"To Franz Liszt, who towers high above all his predecessors, must be given pride of place.
"In 1870 I had the good fortune to go with Tausig to the Beethoven Festival held at Weimar by theAllgemeiner Musik Verein, and there I met Liszt for the first time. I had the opportunity of learning to know him from every point of view, as pianist, conductor, composer, and, in his private capacity, as a man—and every aspect seemed to me equally magnificent.
"His remarkable personality had an indescribable fascination, which made itself felt at once by all who came into contact with him. This wonderful magnetism and power to charm all sorts and conditions of men was illustrated in a delightful way. He was walking down Regent Street one day, on his way to his concert at the St. James' Hall. As he passed the cab-rank, he was recognised, and the cabbies as one man took off their hats and gave three rousing cheers for 'The Habby Liszt.' The man who can evoke the enthusiasm of a London cabby, except by paying him treble his fare, is indeed unique and inimitable!
"As a Conductor, the musical world owes him an undying debt of gratitude for having been the first to produce Wagner's Lohengrin, and to reviveTannhäuserin the face of the opprobrium heaped upon this work by the whole of the European press. It was he, too, who first produced Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini and many other works, which, though neglected and improperly understood at that time, have since come into their kingdom and received due recognition.
"As a Composer, I do not think that Liszt has hitherto been esteemed as highly as he deserves. If only for having invented the symphonic poem, which was an absolutely new form of orchestral composition, he has merited the highest honours; while his pre-eminence is still undisputed in the bravura style of pianoforte works, without one or more of which no pianoforte recital seems complete. The same compliment is not paid his orchestral works, which are performed far too rarely.
"Words cannot describe him as a Pianist—he was incomparable and unapproachable."
There are interesting anecdotes of great musicians. Rossini was her intimate friend and adviser for years. In Paris she knew Chopin, who came to the house often and would only play for them if "la petiteClara would recite Peter Piper Picked." She remembered waltzing tohis and Thalberg's playing. Later, when she was studying in Milan and knew Liszt, she sang at one of his concerts when no one else would do so, because he had offended the Milanese by a pungent newspaper article. He gave her courage to have a tooth out by playing Weber'sConcertstück. She remembered hearing Paganini play when that arch-trickster took out a pair of scissors and cut three of the strings of his violin so that they hung down loose, and on the fourth performed his Witches' Dance, so that "the lights seemed to turn blue."
We are not accustomed to thinking of the composer of Carmen as a pianist, but the following anecdote from theLondon Musical Standardthrows new light upon the subject:
"It may not be generally known that the French composer, Bizet, possessed to a very high degree two artistic qualities: a brilliant technique and an extraordinary skill in score reading. On various occasions he gave proof of this great ability. One of the most interesting is the following:
"Bizet's fellow-countryman, the composer Halévy, who filled the position of secretary to the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, had gathered a few of his friends at his house for a little supper. In the circle were Liszt and Bizet. After they had finished their repast, the company went to the host's music room. Gathered around thefireplace, which increased the charm or comfort, and with cigars and coffee, the guests gave themselves up to an animated conversation; finally Liszt seated himself at the piano. The famous master played one of his compositions which was unknown to those present. He overcame its tremendous difficulties with the customary audacity and strength. A storm of applause followed the brilliant execution. Liszt ended with a brilliant passage which seemed absolutely impossible to mortal fingers. Every one pressed around the great pianist, shaking his hands enthusiastically and admiring not only his unequalled playing, but praising also the clever composition, which could have been written only by so masterful a composer.
"'Yes,' replied Liszt, 'the piece is difficult, terribly difficult, and in all Europe I know only two pianists who are able to play it with the interpretation which belongs to it, and in the tempo which I have used, Von Bülow and myself!'
"Halévy, with whom Bizet had studied, had also joined the circle around the piano and complimented the master. Suddenly turning to the young Bizet, whose fine memory and ability he well knew, he said:
"'Did you notice that passage?' He accompanied the question with a few chords which sketched the passage in question, which had aroused his attention. Accepting the implied invitation, Bizet took his place at the piano, and, without the slightest hesitation, repeated thepassage which had drawn out the admiration of his teacher.
"Liszt observed the clever youngster with astonishment, while Halévy, smiling slyly, could scarcely suppress his joy over Liszt's surprise.
"'Just wait a moment, young man, just wait!' said Liszt, interrupting. 'I have the manuscript with me. It will help your memory.'
"The manuscript was quickly brought, and placed upon the piano rack. Bizet, to the general astonishment, immediately took up the difficult piece, and played it through to the final chord with a verve and rapidity which no one had expected from him. Not once was there a sign of weakness or hesitation. An enthusiastic and long clapping of hands followed the playing. Halévy continued to smile, enjoying to the full the triumph of his favourite pupil.
"But Liszt, who always rose to an occasion and was never chary of praise for others, stepped to the young man's side after the wave of applause had subsided, pressed his hand in a friendly manner, and said with irresistible kindness, 'My young friend, up to the present time I believed that there were only two men capable of overcoming the tremendous difficulties which I wrote in that piece, but I deceived myself—there are three of us; and I must add, in order to be just, that the youngest of us is perhaps the cleverest and the most brilliant.'"
