them. Tausig next went to Wagner at Zürich, and the meeting confirmed him in his enthusiasm for the master's creations and developed that combativeness for the works and artistic struggles of Wagner which resulted in the arrangement of orchestral concerts in Vienna exclusively for Wagner's compositions, a very hazardous venture at that period. He directed them in person, and gave all his savings and all his youthful power to them without gaining the success that was hoped for. The master himself, when he came to Vienna for the rehearsals of thefirst performances ofTristan und Isolde, had sad experiences; his young friend stood gallantly by his side, but the performance did not take place. Vienna was then a sterile soil for Wagner's works and designs. Tausig returned in anger to Berlin, where he quickly became an important figure and a life-giving centre of a circle of interesting men. He founded a conservatory that was sought by pupils from all over the world, and where teachers like Louis Ehlert and Adolf Jensen gave instruction. When Richard Wagner came to Berlin in 1870 with a project for erecting a theatre of his own for the performance of the Nibelungen Ring it was Tausig who took it up with ardent zeal, to which the master bore honourable testimony in his account of the performance.
In July, 1871, Tausig visited Liszt at Weimar and accompanied him to Leipsic, where Liszt's grand mass was performed in St. Thomas' Church by the Riedle Society. After the performance he fell sick. A cold, it was said, prostrated him. In truth he had the seeds of death in him, which Wagner, in his inscription for the tomb of his young friend, expressed by the words, "Ripe for death!" The Countess Krockow and Frau von Moukanoff, who on the report of his being attacked by typhus hastened to discharge the duties of a Samaritan by his sick-bed in the hospital, did all that careful nursing and devoted love could do, but in vain, and on July 17 Karl Tausig breathed his last.
His remains were carried from Leipsic to Berlin, and were interred in the new cemetery in the Belle Alliance Strasse. During the funeral ceremony a great storm burst forth, and the roll of the thunder mingled with the strains of the Funeral March from the Eroica which the Symphony Orchestra performed at his grave. Friends erected a simple memorial. An obelisk of rough-hewn syenite bears his portrait, modelled in relief by Gustav Blaesar. Unfortunately wind and weather in the course of years injured the marble of the relief, so that its destruction at an early period was probable, and the same friends substituted a bronze casting for the marble, which on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death was adorned with flowers by loving hands.
Karl Tausig represents the very opposite pole in "pianism" to Thalberg; he was fire and flame incarnate, he united all the digital excellencies of the aristocratic Thalberg, including his supreme and classic calm to a temperament that, like a comet, traversed artistic Europe and fired it with enthusiastic ideals. If Karl Tausig had only possessed the creative gift in any proportion to his genius for reproduction he would have been a giant composer. As a pianist he has never had his equal. With Liszt's fire and Bülow's intellectuality he nevertheless transcended them both in the possession of a subtle something that defied analysis. We see it in his fugitive compositions that revel on technical heights hitherto unscaled. Tausig had a force, a virility combinedwith a mental insight, that made him peer of all pianists. It is acknowledged by all who heard him that his technic outshone all others; he had the whispering and crystalline pianissimo of Joseffy, the liquidity of Thalberg's touch, with the resistless power of a Rubinstein.
He literally killed himself playing the piano; his vivid nature felt so keenly in reproducing the beautiful and glorious thoughts of Bach, Beethoven and Chopin, and, like a sabre that was too keen for its own scabbard, he wore himself out from nervous exhaustion. Tausig was many-sided, and the philosophical bent of his mind may be seen in the few fragments of original music he has vouchsafed us. Take a Thalberg operatic fantaisie and a paraphrase of Tausig's, say of Tristan and Isolde, and compare them; then one can readily gauge the vast strides piano music has taken. Touch pure and singing was the Thalbergian ideal. Touch dramatic, full of variety, is the Tausig ideal. One is vocal, the other instrumental, and both seem to fulfill their ideals. Tausig had a hundred touches; from a feathery murmur to an explosive crash he commanded the entire orchestra of contrasts. Thalberg was the cultivated gentleman of the drawing-room, elegiac, but one who never felt profoundly (glance at his étude on repeated notes). Elegant always, jocose never. Tausig was a child of the nineteenth century, full of its ideals, its aimless strivings, its restlessness, its unfaith and desperately sceptical tone. If he had only lived hewould have left an imprint on our modern musical life as deep as Franz Liszt, whose pupil he was. Richard Wagner was his god and he strove much for him and his mighty creations.
