Canto l'armi pietose e'l Capitano,
Che'l gran Sepolcro liberò di Cristo.
"The motif itself has a slow, plaintive cadence of monotonous mourning; the gondoliers, however, by drawling certain notes, give it a peculiar colouring, and the mournfully drawn out tones, heard at a distance, produce an effect not dissimilar to the reflection of long stripes of fading light upon a mirror of water. This song once made a profound impression on me, and when I attempted to illustrate Tasso musically, it recurred to me with such imperative force that I made it the chief motif for my composition.
"The Venetian melody is so replete with inconsolable mourning, with bitter sorrow, that it suffices to portray Tasso's soul, and again it yields to the brilliant deceits of the world, to the illusive, smooth coquetry of those smiles whose slow poison brought on the fearful catastrophe, for which there seemed to be no earthly recompense, but which was eventually, clothed in a mantle of brighter purple than that of Alfonso."
Following this came--in later years, it is true--a strange denial from Liszt himself. He admitted that when finally his Tasso composition began to take form Byron's Tasso was nearer his heart and thoughts than Goethe's. "I cannot deny," he writes, "that when I received the order for an overture to Goethe's drama the chief and commanding influence on the form of my work was the respectful sympathy with which Byron treated the manes of the great poet."
Naturally this influence could not have extended beyond the Lamento since Byron's poem is only the Lament of Tasso, and has no share in the Trionfo. Now the anti-programmites could make a very strong case out of this incident, and probably would have done so long before this if they had known or thought about it. But then this question of the fallibility of programme music is an eternal one. Was it not the late Thayer, constantly haunting detail and in turn haunted by it, who could not abide Beethoven's Coriolanus in his youth because he only knew the Shakespeare drama and could not fit the Beethoven overture to it simply because it would not be fitted? And now some commentators declare that Beethoven must have known the Shakespeare work, that he could not have found his inspiration in the forgotten play of Von Collin.
Liszt's Tasso opens with a descending octaved theme in C minor, meant to depict the depressed mood and oppressed station of the poet. Wagner has made mention of Liszt's particular aptitude for making such musical moments pregnant with meaning. Here it expresses the tragedy of the poet's life, and a second theme is his agonised cry. Gradually this impatience is fanned to fury, and culminates in a wild outbreak of pain. The tragic first theme, now given fortissimo by the full orchestra and long sustained, spreads its shadow over all. The characteristic rehearsal of the themes concludes the introduction to the work.
With an adagio the principal motif is heard in full for the first time; it is the boat song of the Venetian gondoliers, and embraces in part the first tragic theme with which the composition opened. You recall what Liszt said about the expressiveness of this sombre song. He has heightened its gloom by the moody orchestration in which he has embedded it.
As a contrast comes the belief in self which forces its way to the soul of the poet, and this comes to our ears in the form of the noble main theme--the Tasso motif--which now sounds brilliantly in major. These two moods relieve one another, as they might in the mind of any brooding mortal, especially a poet.
The next picture is Tasso at the court of Ferrara. The courtly life is sketched in a minuet-like allegro and a courteous subsidiary. How aptly Tasso is carried away by the surrounding splendour we hear when the Tasso theme sounds in the character of the gay minuet. This theme becomes more and more impassioned, the poet has raised his eyes to Leonore, and the inevitable calamity precipitates itself with the recurrence of the wild and frantic burst of rage and fury.
Alles ist dahin! Nur eines bleibt: Die Thräne hat uns die Natur verliehen, Den Schrei des Schmerzes, wenn der Mann zuletzt Es nicht mehr trägt.
With this, the first half of the first part of the work closes.
The second half concerns itself with the poet's transfiguration. His physical self has been sacrificed, but the world has taken up his cause and celebrates his works.
A short pause separates the two divisions. Now the glorious allegro has an upward swing, the former dragging rhythms are spurned along impetuously. The Tasso theme is glorified, the public enthusiasm grows apace, and runs to a tremendous climax in the presto. Then there sounds a sudden silence--the public pulse has ceased for a moment--followed by a hymn, built on the Tasso theme. The entire orchestra intones this, every figure is one of jubilation, save the four double basses which recall the rhythm of the former theme of misery; but--notice the logic of the composer--its resemblance is only a distant one, and it is heard only in the lowest of the strings. So this composition concludes.
The Epilogue to the Tasso symphonic poem was written many years afterward. Liszt called it Le Triomphe funèbre du Tasse, and its first performance was under Leopold Damrosch in New York in 1877. The subject must have pursued Liszt through most of his life, and he seems to have felt a certain affinity with the dead poet. We all know that the public denied him credit for his compositions.
Göllerich in his Liszt biography mentions that once during his stay in Italy the composer, in a covered wagon, had himself driven slowly over the course along which the corpse of Tasso had been taken. And of this incident he is supposed to have said: "I suffered the sad poetry of this journey in the hopes that one day the bloody irony of vain apotheosis may be spared every poet and artist who has been ill-treated during life. Rest to the dead!"
The analysis of this work is short and precise. The musical programme is simple. It opens with a cry of distressful mourning, while from the distance the cortège approaches. A reminiscence of the Tasso theme is recognisable in this pompous approach and the mood changes to one of triumph. In the midst of all this the public adoration is mingled with its tears, and the two climax in the Tasso motive.
LES PRELUDES
The third of Liszt's symphonic poems, Les Préludes, was sketched as early as 1845, but not produced until 1854, and then in Weimar. Lamartine's Meditations Poétiques set the bells tolling in Liszt's mind, and he wrote Les Préludes. "What is life but a series of preludes to that unknown song whose initial solemn note is tolled by Death? The enchanted dawn of every life is love; but where is the destiny on whose first delicious joys some storm does not break?--a storm whose deadly blast disperses youth's illusions, whose fatal bolt consumes its altar. And what soul thus cruelly bruised, when the tempest rolls away, seeks not to rest its memories in the calm of rural life? Yet man allows himself not long to taste the kindly quiet which first attracted him to Nature's lap; but when the trumpet gives the signal he hastens to danger's post, whatever be the fight which draws him to its lists, that in the strife he may once more regain full knowledge of himself and all his strength."
Corresponding to the first line of the programme the composition opens promisingly with an ascending figure in the strings, followed by some mysterious chords. Liszt had that wonderful knack--which he shared with Beethoven and Wagner--of getting atmosphere immediately at the first announcement. Gradually he achieves a climax with this device, and now he has pictured the character--his hero--in defiant possession of full manhood.
"The enchanted dawn of every life is love" reads the line, and the music grows sentimental. That well-known horn melody occurs here, a theme almost the character of a folk-song; then the mood becomes even more tranquil until--
"But where is the destiny on whose first delicious joys some storm does not break?--a storm whose deadly blast disperses youth's illusions, whose fatal bolt consumes its altar." Here was one of those episodes on which Liszt doted, a place where he could unloose all his orchestral technique, piling his climaxes furiously high.
"And what soul thus cruelly bruised, when the tempest rolls away, seeks not to rest its memories in the pleasant calm of rural life?" There was nothing else for Liszt to do but to write the usual pastoral peace dignified by Handel and Watteau.