"One of the pioneers of classical music in Italy, and one of its most talented composers of chamber music and in symphonic forms, is Giovanni Sgambati, born in Rome, May 18, 1843," writes Edward Burlingame Hill, in theEtude. "His father was a lawyer; his mother, an Englishwoman, was the daughter of Joseph Gott, the English sculptor. There had been some idea of making a lawyer of young Sgambati, but the intensity of his interest in music and his obvious talent precluded the idea of any other career. When he was but six years old, his father died, and he went with his mother to live in Trevii, in Umbria, where she soon married again. Even at this early age he played in public, sang contralto solos in church, and also conducted small orchestras. When a little older he studied the piano, harmony and composition with Natalucci, a pupil of Zingarelli, a famous teacher at the Naples conservatory. He returned in 1860 to Rome, where he became at once popular as a pianist, in spite of the severity of his programmes, for he played the works of Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann, and the fugues of Bach and Handel. Many of these works were entirely unknown to Italian audiences; he thus became an ardent propagandist of the best literature of the piano. His next teacher was Professor Aldega, master of the Capella Liberiana of Santa Maria Maggiore. He was onthe point of leaving for Germany for further study when Liszt came to Rome, became interested in Sgambati and took him in charge for special instruction in the mysteries of higher piano playing. He soon became the leading exponent of the Liszt school of technic and interpretation. Sgambati was the soloist in a famous series of classical chamber music concerts inaugurated in Rome by Ramaciotti; he was (as mentioned before) the first interpreter of the works of Schumann, who in the years 1862-63 was virtually unknown in Italy. Later he began to give orchestral concerts at which the symphonies and concertos of the German masters were given for the first time. In 1866, when the Dante Gallery was inaugurated, Liszt chose Sgambati to conduct his Dante symphony. On this occasion Beethoven's Eroica symphony was given for the first time in Rome.
"In 1869, he travelled in Germany with Liszt, meeting many musicians of note, among them Wagner, Rubinstein, and Saint-Saëns, hearing The Rhinegold at Munich. Wagner, in particular, became so much interested in Sgambati's compositions that he secured a publisher for them by his emphatic recommendations. On returning to Rome, Sgambati founded a free piano class at the Academy of St. Cecilia, since adopted as a part of its regular course of instruction. In 1878, he became professor of the piano at the Academy, and at present is its director. In 1896, he founded theNuova Società Musicale Romana(the Roman New Musical Society) for increasing interest in Wagnerian opera. Sgambati has been an occasional visitor to foreign cities, notably London and Paris, both in the capacity of pianist and as conductor; he has led performances of his symphonies in various Italian cities, and at concerts where the presence of royalty lent distinction to the audience.
"Miss Bettina Walker, a pupil of Sgambati in 1879, gives a most delightful picture of Sgambati in her book, My Musical Experiences. A few extracts may assist in forming an idea of his personality. 'He then played three or four pieces of Liszt's, winding up the whole with a splendid reading of Bach's Chromatic Fantasy. In everything that he played, Sgambati far exceeded all that I could have anticipated. His lovely, elastic touch, the weight and yet the softness of his wrist staccato, the swing and go of his rhythmic beat, the colouring rich and warm, and yet most exquisitely delicate, and over all the atmosphere of grace, the charm and the repose which perfect mastery alone can give'—'But to return to the relation of my studies with Sgambati. He gave me the scales to practice in thirds, and arpeggios in the diminished sevenths, for raising the fingers from the keyboard—recommending these as the best possible daily drills for the fingers. He also gave me some guidance in the first book of Kullak's octave-studies and he tried to initiate me into the elastic swing and movement of the wrist, so important in the octave-playingof modern compositions. Sgambati's playing of Liszt was, now that I compare him with many others whom I have since heard, more poetical than any. In the sudden fortissimi so characteristic of the school his tone was always rich and full, never wooden or shrill; while his pianissimi were so subtle and delicate, and the nuances, the touches of beauty, were fraught with a sighing, lingering, quite inimitable sweetness, which one could compare to nothing more material than the many hues where sky and ocean seem to melt and blend, in a dream of tender ecstasy, along the coast-line between Baia and Naples.'"
Walter Bache died April, 1888, and the LondonFigarogives the following sketch of this artist:
"The awfully sudden death of poor Walter Bache on Monday night sent a shock through the whole of the London world of music. Some of his most intimate friends were present at the final popular concert on that evening, but none of them knew anything at all of the death. We have it on the authority of a member of his family that not even those whom he held most dear were in the slightest degree aware that he was in any danger. Only a few days ago he was present at a concert in St. James' Hall. But it seems he caught a chill. Next day he became worse, the cold doubtless settled upon his lungs, and thethird day he died. Notification of the death did not reach even the daily papers until midnight. The obituary writers were then certainly not assisted by Sir George Grove, who, in the thousands of pages which form the four gigantic volumes of his so-called Dictionary of Musicians, could not spare a paragraph to narrate the story of the life of one who for a quarter of a century has been a central figure of English musical life, and who from his gentleness, his gifts and his son-like affection for his master Liszt will shine as a bright picture in the pages of English musical history.
"We need not go very deeply into the history of Walter Bache's life. He was born in June, 1842, at Birmingham, and was the son of an Unitarian minister. From his birth till his death two special points stand out boldly in his career. Until his 'prodigy' brother Edward died in 1858 he was taught only by Stimpson, of Birmingham. The death of his brother was the first great incident of his life. His own education was then more thoroughly cared for than before, and he was sent to Leipsic, where, under Plaidy, Moscheles, Richter (not the conductor) and Hauptman, he was a fellow student of Sullivan, Carl Rosa, J. F. Barnett and Franklin Taylor. All five boys have since become eminent, but each one in a totally different line, and, indeed, it may fairly be said that to a great extent the Leipsic class of that period held the fortunes of modern musical England. When theclass broke up in 1861 Bache travelled in Italy, and in 1862 at his meeting with Liszt occurred the second great incident in his career. From that time Liszt and Bache were fast friends. But Bache to the day of his death never aspired to be more than the pupil of his master.