"You, I presume, do not wish for biographical details—of my appearances as a boy in Vienna and later in St. Petersburg, of my early studies with Joseffy and later with Liszt," asked the great virtuoso. "You would like to hear something about Liszt? As a man or as an artist? You know I was with him ten years, and can flatter myself that I have known him intimately. As a man, I can well say I have never met any one so good and noble as he. Every one knows of his ever-ready helpfulness toward struggling artists, of his constant willingness to further the cause of charity. And when was there ever such a friend? I need only refer you to the correspondence between him and Wagner, published a year ago, for proof of his claims to highest distinction in that oft-abused capacity. One is not only compelled to admire the untiring efforts to assist Wagner in every way that are evidenced in nearly each one of his letters, but one is also obliged to appreciate such acts for which no other documents exist than the history of music in our day. The fact alone that Liszt, who had every stage of Germany open to him if he had so wished, never composed an opera, but usedhis influence rather in behalf of Wagner's works, speaks fully as eloquently as the many letters that attest his active friendship. For Liszt the artist, my love and admiration are equally great. Even in his inferior works can be discovered the stamp of his genius. Do you know the Polonaise, by Tschaïkowsky, transcribed by him? Is it not a remarkable effort for an old gentleman of seventy-two? And the third Mephisto Waltz for piano? Certain compositions of his, such asLes Prèludes,Die Ideale, Tasso, the Hungarian Rhapsodies, and some of the songs and transcriptions for piano, will unquestionably continue to be performed and enjoyed for many, many years to come.
"You ask how he played? As no one before him, and as no one probably will ever again. I remember when I first went to him as a boy—he was in Rome at the time—he used to play for me in the evening by the hour—nocturnes by Chopin, études of his own—all of a soft, dreamy nature that caused me to open my eyes in wonder at the marvellous delicacy and finish of his touch. The embellishments were like a cobweb—so fine—or like the texture of costliest lace. I thought, after what I had heard in Vienna, that nothing further would astonish me in the direction of digital dexterity, having studied with Joseffy, the greatest master of that art. But Liszt was more wonderful than anybody I had ever known, and he had further surprises in store for me. I had never heard him play anythingrequiring force, and, in view of his advanced age, took for granted that he had fallen off from what he once had been."
Arthur Friedheim was born of German parentage in St. Petersburg, October 26, 1859. He lost his father in early youth, but was carefully reared by an excellent mother. His musical studies were begun in his eighth year, and his progress was so rapid that he was enabled to make his artistic début before the St. Petersburg public in the following year by playing Field's A-flat major concerto. He created a still greater sensation, however, after another twelve months had elapsed, with his performance of Weber's difficult piano concerto, reaping general admiration for his work. Despite these successes, the youth was then submitted to a thorough university education, and in 1877 passed his academical examination with great honours. But now the musical promptings of his warm artist soul, no longer able to endure this restraint, having revived, Friedheim with all his energy again devoted himself to his musical advancement, including the study of composition, and it proved a severe blow, indeed, to him when his family soon afterward met with reverses, in losing their estates, thus robbing the young artist of his cheery home surroundings.
From this time Friedheim's artistic wanderingsbegan, and fulfilling a long cherished desire, he, with his mother, first paid a visit to that master of masters, Franz Liszt. Then he went to Dresden, continuing in the composition of an opera begun at St. Petersburg, entitled The Last Days of Pompeii. In order to acquire the necessary routine he accepted a position as conductor of operas for several years, when an irresistible force once more led his steps toward Weimar, where, after he had produced the most favourable impression by the performance of his own piano concerto, with Liszt at a second piano, he took up his permanent abode with the master, accompanying him to Rome and Naples. Meantime Friedheim concertised in Cairo, Alexandria, and Paris, also visiting London in 1882. At the request of Camille Saint-Saëns fragments of his works were produced during his stay in Paris.