"Yet man allowed himself not long to taste the kindly quiet which first attracted him to Nature's lap; but when the trumpet gives the signal he hastens to danger's post, whatever be the fight which draws him to its lists, that in the strife he may once more regain full knowledge of himself and all his strength." The martial call of the trumpets and the majestic strife is made much of. Liszt tortures his peaceful motives into expressing war, and welds the entire incident into a stirring one.
Logically, he concludes the work by recalling the theme of his hero upon whose life he has preluded so tunefully.
ORPHEUS
Of the origin of his Orpheus Liszt writes: "Some years ago, when preparing Gluck's Orpheus for production, I could not restrain my imagination from straying away from the simple version that the great master had made of the subject, but turned to that Orpheus whose name hovers majestically and full of harmony about the Greek myths. It recalled that Etruscan vase in the Louvre which represents the poet-musician crowned with the mystic kingly wreath; draped in a star-studded mantle, his fine slender fingers are plucking the lyre strings, while his lips are liberating godly words and song. The very stones seem moved to hearing, and from adamant hearts stinging, burning tears are loosing themselves. The beasts of the forests stand enchanted, and the coarse noise of man is besieged into silence. The song of birds is hushed; the melodious coursing of the brook halts; the rude laughter of joy gives way to a trembling awe before these sounds, which reveal to man universal harmonies, the gentle power of art and the brilliancy of their glory."
The "dull and prosaic formula"--so some English critic put it--differs in this work from that of most of the others of Liszt's symphonic poems. The short cutting themes are absent and sharp contrasts are generally avoided; the music flows rather in a broad melodic stream, serene but magnificent. It is rather difficult to fit a detailed programme to the composition, and the general outline is not so sharply dented with incidents as some of the others.
Again atmosphere is evoked and the mood achieved by the lyre preluding of the poet. Then the voice of Orpheus rises with majestic calm, and swells to a climax which is typical of the majestic splendour of art. This sweeps all sounds of opposition before it and leaves in its trail awe-stricken man. It is with this mood that the work closes in a marvellous progression of chords, harmonies daring for their day.
PROMETHEUS
The same general plan of conception and interpretation, but of course much more heroic, has Liszt employed in the next symphonic poem, Prometheus. It is a noble figure that Liszt has translated into music, the Titan. The ideas he meant to convey may be summed up in "Ein tiefer Schmerz, der durch trotzbietendes Ausharren triumphiert." Immediately at the opening the swirl of the struggle is upon us, and the first theme is the defiance of the Titan--a noble yet obstinate melody. The god is chained to the rock to great orchestral tumult. His efforts to break the manacles incite further musical riot, and then comes the wail of helpless misery:
O Mutter, du Heil'ge! O Aether, Lichtquell des All's! Seh, welch Unrecht ich erdulde!
This recitative leads into a furious burst when the shackled one clenches his fists and threatens all Godhead. Even Zeus is defied:
Und mag er schleudern seines feurigen Blitzes Loh'n, In weissen Schneesturms Ungewittern, in Donnerhall Der unterirdischen Tiefe werwirren mischen das All: Nichts dessen wird mir beugen!
Then arises the belief in a deliverer, a faith motif which is one of those heartfelt inventions of the melodic Liszt. After this the struggle continues. Magnificently, the god, believing in his own obstinate will for freedom, the composition concludes on this supreme note.
MAZEPPA
The sixth of Liszt's symphonic poems, Mazeppa, has done more than any other to earn for its composer the disparaging comment that his piano music was orchestral and his orchestral music Klaviermässig. This Solomon judgment usually proceeds from the wise ones, who are aware that the first form of Liszt's Mazeppa was a piano étude which appeared somewhere toward the end of 1830.
Liszt's orchestral version of Mazeppa was completed the middle of last century and had its first hearing at Weimar in 1854. Naturally this is a work of much greater proportion than the original piano étude; it is, as some one has said, in the same ratio as is a panoramic picture to a preliminary sketch.
The story of the Cossack hetman has inspired poets and at least one painter. Horace Vernet--who, as Heine said, painted everything hastily, almost after the manner of a maker of pamphlets--put the subject on canvas twice; the Russian, Bulgarin, made a novel of it; Voltaire mentioned the incident in his History of Charles the Twelfth; Byron moulded the tale into rhyme, as did Victor Hugo--and the latter poem was used by Liszt for the outline for his composition.
The amorous Mazeppa was of noble birth--so runs the tale. But while he was page to Jan Casimir, King of Poland, he intrigued with Theresia the young wife of a Podolian count. Their love was discovered and the count had the page lashed to a wild horse--_un cheval farouche_, as Voltaire has it--which was turned loose.
From all accounts the beast did not allow grass to grow under its hoofs, but lashed out with the envious speed of the wind. It so happened that the horse was "a noble steed, a Tartar of the Ukraine breed." Therefore it headed for the Ukraine, which woolly country it reached with its burden; then it promptly dropped dead.
Mazeppa was unhanded or unhorsed by a friendly Cossack and nursed back to happiness. Soon he grew in stature and in power, becoming an Ukraine prince; as the latter he fought against Russia at Pultowa.
That is the skeleton of the legend. Liszt has begun his musical tale at the point when Mazeppa is corded to the furious steed, and with a cry it is off. This opens the composition; there follow the galloping triplets to mark the flight of the beast, irregular and wild. Trees and mountains seem to whirl by them--this is represented by a vertiginous tremolo figure, against which a descending theme sounds and seems to give perspective to the swirling landscape.
When the prisoner stirs convulsively in the agony of his plight, the horse bounds forward even more recklessly. The fury of the ride continues, increases, until Mazeppa loses consciousness and mists becloud his senses. Now and again pictures appear before his eyes an instant as in a dream fantastic.
Gradually, as an accompaniment to the thundering hoof falls, the passing earth sounds as a mighty melody to the delirious one. The entire plain seems to ring with song, pitying Mazeppa in his suffering.
The horse continues to plunge and blood pours from the wounds of the prisoner. Before his eyes the lights dance and the themes return distorted. The goal is reached when the steed breaks down, overcome with the killing fatigue of its three days' ride. It pants its last, and a plaintive andante pictures the groaning of the bound Mazeppa; this dies away in the basses.
Now the musician soars away in the ether. When he returns to us it is with an allegro of trumpet calls. Mazeppa has been made a prince in the interim and is now leading the warriors of the steppe who freed him. These fanfares lead to a triumphal march, which is the last division of the composition. Local colour is logically brought in by the introduction of a Cossack march; the Mazeppa theme is jubilantly shared by trumpet calls, and the motif of his sufferings appears transformed as a melody of victory--all this in barbaric rhythms.
In form the work is free; two general divisions are about as much as it yields to the formal dissector. It follows the poem, and, having been written to the poem, that is really all the sequence demanded by logic.
Liszt was decidedly at a disadvantage as a composer when he lacked a programme. Usually in composing his purpose was so distinct, the music measuring itself so neatly against the logic of the programme, that his symphonic compositions should be most easily comprehended by an audience.