"Teach he must do for daily bread, but compose he would not, as he knew he could not surpass Liszt, although all his savings were devoted to the Liszt propaganda. It is not for us, standing as we do on the brink of the grave of a good man, to determine whether he was right or wrong. It will suffice that Walter Bache's devotion to Liszt was one of the most beautiful and the most sentimental things of a musically material age. Liszt rewarded him on his last visit to London by attending a reception which Bache, at great expense, gave in his honour at the Grosvenor Gallery. Bache is now dead; a blameless and a useful life cut short in its very prime."
"Antoine Rubinstein, of whom no one in Paris had ever heard before, for this great artist had the coquettish temerity to disdain the assistance of the press, and no advance notice, none at all, you understand, had announced his apparition," has written Saint-Saëns, "made his appearance in his concerto in G major, with orchestra, in the lovely Herz concert room, so novel in construction and so elegant in aspect, of which one canno more avail himself to-day. Useless to say, there was not a single paying hearer in the room, but next morning, nevertheless, the artist was celebrated, and at the second concert there was a prodigious jam. I was there at the second concert, and at the first notes I was overthrown and chained to the car of the conqueror.
"Concerts followed one another, and I did not miss a single one. Some one proposed to present me to the great artist, but in spite of his youth (he was then twenty-eight), and in spite of his reputation for urbanity, he awakened in me a horrible timidity; the idea of being near him, of addressing a word to him, terrified me profoundly. It was only at his second coming to Paris, a year later, that I dared to brave his presence. The ice between us two was quickly broken. I acquired his friendship in deciphering upon his own piano the orchestral score of his Ocean Symphony. I read very well then, and his symphonic music, written large and black, was not very difficult to read.
"From this day a lively sympathy united us; the simplicity and evident sincerity of my admiration touched him. We were together assiduously, often played together for four hands, subjected to rude tests the piano which served as our field of battle, without regard to the ears of our hearers. It was a good time! We made music with passion simply for the sake of making it, and we never had enough. I was so happy to have encountered an artist who was wholly anartist, exempt from the littleness which sometimes makes so bad a barrier around great talent. He came back every winter, and always enlarged his success and consolidated our friendship."
With the exception of the Bachs, who were noted musicians for six generations, and the Viennese branch of the Strauss dynasty, there is perhaps no musical family that affords a more interesting illustration of heredity in a special talent than the Garcias. The elder Garcia, who was born in 1775, was not only a great tenor and teacher, but a prolific composer of operas. His two famous daughters also became composers, as well as singers. Madame Viardot (who died in 1910) was so lucky as to be able to base her operettas on librettos written by Turgenev. Liszt said of her that "in all that concerns method and execution, feeling and expression, it would be hard to find a name worthy to be mentioned with that of Malibran's sister," and Wagner was amazed and delighted when she sang the Isolde music in a whole act of his Tristan at sight. She studied the piano with Liszt and played brilliantly.
Memorial tablets have been placed on each of the two houses at Weimar in which Liszt used to reside. He first lived at the Altenburg and later on at theHofgärtnerei. The act of piety was undertaken by theAllgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein, of which organisation Liszt was the president up to the time of his death.
It has been asserted that Liszt was a Freemason after his consecration as a priest. This has been contradicted, but the following from theFreemason's Journalappears to settle the question:
"On the 31st of July last one of the greatest artists and men departed at Bayreuth for the eternal east, who had proved himself a worthy member of our brotherhood by his deeds through his whole eventful life. It is Brother Franz Liszt, on whose grave we deposit an acacia branch. Millions of florins Franz Liszt had earned on his triumphal career—for others. His art, his time, his life, were given to those who claimed it. Thus he journeyed, a living embodiment of the St. Simonism to which he once belonged, through his earthly pilgrimage. Brother Franz Liszt was admitted into the brotherhood in the year 1844, at the lodge 'Unity' ('Zur Einigkeit'), in Frankfort-on-the-Main, by George Kloss, with the composer, W. Ch. Speyer as witness, and in the presence of Felix von Lichnowsky. He was promoted to the second degreein a lodge at Berlin, and elected master in 1870, as member of the lodge 'Zur Einigkeit,' in Budapest. Since 1845 he was also honorary member of the L.Modestia cum Libertateat Zurich. If there ever was a Freemason in favour with Pope Pius IX it was Franz Liszt, created abbé in 1865 in Rome."
A letter from Paris to the ViennaMonday Reviewsays that in the salon of the Champ de Mars a picture is on exhibition, called Italian Bagpiper. While its artistic points are hardly worthy of special mention the striking resemblance of this work by Michael Vallet to the facial traits of Franz Liszt puzzled the jury not a little, and will doubtless create much interest among the visitors of the gallery. The model for the subject was a boat-hand of Genoa named Angelo Giocati-Buonaventi, fifty-six years of age. It was while strolling about the Genoese wharves that Vallet noticed the sparse form of Angelo, whose beardless face recalled to him at once Franz Liszt's.
Angelo consented willingly to pose for the piper, but all questions as to his family extraction were answered with a laconicChi lo sa?Vallet, by making inquiries in other directions, learned that Angelo came originally from Albano. He took a trip to that place, and after the lapse of a few days wrote a friend in Paris: "Found! Found! The surmise regarding my Angelo iscorrect. This boathand is without any doubt a son of Countess d'Agoult, whose relations with Franz Liszt are known throughout the world, and was born here in the year 1834. I found a picture of the countess in the home of a sister-in-law of a lately deceased peasant woman, Giocati-Buonaventi. This latter was the nurse and later the woman who had the motherly care of my Angelo...."
It happened that at the same time, as if to corroborate Vallet's statement, theReview de Parispublished an interesting correspondence between Georges Sand and Countess d'Agoult. The latter writes from Albano under date of June 9, 1839: "It was our intention to present our respects to the Sultan this summer, but our trip to Constantinople came to naught. A little fellow that I had the caprice to bring here into the world prevented the carrying out of the plan. The boy promises to be a beauty. One of the handsomest women of Palestrina furnishes the milk for his nourishment. It is to be regretted that Franz has again one of his fits of melancholy. [She speaks of Liszt repeatedly in this letter, giving him the pet namecrétin.] The thought of being father tothreelittle children seems to depress his mind...."