Friedheim next went to Vienna, where his concerts met with brilliant success, and later on to Northern Germany, where his renown as a great pianist became firmly established. He enjoyed positive triumphs in Berlin, Leipsic and Carlsruhe. Friedheim's technic, his tone, touch, marvellous certainty, unequalled force and endurance, his broad expression and that rare gift—a style in the grand manner—are the qualities that have universally received enthusiastic praise. In later years he travelled extensively, and more particularly in 1884 to 1886, in Germany. In 1887 he conducted a series of concerts in Leipsic, in 1888 he revisited London, in 1889 he made atour through Russia and Poland; a second tour through Russia was made in 1890, including Bohemia, Austria, and Galicia, while in 1891 he played numerous engagements in Germany and also in London, whence he came to this country to fulfil a very short engagement.
Albert Morris Bagby wrote as follows in his article, "Some Pupils of Liszt," in theCenturyabout twenty years ago:
"Friedheim! What delightful musical memories and happy recollections are the rare days spent together in Weimar that name excites! D'Albert left there before my time, and though I met him on his flying visits to Weimar, I generally think of him as I first saw him, seated at a piano on the concert platform.
"One late afternoon in August, 1885, Liszt stood before a wide-open window of his salon on the second floor of the court gardener's residence in Weimar, and his thoughtful gaze wandered out beyond the long row of hothouses and narrow beds of rare shrubs to the rich leafy growth which shaded the glorious park inclosing this modest home. He was in a serene state of mind after an hour at whist in which he had won the rubber, and now, while his young companions were putting the card-tables and chairs back into their accustomed places about the room, he stood silent and alone. Any one of us would have given more than 'a penny for his thoughts,' a fact which he probably divined, for, without turning his head, he said; 'Friedheim did indeed playbeautifully!' referring to the young pianist's performance of his A major concerto that afternoon in the class lesson.
"'And the accompaniment was magnificently done, too!' added one of the small party.
"'Ah!' exclaimed the master, with an animated look and gesture which implied, 'that goes without saying.' 'Friedheim,' said he, and lifted his hand with a proud sweep to indicate his estimation of his favourite pupil, who had supplied the orchestral part on a second piano. After Friedheim's triumphal début at Leipsic in the spring of 1884, Liszt was so much gratified that he expressed with unwonted warmth his belief that the young man would yet become the greatest piano virtuoso of the age. He was then just twenty-four years old, and his career since that event points toward the fulfilment of the prophecy.
"Arthur Friedheim is the most individual performer I have ever heard. A very few executants equal him in mere finger dexterity, but he surpasses them all in his gigantic strength at the instrument and in marvellous clearness and brilliancy. At times he plays with the unbridled impetuosity of a cyclone; and even while apparently dealing the piano mighty blows, which from other hands would sound forced and discordant, they never cease to be melodious. This musical, penetrating quality of touch is the chief charm of Friedheim's playing. He makes the piano sing, but its voice is full and sonorous. If he plays apianissimo passage the effect is as clear and sweet as a perfectly attuned silver bell, and his graduated increase or diminution of tone is the acme of artistic finish. No living pianist performs Liszt's compositions so well as Friedheim. This fact was unanimously mentioned by the critics upon his first appearance in Berlin in a 'Liszt concert,' in conjunction with the fear that he would not succeed as an interpreter of Beethoven and Chopin; which, however, the new virtuoso has since proved groundless. Friedheim is one of the most enjoyable and inspiriting of the great pianists. His playing of Liszt's second rhapsody produces an electric shock; and once heard from himLa Campanellaremains in the memory an ineffaceable tone poem. To me he has made likewise indelible Chopin's lovely D-flat major prelude.