FESTKLÄNGE
There is no definite programme to Liszt's Festklänge. Several probing ones have been hot on the trail of such a thing. Pohl knew but would not tell. He wrote: "This work is the most intimate of the entire group. It stands in close relation with some personal experiences of the composer--something which we will not define more clearly here. For this reason Liszt himself has offered no elucidation to the work, and we must respect his silence. The mood of the work is 'Festlich'--it is the rejoicing after a victory of--the heart."
This is mysterious and sentimental enough to satisfy any conservatory maiden. But Liszt died eventually, and then Pohl intimates that the incident which this composition was meant to glorify was the marriage of Liszt with the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein--a marriage which never came off.
Philip Hale has taken up the question in his interesting Boston Symphony Programme Notes, and summons several witnesses: "Brendel said that this symphonic poem is a sphinx that no one can understand. Mr. Barry, who takes a peculiarly serious view of all things musical, claims that Festival Sounds, Sounds of Festivity or Echoes of a Festival is the portrayal in music of scenes that illustrate some great national festival; that the introduction, with its fanfares, gives rise to strong feelings of expectation. There is a proclamation, 'The festival has begun,' and he sees the reception of guests in procession. The event is great and national--a coronation--something surely of a royal character; and there is holiday making until the 'tender, recitative-like period' hints at a love scene; guests, somewhat stiff and formal, move in the dance; in the finale the first subject takes the form of a national anthem.
"Some have thought that Liszt composed the piece in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of the entrance into Weimar of his friend and patroness Maria Paulowna, sister of the Czar Nicholas I, Grand Duchess of Weimar. The anniversary was celebrated with pomp November 9, 1854, as half a century before the noble dame was greeted with Schiller's lyric festival play Die Huldigung der Künste.
"This explanation is plausible; but Lina Ramann assures us that Festklänge was intended by Liszt as the wedding music for himself and the Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein; that in 1851 it seemed as though the obstacles to the union would disappear; that this music was composed as 'a song of triumph over hostile machinations'; 'bitterness and anguish are forgotten in proud rejoicing'; the introduced 'Polonaise' pictures the brilliant mind of the Polish princess."
When this symphonic poem was first played in Vienna there were distributed handbills written by "Herr K.," that the hearers might find reasonable pleasure in the music. One of the sentences goes bounding through the universe as follows: "A great universal and popular festival calls within its magic circle an agitated crowd, joy on the brow, heaven in the breast."
In whichever class you choose to place the Festklänge--whether in that of a higher grade of wedding music or as music incidental to some national event--you are apt to find contradictions in the music itself. So it is most reasonable to waive the entire question of a programme here, and take the music at its word. It must be admitted that this composition is not among Liszt's great ones; the big swing is missing and honesty compels the acknowledgment that much of it is blank bombast, some of it tawdry.
The introductory allegro is devoted to some tympani thumps--à la Meyerbeer--and some blaring fanfares which terminate in a loud, blatant theme.
Then comes the andante with the principal subject of the work, meant to be impressive, but failing in its purpose. The mood changes and grows humourous, which again is contrasted by the following rather melancholy allegretto. This latter spot would serve to knock some of the festival programme ideas into a cocked hat.
The work eventually launches into a polonaise, and until the close Liszt busies himself with varying the character and rhythms of the foregoing themes. Finally the martial prevails again, decorated with fanfares, and thus the composition closes.
Festklänge had its first performance at Weimar in 1854; but the composer made some changes in the later edition that appeared in 1861, and this version is the one usually played to-day.
A Liszt work which we seldom hear is "Chöre zu Herder's 'Entfesselte Prometheus,'" which was composed and performed in Weimar in 1850.
On August 25 of that year there was a monument unveiled to Johann Gottfried Herder in Weimar, and the memory of the "apostle of humanity" was also celebrated in the theatre. This accounts for the composition of the symphonic poem Prometheus, which served as an overture to these choruses, written for voices and orchestra. Richard Pohl has put the latter into shape for solitary performance in the concert room.
Prometheus sits manacled on the rock, but the fury of his rebellion is over. Resolutely he awaits the decree of fate. At this point the Liszt work takes up the narrative. The Titan is soliloquising, while man, aided by the gift of fire, is calmly possessing the world. The elemental spirits look enviously at the power of man and turn to Prometheus with plaints; the Daughters of the Sea lament that the holy peace of the sea is disturbed by man, who sails the water imperiously. Prometheus answers Okeanus philosophically that everything belongs to every one.
Then the chorus of the Tritons glorifies the socialistic Titan with "Heil Prometheus." This dies away to make room for the grumbling of All-Mother Erda and her dryads, who bring charge against the fire giver. An answer comes from the bucolic chorus of reapers and their brothers the vintagers, who chant the praise of "Monsieur" Bacchus.
From the under world comes the sound of strife, and Hercules arises as victor. Prometheus recognises him as the liberator, and the Sandow of mythology breaks the Titan's fetters and slays the hovering eagle of Zeus. The freed Prometheus turns to the rocks on which he has sat prisoner so long and asks that in gratitude for his liberty a paradise arise there. Pallas Athene respects the wish, and out of the naked rock sprouts an olive tree.
A chorus of the Invisible Ones invites Prometheus to attend before the throne of Themis. She intercedes in his behalf against his accusers, and the Chorus of Humanity celebrates her judgment in the hymn which closes "Heil Prometheus! Der Menschheit Heil!" Some of the thematic material for these choruses and orchestral interludes is borrowed from the symphonic poem Prometheus.
Liszt wrote a preface to Héroïde Funèbre, his eighth poem (1849-1850; 1856.) Among other things he declares that "Everything may change in human societies--manners and cult, laws and ideas; sorrow remains always one and the same, it remains what it has been from the beginning of time. It is for art to throw its transfiguring veil over the tomb of the brave--to encircle with its golden halo the dead and the dying, in order that they may be envied by the living." Liszt incorporated with this poem a fragment from his Revolutionary Symphony outlined in 1830. Hungaria (1854; 1857) and Hamlet (1858; 1861) the ninth and tenth poems are not of marked interest or novel character--that is when compared to their predecessors. There is a so-called poem, From the Cradle to the Grave, the thirteenth in the series, one which did not take seriously. It is quite brief. But let us consider the eleventh and twelfth of the series.
THE BATTLE OF THE HUNS
Liszt's Hunnenschlacht was suggested by Wilhelm von Kaulbach's mural painting in the staircase-hall of the New Museum in Berlin. It was conceived in Munich in November, 1856, and written in 1857. When completed, it was put into rehearsal at Weimar in October, 1857, and performed in April, 1858. Its first performance in Boston, was under Mr. Theodore Thomas in 1872.
The picture which suggested this composition to Liszt shows the city of Rome in the background; before it is a battle-field, strewn with corpses which are seen to be gradually reviving, rising up, and rallying, while among them wander wailing and lamenting women. At the heads of two ghostly armies are respectively Attila--borne aloft on a shield by Huns, and wielding a scourge--and Theodoric with his two sons, behind whom is raised the banner of the cross.
The composition is perfectly free in form; one noteworthy feature being the interweaving of the choral Crux Fidelis with themes of the composer's own invention. The score bears no dedication.