The three children being accounted for, the story of Vallet regarding Angelo has no foundation in fact, and we would not even mention it if it was not making the rounds of the Continental press.
In these days of virtuosity let us hear what Liszt, the master of all virtuosi, says:
"What, then, makes the virtuoso on an instrument?" asks the master, and we gain on this occasion the most comprehensive and the most decisive information on the point ourselves. Is he really a mere spiritless machine? Do his hands only attend to the office of a double winch on a street organ? Has he to dispense with his brain and with his feelings in his mechanical execution of the prescribed performance? Has he to supply the ear only with a photograph of the object before him? Such representations bring him to the somewhat proud remark: "We know too well how many amongst those who enjoy great praise, unable to translate even to the letter the original that is on the desk before them, degrade its sense, carrying on the art as a trade, and not understanding even the trade itself. However victorious a counterfeit may be, it does not destroy the power of the real authors and poet virtuosi; they are for those who are 'called' to an extent of which a degraded public, under an illegitimate and ignorant 'dominion,' has no idea. You hear the rolling of the thunder, the roaring of the lion, the far-spreading sound of man's strength. For the words virtuosity and virtus are derived from the Latin 'vir'; the execution of both is an act of manly power," sayshe, and characterises now his 'artist' as follows: "The virtuoso is not a mason, who, with the chisel in his hand, faithfully and conscientiously cuts his stone after the design of the architect. He is not a passive tool that reproduces feeling and thought without adding himself. He is not the more or less experienced reader of works that have no margin for his notes, and which make no paragraph necessary between the lines. These spiritedly written musical works are in reality for the virtuoso only the tragic and touching putting-in-scene of feelings; he is called upon to let these speak, weep, sing, sigh—to render these to his own consciousness. He creates in this way like the composer himself, for he must embrace in himself those passions which he, in their complete brilliancy, has to bring to light. He breathes life into the lethargic body, infuses it with fire, and enlivens it with the pulse of gracefulness and charm. He changes the clayey form into a living being, penetrating it with the spark which Prometheus snatched from the flash of Jupiter. He must make this form wander in transparent ether; he must arm it with a thousand winged arms; he must unfold scent and blossom and breathe into it the breath of life. Of all artists the virtuoso reveals perhaps most immediately the overpowering forces of the god who, in glowing embraces of the proud muse, allures every hidden secret."
LETTER FROM DR. FRANZ LISZT
"Weimar,November, 1883.
"Mr. Steinway:
"Most Esteemed Sir: Again I owe you many and special thanks. The new Steinway Grand is a glorious masterpiece in power, sonority, singing quality, and perfect harmonic effects, affording delight even to my old piano-weary fingers. Ever continuing success remains a beautiful attribute of the world-renowned firm of Steinway & Sons. In your letter, highly esteemed sir, you mention some new features in the Grand Piano,viz., the vibrating body being bent into form out of one continuous piece, and that portion of the strings heretofore lying dormant being now a part of and thus incorporated as partial tones into the foundation tones. Their utility is emphatically guaranteed by the name of the inventor. Owing to my ignorance of the mechanism of piano construction I can but praise the magnificentresultin the 'volume and quality of sound.' In relation to the use of your welcome tone-sustaining pedal I inclose two examples:Danse des Sylphes, by Berlioz, and No. 3 of my Consolations. I have to-day noted down only the introductory bars of both pieces, with this proviso, that, if you desire it, I shall gladly complete the whole transcription, with exact adaptation of your tone-sustaining pedal.
"Very respectfully and gratefully,"F. Liszt."
"While Liszt has been immensely written about as pianist and composer, sufficient stress has not been laid upon what the world owes him as a teacher of pianoforte playing," writes Amy Fay. "During his life-time Liszt despised the name of 'piano-teacher,' and never suffered himself to be regarded as such. 'I am noProfesseur du Piano,' he scornfully remarked one day in the class at Weimar, and if any one approached him as a 'teacher' he instantly put the unfortunate offender outside of his door.
"I was once a witness of his haughty treatment of a Leipsic pupil of the fair sex, who came to him one day and asked him 'to give her a few lessons.' He instantly drew himself up and replied in the most cutting tone:
"'I do not give lessons on the piano; and,' he added with a bow, in which grace and sarcasm were combined, 'you really don't need me as a teacher.'
"There was a dead silence for a minute, and then the poor girl, not knowing what to do or say, backed herself out of the room. Liszt, turning to the class, said:
"'That is the way people fly in my face, by dozens! They seem to think I am there only to give them lessons on the piano. I have to get rid of them, for I am no Professor of the Piano. This girl did not play badly, either,' concluded he, half ashamed of himself for his treatment of her.
"For my part, I was awfully sorry for the girl, and I was tempted to run after her and bring her back, and intercede with Liszt to take her; but I was a new-comer myself, and did not quite dare to brave the lion in his den. Later, I would have done it, for the girl was really very talented, and it was a mere want of tact on her part in her manner of approaching Liszt which precipitated her defeat. She brought him Chopin's F minor concerto, and played the middle movement of it, Liszt standing up and thundering out the orchestral accompaniment, tremolo, in the bass of the piano. I wondered it did not put the girl out, but she persisted bravely to the end, and did not break down, as I expected she would.
"She came at an inopportune moment, for there were only five of us in the room, and we were having a most entertaining time with Liszt, that lovely June afternoon, and he did not feel disposed to be interrupted by a stranger. In spite of himself, he could not help doing justice to her talent, saying: 'She did not play at all badly.' This, however, the poor girl never knew. She probably wept briny tears of disappointment when she returned to her hotel.