"Friedheim is of medium height and weight; has regular, clear-cut features, dark brown eyes, and hair pushed straight back from a high, broad forehead and falling over his coat collar, artist fashion. In his street dress, with a bronze velvet jacket, great soft felt hat and a gold medallion portrait of Liszt worn as a scarf pin, he is the typical musician. His resemblance to the early pictures of Liszt is as marked as that of D'Albert to Tausig. He was born and bred in St. Petersburg, though his parents are German. I know nothing of his early instructors, but it is sufficient to say that he was at least nine years with Liszt. Fortune favoured him with a relative of unusualmental power who has made his advancement her life work. To these zealous mothers of musicians the world is indebted for some of the greatest artistic achievements of every time and period. There are many celebrated instances where application is almost entirely lacking or fluctuating in the child of genius, and the mother supplied the deficiency of character until the artist was fully developed, and steadiness of purpose had become routine with him. One evening I was sitting with Friedheim and his mother in one of those charming restaurant gardens which abound in Weimar when we were joined by two of theLisztianer, convivial spirits who led a happy-go-lucky existence. 'Come, Arthur,' said one, 'we will go to the "Armbrust" for a few minutes—music there to-night. Will be right back, Mrs. Friedheim.' 'No,' replied the mother, pleasantly, 'Arthur remains with me this evening.' 'But, mother, we will be gone only a few minutes, and I have already practiced seven hours to-day,' entreated the son. 'Yes, dear child, and you must practice seven more to-morrow. I think you had better remain with me,' responded his parent. Friedheim good-naturedly assented to his mother's speech, for the nocturnal merry-makings of a certain clique of divers artists at the 'Hotel zum Elephanten' were too well-known to risk denial."
Descent counts for much in matters artistic as well as in the breeding of racehorses. "Tell me who the master is and I will describe for you the pupil," cry some theorists who might be called extremists. How many to-day know the name of Anton Rubinstein's master? Yet the pedagogue Villoing laid the foundation of the great Russian pianist's musical education, an education completed by the genial Franz Liszt. In the case, however, of Rafael Joseffy he was a famous pupil of a famous master. There are some critics who claim that Karl Tausig represents the highest development of piano playing in this century of piano-playing heroes. His musical temperament so finely fibred, his muscular system like steel thrice tempered is duplicated in his pupil, who, at an age when boys are gazing at the world across the threshold of Toy-land, was an accredited artist, a virtuoso in knee-breeches!
Rafael Joseffy stands to-day for all that is exquisite and poetic in the domain of the piano. His touch is original, his manipulation of the mechanism of the instrument unapproachable, a virtuoso among virtuosi, and the beauty of his tone, its velvety, aristocratic quality, so free from any suspicion of harshness or brutality, gives him a unique position in the music-loving world. There is magic in his attack, magic and moonlight inhis playing of a Chopin nocturne, and brilliancy—a meteor-like brilliancy—in his performance of a Liszt concerto.
This rare combination of the virtuoso and the poet places Joseffy outside the pale of popular "pianism." From Tausig he inherited his keen and severe sense of rhythm; from his native country, Hungary, he absorbed brilliancy and colour sense. When Joseffy was young he delighted in the exhibition of his fabulous technic, but he has mellowed, he has matured, and superimposed upon the brilliancies of his ardent youth are the thoughtful interpretations of the intellectual artist. He is a classical pianist par excellence, and his readings of Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms are authoritative and final. To the sensitive finish he now unites a breadth of tone and feeling, and you may gauge the catholicity of the man by his love for both Chopin and Brahms.
There you have Joseffy, an interpreter of Brahms and Chopin! No need to expatiate further on his versatility! His style has undergone during the past five years a thorough purification. He has successfully combated the temptation of excess in colour, of the too lusty exuberance in the use of his material, of abuse of the purely decorative side of his art. Touching the finer rim of the issues of his day Joseffy emulates the French poet, Paul Verlaine, in his devotion to the nuance, to the shade within shade that may be expressed on the keyboard of thepiano. Yet his play never lacks the robust ring, the virile accent. He is no mere pianissimist, striving for effects of the miniaturist; rather in his grasp of the musical content of a composition does he reveal his acuity and fine spiritual temper.