DIE IDEALE
Die Ideale was projected in the summer of 1856, but it was composed in 1857. The first performance was at Weimar, September 5, 1857, on the occasion of unveiling the Goethe-Schiller monument. The first performance in Boston was by Theodore Thomas's orchestra, October 6, 1870. The symphonic poem was played here at a Symphony Concert on January 26, 1889.
The argument of Schiller's poem, Die Ideale, first published in the _Musenalmanach_ of 1796, has thus been presented: "The sweet belief in the dream-created beings of youth passes away; what once was divine and beautiful, after which we strove ardently, and which we embraced lovingly with heart and mind, becomes the prey of hard reality; already midway the boon companions--love, fortune, fame, and truth--leave us one after another, and only friendship and activity remain with us as loving comforters." Lord Lytton characterised the poem as an "elegy on departed youth."
Yet Liszt departed from the spirit of the elegy, for in a note to the concluding section of the work, the Apotheosis, he says: "The holding fast and at the same time the continual realising of the ideal is the highest aim of our life. In this sense I ventured to supplement Schiller's poem by a jubilantly emphasising resumption of the motives of the first section in the closing Apotheosis." Mr. Niecks, in his comments on this symphonic poem, adds: "To support his view and justify the alteration, Liszt might have referred to Jean Paul Richter's judgment, that the conclusion of the poem, pointing as it does for consolation to friendship and activity, comforts but scantily and unpoetically. Indeed, Schiller himself called the conclusion of the poem tame, but explained that it was a faithful picture of human life, adding: 'I wished to dismiss the reader with this feeling of tranquil contentment.' That, apart from poetical considerations, Liszt acted wisely as a musician in making the alteration will be easily understood and readily admitted. Among the verses quoted by the composer, there are eight which were omitted by Schiller in the ultimate amended form of Die Ideale. The order of succession, however, is not the same as in the poem; what is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 with Liszt is 1, 4, 3, 2, 5 with Schiller. The musician seized the emotional possibilities of the original, but disregarded the logical sequence. And there are many things which the tone poet who works after the word poet not only may but must disregard. As the two arts differ in their nature, the one can be only an imperfect translator of the other; but they can be more than translators--namely, commentators. Liszt accordingly does not follow the poem word for word, but interprets the feelings which it suggests, 'feelings which almost all of us have felt in the progress of life.' Indeed, programme and music can never quite coincide; they are like two disks that partly cover each other, partly overlap and fall short. Liszt's Die Ideale is no exception. Therefore it may not be out of place to warn the hearer, although this is less necessary in the present case than in others, against forming 'a grossly material conception of the programme,' against 'an abstractly logical interpretation which allows itself to be deceived by the outside, by what presents itself to the first glance, disdains the mediation of the imagination.'"
Mr. Hale gives some interesting facts about the composition.
Liszt and Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein were both ill in the spring of 1857, and the letters written by Liszt to her during this period are of singular interest. Yet Liszt went about and conducted performances until he suffered from an abscess in a leg and was obliged to lie in bed. On the 30th of January Liszt had written to a woman, the anonymous "Friend": "For Easter I shall have finished Die Ideale (symphony in three movements)"; and in March he wrote the princess that he was dreaming of Die Ideale. In May he went to Aix-la-Chapelle to conduct at a music festival, and in July he returned to that town for medical treatment. He wrote the princess (July 23) that he had completed the indications, the "nuances," of the score that morning, and he wished her to see that the copyist should prepare the parts immediately--six first violins, six second violins, four violas, and five double basses.
The performance at Weimar excited neither fierce opposition nor warm appreciation. Liszt conducted the work at Prague, March 11, 1858, and it appears from a letter to the Princess that he made cuts and alterations in the score after the performance. Hans von Bülow produced Die Ideale at Berlin in 1859, and the performance stirred up strife. Bülow thought the work too long for the opening piece, and preferred to put it in the second part. Then he changed his mind; he remembered that Liszt's Festklänge was at the end of a concert the year before in Berlin, and that many of the audience found it convenient to leave the hall for the cloak-room during the performance. A few days later he wrote that he would put it at the end of the first part: "My first rehearsal lasted four hours. The parts of Die Ideale are very badly copied. It is a magnificent work, and the form is splendid. In this respect I prefer it to Tasso, to The Preludes, and to other symphonic poems. It has given me an enormous pleasure--I was happier than I have been for a long time. Apropos--a passage, where the basses and the trombones give the theme of the Allegro, a passage that is found several times in the parts is cut out in the printed score." Ramagn names 1859 as the date of publication, while others say the score was published in 1858. "I have left this passage as it is in the arts; for I find it excellent, and the additional length of time in performance will be hardly appreciable. It will go, I swear it!" The concert was on January 14, 1859, and when some hissed after the performance of Die Ideale, Bülow asked them to leave the hall. A sensation was made by this "maiden speech," as it was called. (See the pamphlet, Hans v. Bülow und die Berliner Kritik, Berlin, 1859, and Bülow's Briefe, vol. iii. pp. 202, 203, 205, 206, Leipsic, 1898.) Bülow was cool as a cucumber, and directed the next piece, Introduction to Lohengrin, as though nothing had happened. The Princess of Prussia left her box, for it was nine o'clock, the hour of tea; but there was no explosion till after the concert, when Bülow was abused roundly by newspaper article and word of mouth. He had promised to play two piano pieces at a Domchoir concert the 22d, and it was understood that he would then be hissed and hooted. The report sold all the seats and standing places. Never had he played so well, and instead of a scandalous exhibition of disapproval there was the heartiest applause. Liszt conducted Die Ideale at Bülow's concert in Berlin on February 27 of that year, and there was then not a suspicion of opposition to work or composer.
Bülow after the first performance at Berlin advised Liszt to cut out the very last measures. "I love especially the thirds in the kettle-drums, as a new and bold invention--but I find them a little too ear-boxing for cowardly ears.... I know positively that these eight last drumbeats have especially determined or rather emboldened the opposition to manifestation. And so, if you do not find positive cowardice in my request--put these two measures on my back--do as though I had had the impertinence to add them as my own. I almost implore this of you!"
In 1863 Bülow sent Louis Köhler his latest photograph, "Souvenir du 14 janvier, 1859." It represents him standing, baton in hand; on a conductor's desk is the score of Die Ideale, and there is this inscription to Liszt: "'_Sub hoc signo vici, nec vincere desistam._' to his Master, his artistic Ideal, with thanks and veneration out of a full heart. Hans v. Bülow, Berlin, October 22, 1863." Liszt wrote Bülow from Budapest (January 3, 1873): "You know I profess not to collect photographs, and in my house portraits do not serve as ornaments. At Rome I had only two in my chamber; yours--that of Die Ideale, '_Sub hoc signo vici, nec vincere desistam_'--was one of them."