"While Liszt resented being called a 'piano-teacher,' he neverthelesswas one, in the higher sense of the term. It was the difference between the scientific college professor of genius and the ordinary school-teacher which distinguished him from the rank and file of musical instructors.
"Nobody could be more appreciative of talentthan Liszt was—even of talent which was not of the first order—and I was often amazed to see the trouble he would give himself with some industrious young girl who had worked hard over big compositions like Schumann's Carnival, or Chopin's sonatas. At one of the musical gatherings at the Frauleins' Stahr (music-teachers in Weimar, to whose simple home Liszt liked to come) I have heard him accompany on a second piano Chopin's E minor concerto, which was technically well played, by a girl of nineteen from the Stuttgart Conservatory.
"It was a contrast to see this young girl, with her rosy cheeks, big brown eyes, and healthy, everyday sort of talent, at one piano, and Liszt, the colossal artist, at the other.
"He was then sixty-three years old, but the fire of youth burned in him still. Like his successor, Paderewski, Liszt sat erect, and never bent his proud head over the 'stupid keys,' as he called them, even deprecating his pupils' doing so. He was very picturesque, with his lofty and ideal forehead thrown back, and his magnificent iron-gray hair falling in thick masses upon his neck. The most divine expression came over his face when he began to play the opening measures of the accompaniment, and I shall never forget the concentration and intensity he put into them if I live to be a hundred! The nobility and absolute 'selflessness' of Liszt's playing had to be heard to be understood. There was something about his tone that made you weep, it was so apart from earth and so ethereal!"
"I look forward eagerly," Bülow wrote to a friend, "to your Chopin, that immortal romanticist par excellence, whose mazurkas alone are a monument more enduring than metal. Never will this great, deep, sincere, and at the same time tender and passionate poet become antiquated. On the contrary, as musical culture increases, he will appear in a much brighter light than to-day, when only the popular Chopin is in vogue, whereas the more aristocratic, manly Chopin, the poet of the last two scherzi, the last two ballads, the barcarole, the polonaise-fantaisie, the nocturnes, Op. 9, No. 3; Op. 48; Op. 55, No. 2, etc., still awaits the interpreters who have entered into his spirit and among whom, if God grants me life, I should like to have the pride of counting myself.
"You know from my introduction to the études how highly I esteem Chopin. In his pieces we find Lenau, Byron, Musset, Lamartine, and at the same time all sorts of heathen Apollo priests. You shall learn through me to love him dearly.
"We must grant Chopin the great distinction of having in his works fixed the boundaries between piano and orchestral music, which other romanticists, notably Robert Schumann, confused, to the detriment of both.
"There are two Chopins—one an aristocrat, the other democratic."
Concerning the mazurka, Op. 50, No. 1, hesaid: "In this mazurka there is dancing, singing, gesticulating.
"Chopin's pupils issued in Paris an edition of his works. Chopin's pupils are, however, as unreliable as the girls who pose as Liszt's pupils. Use the Klindworth edition.
"Liszt's ballads and polonaises have proved most strikingly that it was possible after Chopin to write ballads and polonaises. In the polonaises in particular Liszt opened many new points of view for the widening and spiritualising of that form, quite apart from the individual peculiarities of his productions, which put in place of the national Polish colour an entirely new element, thus making possible the filling out of this form with new contents."
In one of his essays Bülow indignantly attacks the current notion that Liszt's pieces are all unplayable except by concert pianists: "Some day I shall make a list of all of Liszt's pieces for piano which most amateurs will find much easier to master and digest than the chaff of Thalberg or the wheat of Henselt or Chopin. But it seems that the name of Liszt as composer for the piano has become associated inseparably with the words 'inexecutable,' and making 'colossal demands.' It is a harmless prejudice of the ignorant, like many others, but for all that none the less objectionable.
"Liszt does not represent virtuosity as distinguished from music—very far from it.
"The Liszt ballade in B minor is equal in poetic content to Chopin's ballades."
Concerning Liszt'sIrrlichterandGnomenreigen, he said: "I wish the inspired master had written more pieces like these, which are as perfect as any song without words by Mendelssohn."
Weingartner's reminiscences of Liszt throw many interesting lights on the personality of that great composer and greatest of teachers. The gathering of famous artists at his house are well described, and his own mannerisms excellently portrayed. His playing was always marked by the ripest perfection of touch. He did not incline to the impetuous power of his youthful days, but sat almost without motion before the keyboard. His hands glided quietly over the keys, and produced the warm, magnetic stream of tone almost without effort.
His criticism of others was short, but always to the point. His praise would be given heartily, and without reserve, while blame was always concealed in some kindly circumlocution. Once, when a pretty young lady played a Chopin ballade in execrable fashion, he could not contain ejaculations of disgust as he walked excitedly about the room. At the end, however, he went to her kindly, laid his hand gently on her hair, kissed her forehead, and murmured, "Marry soon, dear child—adieu."
Another young lady once turned the tables on the composer. It was the famous Ingeborg vonBronsart, who came to him when eighteen years old, in the full bloom of her fair Northern beauty. Liszt asked her to play, inwardly fearing that this was to be one more of the petted incompetents. But when she played a Bach fugue for him, with the utmost brilliancy, he could not contain his admiration. "Wonderful," he cried, "but you certainly didn't look like it." "I should hope I didn't look like a Bach fugue," was the swift retort, and the two became lifelong friends.
Liszt's importance in this field is not overlooked.
"In Germany, the land of seriousness, organ music had acquired a character so heavy and so uniformly contrapuntal that, by the middle of last century, almost any decently trained Capellmeister could produce a sonata dull enough to be considered first-rate. There were, doubtless, many protests in the shape of unorthodox works which left no mark; but two great influences, which are the earliest we need notice, came in the shape of Liszt's Fantasia on the name of Bach and Julius Reubke's Sonata on the Ninety-fourth Psalm. Without minute analysis we may say that the former, though not an entirely great work, was at all events something entirely new. It showed the possibility of freedom of form without shapelessness, of fairly good counterpoint without dulness, of the adaptation of piano technicto the organ in a way never before attempted; and the whole work, brilliant and effective, never outraged in the smallest degree the natural dignity of the instrument."
Rudolf Breithaupt thus wrote of the technical elements in Liszt's playing inDie Musik:
"What we hear of Liszt's technic in his best years, from 1825 to 1850, resembles a fairy tale. As artists, Liszt and Paganini have almost become legendary personages. In analysing Liszt's command of the piano we find that it consists first and foremost in the revelation of a mighty personality rather than in the achievement of unheard of technical feats. Though his admirers will not believe it, technic has advanced since his day. Tausig excelled him in exactness and brilliancy; Von Bülow was a greater master of interpretation: Rubinstein went beyond him in power and in richness of tone-colour, through his consummate use of the pedal. Even contemporary artists,e.g., Carreño, d'Albert, Busoni, and in part, Godowsky, are technically equal to Liszt in his best days, and in certain details, owing to the improved mechanism of the piano, even his superior.
"It is time to do away with the fetich of Liszt's technic. It was mighty as an expression of his potent personality, mighty in its domination of all instrumental forms, mighty in its full commandof all registers and positions. But I believe that if the Liszt of former days—not the old man whose fingers did not always obey his will, but the young, vigorous Titan of the early nineteenth century—were to play for us now, we should be as little edified as we should probably be by the singing of Jenny Lind or by the playing of Paganini. Exaggeration finds no more fruitful field than the chronicling of the feats of noted artists.
"We hear, for instance, much of Liszt's hand, of its vampire-like clutch, of its uncanny, spidery power of extension—as a child I firmly believed that he could reach two octaves without difficulty. These stories are all fables. His fingers were long and regular, the thumb abnormally long; a more than usual flexibility of muscles and sinews gave him the power of spanning a twelfth. Klindworth tells us that he did some things with his left thumb that one was led to believe it twice the length of an ordinary thumb.
Liszt's Hand
Liszt's Hand
"What chiefly distinguished Liszt's technic was the absolute freedom of his arms. The secret lay in the unconstrained swinging movement of the arm from the raised shoulder, the bringing out of the tone through the impact of the full elastic mass on the keys, a thorough command and use of the freely rolling forearm. He had the gift for which all strove, the rhythmic dance of the members concerned—the springing arm, the springing hand, the springing finger. He played by weight—by a swinging and a hurling of weight from a loosened shoulder that had nothing in commonwith what is known as finger manipulation. It was by a direct transfer of strength from back and shoulders to fingers, which explains the high position of hands and fingers.
"At the time of his most brilliant period as virtuoso he paid no attention to technic and its means; his temperament was the reverse of analytical—what he wished to do he did without concerning himself as to the how or why. Later in life he did attempt to give some practical suggestions in technic, but these were of but doubtful worth. A genius is not always to be trusted when it comes to theoretical explanation of what he does more by instinct than by calculation.
"His power over an audience was such that he had only to place his hands on the keyboard to awaken storms of applause. Even his pauses had life and movement, for his hands spoke in animated gesture, while his Jupiter-like head, with its mane of flowing hair, exercised an almost hypnotic effect on his entranced listeners.
"From a professional stand-point his execution was not always flawless. His great rival, Thalberg, had greater equality of touch in scales and runs; in what was then known as thejeu perle(literally, pearly playing) his art was also finer. Liszt frequently struck false notes—but ears were closed to such faults; his hearers appeared not to notice them. These spots on the sun are mentioned only to put an end once for all to the foolish stories that are still current about Liszt's wonderful technic. This greatest of all reproductiveartists was but a man, and often erred, though in a large and characteristic fashion.
"Liszt's technic is the typical technic of the modern grand piano (Hammerklavier). He knew well the nature of the instrument, its old-fashioned single-tone effects on the one hand, its full harmonic power and polyphonic capabilities on the other. While to his predecessors it was simply a medium for musical purposes, under his hands it was a means of expression for himself, a revelation of his ardent temperament. In comparison with the contracted five-finger positions of the classical technic, its broken chords and arpeggios, Liszt's technic had the advantage of a fuller, freer flow, of greater fulness of tone and increased brilliancy. Chopin has discovered more original forms; his style of writing is far more delicate and graceful; his individual note is certainly more musical, but his technic is special in its character; it lacks the broad sweep that gives Liszt's technic its peculiar freedom and adaptability to the instrument.
"Take Schumann and Brahms also, and compare their manner of writing for the piano with Liszt's. Both have written much that is noble and beautiful considered as music, but so clumsily put on the instrument that it is unduly difficult for the player. With Liszt, however, no matter what the difficulty of the means may be, they are always precisely adapted to the end in view, and everything he writes sounds well. It is no merely theoretical combination, but meant to be playedon the piano, and is in strict accordance with the nature of the instrument. The player finds nothing laboriously put together and requiring study for its disentanglement. Liszt considers the structure of the hand, and assigns it tasks suited to its capabilities.