It appears that others wished to tinker the score of this symphonic poem. Bülow wrote the Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein (February 10, 1859) that he had anticipated the permission of Liszt, and had sent Die Ideale to Leopold Damrosch, who would have the parts copied and produce the work in the course of the month at Breslau. Carl Tausig produced Die Ideale at Vienna for the first time, February 24, 1861, and in a letter written before the performance to Liszt he said: "I shall conduct Die Ideale wholly according to your wish, yet I am not at all pleased with Damrosch's variante; my own are more plausible, ... and Cornelius has strengthened me in my belief." When Die Ideale was performed again at Vienna, in 1880, at a concert of the Society of Music Friends, led by the composer, Eduard Hanslick based his criticism on the "witty answer" made by Berthold Auerbach to a noble dame who asked him what he thought of Liszt's compositions. He answered by putting another question: "What would you think if Ludwig Devrient, after he had played Shakespeare, Schiller, and Goethe with the complete mastery of genius, had said to himself in his fiftieth year: 'Why should I not be able also to write what I play so admirably? I'll be no longer a play actor; henceforth I'll be a tragic poet'?"
Die Ideale was performed for the first time in England at a concert at the Crystal Palace, April 16, 1881, with August Manns conductor.
This is C. A. Barry's answer to the question, Why was Liszt obliged to invent the term symphonic poem?
It may be explained that finding the symphonic form, as by rule established, inadequate for the purposes of _poetic_ music, which has for its aim the reproduction and re-enforcement of the emotional essence of dramatic scenes, as they are embodied in poems or pictures, he felt himself constrained to adopt certain divergences from the prescribed symphonic form, and, for the new art-form thus created, was consequently obliged to invent a more appropriate title than that of "symphony," the formal conditions of which this would not fulfil. The inadequateness of the old symphonic form for translating into music imaginative conceptions arising from poems or pictures, and which necessarily must be presented in a fixed order, lies in its "recapitulation" section. This Liszt has dropped; and the necessity of so doing is apparent. Hence he has been charged with formlessness. In justification, therefore, of his mode of procedure, it may be pointed out to those of his critics who regard every divergence from the established form as tending to formlessness, that the form which he has devised for his symphonic poems in the main differs less from the established form than at first sight appears. A comparison of the established form of the so-called classical period with that devised by Liszt will make this apparent.
The former may be described as consisting of (1) the exposition of the principal subjects; (2) their development; and (3) their recapitulation. For this Liszt has substituted (1) exposition, (2) development, and (3) further development; or, as Wagner has tersely expressed it, "nothing else but that which is demanded by the subject and its expressible development." Thus, though from sheer necessity, rigid formality has been sacrificed to truthfulness, unity and consistency are as fully maintained as upon the old system, but by a different method, the reasonableness of which cannot be disputed.
A FAUST SYMPHONY
Franz Liszt as a composer was born too soon. Others plucked from his amiable grasp the fruits of his originality. When Stendhal declared in 1830 that it would take the world fifty years to comprehend his analytic genius he was a prophet, indeed, for about 1880, his work was felt by writers of that period, Paul Bourget and the rest, and lived again in their pages. But poor, wonderful Liszt, Liszt whose piano playing set his contemporaries to dancing the same mad measure we recognise in these days, Liszt the composer had to knock unanswered at many critical doors for a bare recognition of his extraordinary merits.
One man, a poor, struggling devil, a genius of the footlights, wrote him encouraging words, not failing to ask for a dollar by way of compensating postscript. Richard Wagner discerned the great musician behind the virtuoso in Liszt, discerned it so well that, fearing others would not, he appropriated in a purely fraternal manner any of Liszt's harmonic, melodic, and orchestral ideas that happened to suit him. So heavily indebted was he to the big-hearted Hungarian that he married his daughter Cosima, thus keeping in the family a "Sacred Fount"--as Henry James would say--of inspiration. Wagner not only borrowed Liszt's purse, but also his themes.
Nothing interests the world less than artistic plagiarism. If the filching be but cleverly done, the setting of the stolen gems individual, who cares for the real creator! He may go hang, or else visit Bayreuth and enjoy the large dramatic style in which his themes are presented. Liszt preferred the latter way; besides, Wagner was his son-in-law. A story is told that Wagner, appreciating the humour of his _Alberich_-like explorations in the Liszt scores, sat with his father-in-law at the first Ring rehearsals in 1876, and when Sieglinde's dream words "Kehrte der Vater nun heim" began, Wagner nudged Liszt, exclaiming: "Now, papa, comes a theme which I got from you." "All right," was the ironic answer, "then one will at least hear it."
This theme, which may be found on page 179 of Kleinmichael's piano score, appears at the beginning of Liszt's Faust Symphony. Wagner had heard it at a festival of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musik Verein in 1861. He liked it so well that he cried aloud: "Music furnishes us with much that is beautiful, but this music is divinely beautiful!"
Liszt was already a revolutionist when Wagner published his sonata Op. 1, with its echoes of Haydn and Mozart. The Revolutionary Symphony still survives in part in Liszt's eighth symphonic poem. These two early works when compared show who was the real path breaker. Compare Orpheus and Tristan and Isolde; the Faust Symphony and Tristan; Bénédiction de Dieu and Isolde's Liebestod; Die Ideale and Der Ring--Das Rheingold in particular; Invocation and Parsifal; Battle of the Huns and Kundry-Ritt; The Legend of Saint Elizabeth and Parsifal, Excelsior and Parsifal.
The principal theme of the Faust Symphony may be heard in Die Walküre, and one of its most characteristic themes appears, note for note, as the "glance" motive in Tristan. The Gretchen motive in Wagner's Eine Faust Ouverture is derived from Liszt, and the opening theme of the Parsifal prelude follows closely the earlier written Excelsior of Liszt.
All this to reassure timid souls who suspect Liszt of pilfering. In William Mason's Memories of a Musical Life is a letter sent to the American pianist, bearing date of December 14, 1854, in which the writer, Liszt, says, "Quite recently I have written a long symphony in three parts, called Faust [without text or vocal parts] in which the _horrible_ measures 7-8, 7-4, 5-4 alternate with common time and 3-4." And Liszt had already finished his Dante Symphony. Wagner finished the full score of Rheingold in 1854, that of Die Walküre in 1856; the last act of Tristan was ended in 1859. The published correspondence of the two men prove that Wagner studied the manuscripts of Liszt's symphonic poems carefully, and, as we must acknowledge, with wonderful assimilative discrimination. Liszt was the loser, the world of dramatic music the gainer thereby.
Knowing these details we need not be surprised at the Wagnerian--alas, it may be the first in the field who wins!--colour, themes, traits of instrumentation, individual treatment of harmonic progressions that abound in the symphony which Mr. Paur read for us so sympathetically. For example, one astounding transposition--let us give the theft a polite musical name--occurs in the second, the Gretchen, movement where Siegfried, disguised as Hagen, appears in the Liszt orchestra near the close.
You rub your eyes as you hear the fateful chords, enveloped in the peculiar green and sinister light we so admire in Gotterdämmerung. Even the atmosphere is abducted by Wagner. It is all magnificent, this Nietzsche-like seizure of the weaker by the stronger man.
To search further for these parallelisms might prove disquieting. Suffice to say that the beginnings of Wagner from Rienzi to Parsifal may be found deposited nugget-wise in this Lisztian Golconda. The true history of Liszt as composer has yet to be written; his marvellous versatility--he overflowed in every department of his art--his industry are memorable. Richard Wagner's dozen music-dramas, ten volumes of prose polemics and occasional orchestral pieces make no better showing when compared to the labours of his brain-and-money-banker, Franz Liszt.
Nor was Wagner the only one of the Forty Thieves who visited this Ali Baba cavern. If Liszt learned much from Chopin, Meyerbeer--the duo from the fourth act of Huguenots is in the Gretchen section--and Berlioz, the younger men, Tschaikowsky, Rubinstein, and Richard Strauss, have simply polished white and bare the ribs of the grand old mastodon of Weimar.
Faust is not a symphony. (Query: What is the symphonic archetype?) Rather is it a congeries of symphonic moods, structurally united by emotional intimacy and occasional thematic concourse. The movements are respectively labelled Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles, the task, an impossibly tremendous one, being the embodiment in tones of the general characteristics of Goethe's poetic-philosophic master-work.
Therefore, discarding critical crutches, it is best to hear the composition primarily as absolute music. We know that it is in C minor; that the four leading motives may typify intellectual doubt, striving, longing, and pride--the last in a triumphant E major; that the Gretchen music--too lengthy--is replete with maidenly sweetness overshadowed by the masculine passion of Faust (and also his theme); that in the Mephistopheles Liszt appears in his most characteristic pose--Abbé's robe tucked up, Pan's hoofs showing, and the air charged with cynical mockeries and travesties of sacred love and ideals (themes are topsy-turvied à la Berlioz); and that at the close this devil's dance is transformed by the great comedian-composer into a mystic chant with music celestial in its white-robed purities; Goethe's words, "Alles Vergängliche," ending with the consoling "Das Ewig weiblich zieht uns hinan."
But the genius of it all! The indescribable blending of the sensuous, the mystic, the diabolic; the master grasp on the psychologic development--and the imaginative musical handling of themes in which every form, fugal, lyric, symphonic, latter-day poetic-symphonic, is juggled with in Liszt's transcendental manner. The Richard Strauss scores are structurally more complex, while, as painters, Wagner, Tschaikowski, and Strauss outpoint Liszt at times. But he is Heervater Wotan the Wise, or, to use a still more expressive German term, he is the Urquell of young music, of musical anarchy--an anarchy that traces a spiritual air-route above certain social tendencies of this century.
Nevertheless it must be confessed that there are some dreary moments in the Faust.
SYMPHONY AFTER DANTE'S DIVINA COMMEDIA
The first sketches of this symphony were made during Liszt's stay at the country house of the Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein at Woronice, October, 1847--February, 1848. The symphony was finished in 1855, and the score was published in 1858. The first performance was at Dresden on November 7, 1857, under the direction of Wilhelm Fischer. The first part, Inferno, was produced in Boston at a Philharmonic Concert, Mr. Listemann conductor, November 19, 1880. The whole symphony was performed at Boston at a Symphony Concert, Mr. Gericke conductor, February 27, 1886.
The work is scored for 3 flutes (one interchangeable with piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, bass tuba, 2 sets of kettle-drums, cymbals, bass drum, gong, 2 harps, harmonium, strings, and chorus of female voices. The score is dedicated to Wagner: "As Virgil led Dante, so hast thou led me through the mysterious regions of tone-worlds drunk with life. From the depths of my heart I cry to thee: 'Tu se lo mio maestro, e 'l mio autore!' and dedicate in unalterable love this work. Weimar, Easter, '59."
_I. Inferno: Lento, 4-4._
Per me si va nella città dolente: Per me si va nell' eterno dolore: Per me si va tra la perduta gente!
Through me the way is to the city dolent; Through me the way is to eternal dole; Through me the way among the people lost.
--_Longfellow._
These words, read by Dante as he looked at the gate of hell, are thundered out by trombones, tuba, double basses, etc.; and immediately after trumpets and horn make the dreadful proclamation (C-sharp minor): "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate" ("All hope abandon, ye who enter in.") Liszt has written the Italian lines under the theme in the score. The two "Hell motives" follow, the first a descending chromatic passage in the lower strings against roll of drums, the second given to bassoons and violas. There is illustration of Dante's lines that describe the "sighs, complaints, and ululations loud":--
Languages diverse, horrible dialects, Accents of anger, words of agony, And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands, Made up a tumult that goes whirling on Forever in that air forever black, Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.
--_Longfellow._
The Allegro frenetico, 2-2, in the development paints the madness of despair, the rage of the damned. Again there is the cry, "All hope abandon" (trumpets, horns, trombones, tuba). There is a lull in the orchestral storm. Quasi Andante, 5-4. Harps, flutes, violins, a recitative of bass clarinet and two clarinets lead to the episode of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo. The cor anglais sings the lamentation:--
There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery.
Before the 'cello takes up the melody sung by the clarinet, the Lasciate theme is heard (muted horn, solo,) and then in three tempo, Andante amoroso, 7-4, comes the love duet, which ends with the Lasciate motive. A harp cadenza brings the return to the first allegro tempo, in which the Lasciate theme in combination with the two Hell motives is developed with grotesque and infernal orchestration. There is this remark in the score: "This whole passage should be understood as sardonic, blasphemous laughter and most sharply defined as such." After the repetition of nearly the whole of the opening section of the allegro the Lasciate theme is heard _fff_.
_II. Purgatorio and Magnificat._ The section movement begins Andante con moto, D major, 4-4. According to the composer there is the suggestion of a vessel that sails slowly over an unruffled sea. The stars begin to glitter, there is a cloudless sky, there is a mystic stillness. Over a rolling figuration is a melody first for horn, then oboe, the Meditation motive. This period is repeated a half-tone higher. The Prayer theme is sung by 'cello, then by first violin. There is illustration of Dante's tenth canto, and especially of the passage where the sinners call to remembrance the good that they did not accomplish. This remorseful and penitent looking-back and the hope in the future inspired Liszt, according to his commentator, Richard Pohl, to a fugue based on a most complicated theme. After this fugue the gentle Prayer and Repentance melodies are heard. Harp chords established the rhythm of the Magnificat (three flutes ascending in chords of E-flat). This motive goes through sundry modulations. And now an unseen chorus of women, accompanied by harmonium, sings, "Magnificat anima mea Dominum et exultavit spiritus meus, in Deo salutari meo" (My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour). A solo voice, that of the Mater Gloriosa, repeats the song. A short choral passage leads to "Hosanna Halleluja." The final harmonies are supposed to illustrate the passage in the twenty-first canto of the Paradiso:--
I saw rear'd up, In colour like to sun-illumined gold, A ladder, which my ken pursued in vain, So lofty was the summit; down whose steps I saw the splendours in such multitude Descending, every light in heaven, methought, Was shed thence.
--_H. F. Cary._
The "Hosanna" is again heard, and the symphony ends in soft harmonies (B major) with the first Magnificat theme.
Liszt wrote to Wagner, June 2, 1855: "Then you are reading Dante? He is excellent company for you. I, on my part, shall furnish a kind of commentary to his work. For a long time I had in my head a Dante symphony, and in the course of this year it is to be finished. There are to be three movements, 'Hell,' 'Purgatory,' and 'Paradise,' the two first purely instrumental, the last with chorus."