"Among the distinctively original features of Liszt's technic are the bold outline, the large form, the imitative effects of organ and clavier, the orchestral timbre it imparts to the piano. We thank him also for the use of the thumb in the declamation of pathetic cantilena, for a breadth of melodic characterisation which resembles that of the horn and violoncello, for the imitation of brass instruments, for the great advance in all sorts of tremolos, trills and vibratos, which serve to give colour and intensity to moments of climax. His finger passages are not merely empty runs, but are like high lights in a picture; his cadenzas fairly sparkle like comet trains and are never introduced for display alone. They are preparatory, transitional or conclusive in character; they point contrasts, they heighten dramatic climaxes. His scales and arpeggios have nothing in common with the stiff monotony of the Czerny school of playing; they express feeling, they give emotional variety, they embellish a melody with ineffable grace. He often supplies them with thirds and sixths, which fill out their meagre outlines and furnish support to hands and fingers.
"In his octave technic Liszt has embodied all the elementary power and wildness of his nature.His octaves rage in chromatic and diatonic scales, in broken chords and arpeggios, up and down, hither and thither, like zigzag flashes of lightning. Here he is seen at his boldest,e.g., in his Orage,Totentanz, Mazeppa, Don Juan fantasia, VI Rhapsody, etc. In the trill, too, he has given us such novel forms as the simple trill with single fingers of each hand, the trill in double thirds in both hands, the octave trill—all serving to intensify the introduction or close of the salient divisions of a composition.
"From Liszt dates the placing of a melody in the fullest and most ringing register of the piano—that corresponding to the tenor or baritone compass of voice; also the division of the accompaniment between the two hands and the extension of hand-crossing technic. To him we owe exactness in the fixing of tempo, the careful designation of signs for dynamics and expression, the use of three staves instead of two for the sake of greater clearness of notation, as well as the modern installation of the pedal.
"In short, Liszt is not only the creator of the art of piano playing as we have it to-day, but his is the strongest musical influence in modern musical culture. But granting this, those thinkers who declare this influence not unmixed with harm are not altogether wrong. It is not the fault of genius, however, that undesirable consequences follow in its wake. It is also my opinion that it will do no harm to retrace our steps and revive the more simple times when there was less piano playing and more music."
Busoni is preparing a complete edition of Liszt's compositions, to be published by Breitkopf & Härtel. Concerning the studies, which are to appear in three volumes, he says:
"These études, a work which occupied Franz Liszt from childhood on up to manhood, we believe should be put at the head of his piano compositions. There are three reasons for this: the first is the fact that the études were the first of his works to be published; the second is that in Liszt's own catalogue of his works (Themat. Verz. Br. H. 1855), he puts the études at the very beginning; and the third and most patent is that these works in their entirety reflect as do no others Liszt's pianistic personality in the bud, shoot, and flower.
"These fifty-eight piano pieces alone would serve to place Liszt in the ranks of the greatest piano composers since Beethoven—Chopin, Schumann, Alkan, and Brahms; but proof of his superiority over these is found in his complete works, of which the études are only a small part.
"They afford a picture of him in manifold lights and poses, giving us an opportunity to know and observe him in the different phases of his character: the diabolic as well as the religious—those who acknowledge God do not make light of the devil—the refined and the animated; now as an illustrative interpreter of every style and again as a marvellous transformation artist whocan with convincing mimicry don the costume of any country. This collection consists of a work for piano which contains within its circumference every phase, nation, and epoch of musical expression from Palestrina to Parsifal, whereby Liszt shows himself as a creator of twofold character—both subjective and objective."
"Nothing is easier than to estimate Liszt the pianist, nothing more difficult than to estimate Liszt the composer. As to Liszt the pianist, old and young, conservatives and progressives, not excepting the keyboard specialists, are perfectly agreed that he was unique, unsurpassed, and unsurpassable," says Professor Niecks. "As to Liszt the composer, on the other hand, opinions differ widely and multifariously—from the attribution of superlative genius to the denial of the least talent. This diversity arises from partisanship, individuality of taste, and the various conceptions formed of the nature of creative power. Those, however, who call Liszt a composer without talent confess themselves either ignorant of his achievements, or incapable of distinguishing good from bad and of duly apportioning praise and blame. Those, on the other hand, who call Liszt a creative genius should not omit to observe and state that his genius was qualitatively unlike the genius of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. With him thecreative impulse was, in the main, and, as a rule, an intellectual impulse. With the great masters mentioned, the impulse was of a general origin, all the faculties co-operating. While with them the composition was always spontaneous, being, however great the travail, a birth, not a making; with Liszt it was often reflective, the solution of a problem, an experiment, a caprice, a defiance of conventional respectability, or a device for the dumfounding and electrification of the gaping multitude. In short, Liszt was to a larger extent inventive than creative. The foregoing remarks do not pretend to be more than a suggestive attempt at explaining the inexplicable differences of creative power. That Liszt could be spontaneous and in the best sense creative, he has proved by whole compositions, and more frequently by parts of compositions. That has to be noted; as well as that his love of experimenting and scorn for the familiar, not to mention the commonplace, led him often to turn his back on the beautiful and to embrace the ugly.
"As a composer of pianoforte music, Liszt's merits are more generally acknowledged than as a composer of any other kind. Here indeed his position is a commanding one. We should be obliged to regard him with respect, admiration, and gratitude, even if his compositions were æsthetically altogether a failure. For they incorporate an original pianoforte style, a style that won new resources from the instrument, and opened newpossibilities to the composer for it, and the player on it. The French Revolution of 1830 aroused Liszt from a state of lethargy. A year after this political revolution, there occurred an event that brought about in him an artistic revolution. This event was the appearance of Paganini in Paris. The wonderful performances of the unique violin virtuoso revealed to him new ideas. He now began to form that pianoforte style which combined, as it were, the excellences of all the other instruments, individually and collectively. Liszt himself called the process "the orchestration of the pianoforte." But before the transformation could be consummated, other influences had to be brought to bear on the architect. The influence of Chopin, who appeared in Paris soon after Paganini, must have been great, but was too subtle and partial to be easily gauged. It is different with Berlioz, whose influence on Liszt was palpable and general, affecting every branch of his art-practice. Thalberg has at least the merit of having by his enormous success in 1836 stimulated Liszt to put forth his whole strength.