Wagner wrote in reply a long letter from London: "That 'Hell' and 'Purgatory' will succeed I do not call into question for a moment, but as to 'Paradise' I have some doubts, which you confirm by saying that your plan includes choruses. In the Ninth Symphony the last choral movement is decidedly the weakest part, although it is historically important, because it discloses to us in a very naïve manner the difficulties of a real musician who does not know how (after hell and purgatory) he is to describe paradise. About this paradise, dearest Franz, there is in reality a considerable difficulty, and he who confirms this opinion is, curiously enough, Dante himself, the singer of Paradise, which in his 'Divine Comedy' also is decidedly the weakest part." And then Wagner wrote at length concerning Dante, Christianity, Buddhism, and other matters. "But, perhaps, you will succeed better, and as you are going to paint a _tone_ picture, I might almost predict your success, for music is essentially the artistic, original image of the world. For the initiated no error is here possible. Only about the 'Paradise,' and especially about the choruses, I feel some friendly anxiety."
The next performance of the symphony in Boston was May 1, 1903, again under the direction of Mr. Gericke. Mr. Philip Hale furnished the notes for the analytical programme. Richard Pohl, whose critical annotations were prompted and approved by Liszt, points out that a composer worthy of a theme like Faust must be something more than a tone-composer: his concern ought to be with something that neither the word with its concrete definiteness can express, nor form and colour can actually realise, and this something is the world of the profoundest and most intimate feelings that unveil themselves to man's mind only in tones. None but the tone poet can render the fundamental moods. But in order to seize them in their totality, he must abstract from the material moments of Dante's epic, and can at most allude to few of them. On the other hand, he must also abstract from the dramatic and philosophical elements. These were Liszt's views on the treatment of the subject.
The Dante idea had obsessed Liszt for years. In 1847 he had planned musical illustrations of certain scenes from the epic with the aid of the newly-invented Diorama. This plan was never carried out. The Fantasia quasi-sonata for pianoforte (Années de Pèlerinage), suggested by a poem of Victor Hugo, "Après une lecture de Dante," is presumably a sketch; it is full of fuliginous grandeur and whirling rhythms. Composed of imagination and impulse, his mind saturated with contemporary literature, Liszt's genius, as Dannreuther declares, was one that could hardly express itself save through some other imaginative medium. He devoted his extraordinary mastery of instrumental technique to the purposes of illustrative expression; and, adds the authority cited, he was now and then inclined to do so in a manner that tends to reduce his music to the level of decorative scene painting or _affresco_ work. But the unenthusiastic critic admits that there are episodes of sublimity and great beauty in the Dante Symphony. The influence of Berlioz is not marked in this work.
WEINGARTNER'S AND RUBINSTEIN'S CRITICISMS
In his The Symphony Since Beethoven, Felix Weingartner, renowned as a conductor and composer, has said some pertinent things of the Liszt symphonic works. It must not be forgotten that he was a pupil of the Hungarian composer. He has been discussing Beethoven's first Leonora overture and continues thus:
"The same defects that mark the Ideale mark Liszt's Bergsymphonie, and, in spite of some beauties, his Tasso. Some other of his orchestral works, as Hamlet, Prometheus, Héroïde Funèbre, are inferior through weakness of invention. An improvisatore style, often passing into dismemberment, is peculiar to most of Liszt's compositions. I might say that while Brahms is characterised by a musing reflective element, in Liszt a rhapsodical element has the upper hand, and can be felt as a disturbing element in his weaker works. Masterpieces, besides those already mentioned, are the Hungaria, Festklänge the Hunnenschlacht, a fanciful piece of elementary weird power; Les Préludes, and, above all, the two great symphonies to Faust and Dante's Divine Comedy. The Faust Symphony intends not at all to embody musically Goethe's poem, but gives, as its title indicates, three character figures, Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles. The art and fancy with which Liszt here makes and develops psychologic, dramatic variation of a theme are shown in the third movement. Mephistopheles, the 'spirit that denies,' 'for all that does arise deserves to perish,' is the principle of the piece.
"Hence, Liszt could not give it a theme of its own, but built up the whole movement out of caricatures of previous themes referring specially to Faust; and it is only stupid lack of comprehension that brought against Liszt, in a still higher degree than against Berlioz, the reproach of poverty of invention. I ask if our old masters made great movements by the manifold variation of themes of a few bars, ought the like to be forbidden to a composer when a recognisably poetic thought is the moving spring? Does not invention belong to such characteristic variation? And just this movement reveals to us most clearly Liszt's profound knowledge of the real nature of music. When the hellish Devil's brood has grown to the most appalling power, then, hovering in the clouds of glory, the main theme of the Gretchen movement appears in its original, untouched beauty. Against it the might of the devil is shattered, and sinks back into nothing. The poet might let Gretchen sink, nay, become a criminal; the musician, in obedience to the ideal, noble character of his art, preserves for her a form of light. Powerful trombone calls resound through the dying hell-music, a male chorus begins softly Goethe's sublime words of the chorus mysticus, 'All that is transient is emblem alone,' and in the clearly recognised notes of the Gretchen theme a tenor voice continues, 'The ever-womanly draweth us up!' This tenor voice may be identified with Goethe's Doctor Marianus; we may imagine Gretchen glorified into the Mater Gloriosa, and recall Faust's words when he beholds Gretchen's image in the vanishing clouds:
'Like some fair soul, the lovely form ascends, And, not dissolving, rises to the skies And draws away the best within me with it.'
"So, in great compositions, golden threads spun from sunshine move between the music and the inspiring poetry, light and swaying, adorning both arts, fettering neither.
"Perhaps with still more unity and power than the Faust Symphony is the tone poem to Dante's Divine Comedy, with its thrilling representations of the torments of hell and the 'purgatorio,' gradually rising in higher and higher spheres of feeling. In these works Liszt gave us the best he could give. They mark the summit of his creative power, and the ripest fruit of that style of programme music that is artistically justified, since Berlioz.
"Outside of these two symphonies Liszt's orchestral works consist of only one movement and, as you know, are entitled Symphonic Poems. The title is extremely happy, and seems to lay down the law, perhaps the only law that a composition must follow if it has any raison d'être. Let it be a 'poem,' that is, let it grow out of a poetic idea, an inspiration of the soul, which remains either unspoken or communicated to the public by the title and programme; but let it also be 'symphonic,' which here is synonymous with 'musical.' Let it have a form, either one derived from the classic masters, or a new one that grows out of the contents and is adapted to them. Formlessness in art is always censurable and in music can never win pardon by a programme or by 'what the composer was thinking.' Liszt's symphonic works show a great first step on a new path. Whoever wishes to follow it must, before all things, be careful not to imitate Liszt's weakness, a frequently remarkable disjointed conception, nor to make it a law, but to write compositions which are more than musical illustrations to programmes."