"The vast mass of Liszt's pianoforte compositions is divisible first into two classes—the entirely original compositions, and the compositions based to a more or less extent on foreign matter. The latter class consist of transcriptions of songs (Schubert, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Franz, etc.), symphonies and overtures (Berlioz, Beethoven, Rossini, Wagner, etc.), and operaticthemes (from Rossini and Bellini to Wagner and Verdi), and of fifteen Hungarian rhapsodies; the former consists of studies, brilliant virtuosic pieces, musical poems, secular and sacred, picturesque, lyrical, etc. (such asAnnées de Pélerinage, Harmonies, poétiques et religieuses, Consolations, the legends,St. François d'Assise: La Prédication aux oiseaux, andSt. François de Paule marchant sur les flots, etc.), and one work in sonata form, but not the conventional sonata form. Although not unfrequently leaving something to be desired in the matter of discretion, his transcriptions of songs are justly famous masterpieces. Marvellous in the reproduction of orchestral effects are the transcriptions of symphonies and overtures. The operatic transcriptions (Illustrations, Fantasies), into which thegeistreicheLiszt put a great deal of his own, do not now enjoy the popularity they once enjoyed; the present age has lost some of its love for musical fireworks and the tricking-out and transmogrification by an artist of other artists' ideas. The Hungarian Rhapsodies, on the other hand, which are still more fantasias on the adopted matter than the operatic transcriptions, continue to be favourites of thevirtuosiand the public.
"As to the original compositions, they are very unequal in artistic value. Many of them, however, are undoubtedly of the greatest beauty, and stand whatever test may be applied to them. No one would think of numbering with these exquisite perfect things the imposing sonata. Itcannot be placed by the side of the sonatas of Beethoven, whose ideal and formative power Liszt lacked. Nevertheless it is impossible for the unprejudiced not to recognise in it a noble effort of a highly-gifted and ardently-striving mind. Technically, instead of three or four self-contained separate movements, we have there a long uninterrupted series of continuous movements, in which, however, we can distinguish three complexes corresponding to the three movements of the orthodox sonata. The Andante Sostenuto and Quasi Adagio form the simpler middle complex. Although some of the features of the orthodox sonata structure are discernible in Liszt's works, most of them are absent from it or irrecognisably veiled. The most novel and characteristic features are the unity and the evolution by metamorphosis of the thematic material—that is to say, the motives of the first complex reappear in the following ones, and are metamorphosed not only in the later but also in the first. Nothing could characterise the inequality of Liszt's compositions better than the fact that it is possible to draw up a programme of them wholly irreproachable, admirable, and delightful, and equally possible to draw up one wholly objectionable, abhorrent, and distressful. All in all, Liszt is a most remarkable and interesting and, at the same time, an epoch-making personality, one that will remain for long yet a living force in music, and for ever a striking figure in the history of the art."
Frederick Smetana, the greatest of Bohemian composers, founded in the year 1848 the institute which he conducted for the teaching of the piano in Prague. In this year it was that the composition for piano namedMorceaux Caractéristiques, he dedicated to Liszt (which dedication Liszt accepted with the greatest cordiality, writing him a most complimentary letter), was the means of his becoming personally acquainted with Liszt, whom he until this time only knew by report. He obtained for the young composer an introduction to the publisher Kistner, in Leipsic, who brought out his six piano pieces calledStammbuchblaetter.
"Of all the Slav composers Rimsky-Korsakoff is perhaps the most charming, and as a musician the most remarkable," writes the music-critic of theMercure de France. "He has not been equalled by any of his compatriots in the art of handling timbres, and in this art the Russian school has been long distinguished. In this respect he is descended directly from Liszt, whose orchestra he adopted and from whom he borrowed many an old effect. His inspiration is sometimes exquisite; the inexhaustible transformation of his themes is always most intelligentor interesting. As all the other Russians, he sins in the development of ideas through the lack of cohesion, of sustained enchainment, and especially through the lack of true polyphony. The influence of Berlioz and of Liszt is not less striking in his manner of composition. Sadko comes from Liszt'sCe qu'on entend sur la montagne, Antar and Scheherazade at the same time from Harold and the Faust symphony. The Oriental monody seems to throw a spell over Rimsky-Korsakoff which spreads over all his works a sort of 'local colour,' underlined here by the chosen subjects. In Scheherazade, it must be said, the benzoin of Arabia sends forth here and there the sickening empyreuma of the pastilles of the harem. In the second and the third movements of Antar the composer has approached nearest true musical superiority. The descriptive, almost dramatic, intention is realised there with an unusual sureness, and, if the brand of Liszt remains ineffaceable, the ease of construction, the breadth and the co-ordinated progressions of combinations mark a mastery and an originality that are rarely found among the composers of the far North, and that no one has ever possessed among the 'five.'
"Chopin's well-known saying in regard to Liszt, when he heard that the latter was going to write a notice of his concert, tells more," says Professor Niecks, "than whole volumes. These are the words:'Il me donnera un petit royaume dans son empire,' which were said to Ernest Legouvé by Chopin. Now here is another side-light on Chopin and his opinion of the great virtuoso. He is referring to Liszt's notice of some concert, apparently at Cologne. He is amused at the 'fifteen hundred men counted, at the president of the Phil [harmonic] and his carriage, etc.,' and he feels sure that Liszt will 'some day be a deputy, or king of Abyssinia, or of the Congo; his melodies (themes), however, will rest alongside the two volumes of German poetry'—two volumes which did not seem destined, apparently, to achieve immortality."