Rubinstein, though he had been intimate with Liszt at Weimar, and profiting by his advice, made no concealment of his aversion to the compositions. In his "Conversation on Music" he said: "Liszt's career as a composer from 1853 is, according to my idea, a very disappointing one. In every one of his compositions 'one marks design and is displeased.' We find programme music carried to the extreme, also continual posing--in his church music before God, in his orchestral music works before the public, in his transcriptions of songs before the composers, in his Hungarian rhapsodies before the gipsies--in short, always and everywhere posing.
"'Dans les arts il faut faire grand' was his usual dictum, therefore the affectation in his work. His fashion for creating something new--à tout prix--caused him to form entire compositions out of a simple theme.... So: the sonata form--to set this aside means to extemporise a fantasia that is however not a symphony, not a sonata, not a concerto. Architecture is nearest allied to music in its fundamental principles--can a formless house or church or any other building be imagined? Or a structure, where the façade is a church, another part of the structure a railway station, another part a floral pavilion, and still another part a manufactory, and so on? Hence lack of form in music is improvisation, yes, borders almost on digression. Symphonic poems (so he calls his orchestral works) are supposed to be another new form of art--whether a necessity and vital enough to live, time, as in the case of Wagner's Music-Drama, must teach us. His orchestral instrumentation exhibits the same mastery as that of Berlioz and Wagner, even bears their stamp; with that, however, it is to be remembered that his pianoforte is the _Orchestra-Pianoforte_ and his orchestra the _Pianoforte-Orchestra_, for the orchestral composition sounds like an instrumented pianoforte composition. All in all I see in Berlioz, Wagner, and Liszt, the Virtuoso-Composer, and I would be glad to believe that their 'breaking all bounds' may be an advantage to the coming genius. In the sense, however, of specifically musical creation I can recognise neither one of them as a composer--and, in addition to this, I have noticed so far that all three of them are wanting in the chief charm of creation--the naïve--that stamp of geniality and, at the same time, that proof that genius after all is a child of humanity. Their influence on the composers of the day is great, but as I believe unhealthy."
THE RHAPSODIES
Liszt wrote fifteen compositions for the pianoforte, to which he gave the name of Rhapsodies Hongroises; they are based on national Magyar melodies. Of these he, assisted by Franz Doppler, scored six for orchestra. There is considerable confusion between the pianoforte set and the orchestral transcriptions, in the matter of numbering. Some of the orchestral transcriptions, too, are transposed to different keys from the originals. Here are the lists of both sets.
ORIGINAL SET, FOR PIANOFORTE.
I. In E-flat major, dedicated to E. Zerdahely.
II. In C-sharp minor and F-sharp major, dedicated to Count Ladislas Teleki.
III. In B-flat major, dedicated to Count Leo Festetics.
IV. In E-flat major, dedicated to Count Casimir Eszterházy.
V. _Héroïde élégiaque_, in E minor, dedicated to Countess Sidonie Reviczky.
VI. In D-flat major, dedicated to Count Antoine d'Apponyi.
VII. In D minor, dedicated to Baron Fery Orczy.
VIII. In F-sharp minor, dedicated to M. A. d'Augusz.
IX. _Le Carnaval de Pesth_, in E-flat major, dedicated to H. W. Ernst.
X. _Preludio_, in E major, dedicated to Egressy Bény.
XI. In A minor, dedicated to Baron Fery Orczy.
XII. In C-sharp minor, dedicated to Joseph Joachim.
XIII. In A minor, dedicated to Count Leo Festetics.
XIV. In F minor, dedicated to Hans von Bülow.
XV. _Rákóczy Marsch_, in A minor.
ORCHESTRAL SET.
I. In F minor (No. 14 of the original set).
II. Transposed to D minor (No. 12 " " " ").
III. Transposed to D major (No. 6 " " " ").
IV. Transposed to D minor and G major (No. 2 " " " ").
V. In E minor (No. 5 " " " ").
VI. _~Pesther~ Carneval_, transposed to D major (No. 9 " " " ").
The dedications remain the same as in the original set.
AUGUST SPANUTH'S ANALYSIS
August Spanuth, now the editor of the _Signale_ in Berlin, wrote _inter alia_ of the Rhapsodies in his edition prepared for the Ditsons:
"After Liszt's memorable visit to his native country in 1840 he freely submitted to the influence of the gipsy music. The catholicity of his musical taste, due to his very sensitive and receptive nature as well as his cosmopolitan life, would have enabled him to usurp the musical characteristics of any nation, no matter how uncouth, and work wonders with them. His versatility and resourcefulness in regard to form seemed to be inexhaustible, and he would certainly have been able to write some interesting fantasias on Hungarian themes had his affection for that country been only acquired instead of inborn. Fortunately his heart was in the task, and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies not only rank among his most powerful and convincing works, but must also be counted as superior specimens of national music in general. It does not involve an injustice toward Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert, who occasionally affected Hungarian peculiarities in their compositions, to state that it was Liszt who with his rhapsodies and kindred compositions started a new era of Hungarian music. 'Tunes' which heretofore served to amuse a motley crowd at the czardas on the 'Puszta' have through Liszt been successfully introduced into legitimate music. And most wonderful of all, he has not hesitated to preserve all the drastic and coarse effects of the gipsy band without ever leaning toward vulgarity. Who, before Franz Liszt, would have dreamed of employing cymbal-effects in legitimate piano playing? Liszt, such is the power of artistic transfiguration, imitates the cymbal to perfection and yet does not mar the illusion of refinement; while, on the other hand, the cymbal as a solo instrument must still impress us as primitive and rude. Liszt did not conceive the Hungarian music with his outer ear alone, as most of his numerous imitators did. They caught but the outline, some rhythmical features and some stereotyped ornaments; but Liszt was able to penetrate to the very source of it, he carried the key to its secret in his Hungarian temperament.
"To speak of Hungarian folk-songs is hardly permissible since a song includes the words as well as the music. Hungary is a polyglot country, and a song belonging through its words, as well as its notes, to the vast majority of the inhabitants is therefore an impossibility. The Magyars, of course, claim to be the only genuine Hungarians, and since they settled there almost a thousand years ago and are still indisputably the dominating race of the country, their claim may remain uncontested. Even the fact that the Magyars are but half of the total of a strange mixture, made up of heterogeneous elements, would not necessarily render invalid any pretension that their songs are the genuine Hungarian songs. But the proud Magyar will admit that Hungarian music is first and foremost gipsy music, Hungarian gipsy music. How much the Magyars have originally contributed to this music does not appear to be clear. Perhaps more research may lead to other results, but the now generally accepted conjecture gives the rhythmic features to the Magyars and the characteristic ornaments to the gipsies. It will probably not be denied that this presumption looks more like a compromise than the fruit of thorough scientific investigation. Furthermore, rhythm and ornaments are in Hungarian music so closely knit that it seems incomprehensible that they should have originated as characteristic features of two races so widely divergent. If this is so, however, we may hope that out of our own negro melodies and the songs of other elements of our population real American folk-music will yet after centuries develop, though it is to be feared that neither the negroes nor other inhabitants of the United States will be in a position to preserve sufficient naïveté, indispensable for the production of real folk-music. Otherwise the analogon is promising, the despised gipsy taking socially about the same position in Hungary as our own negro here.
"The Hungarian music as known to-day will impress everybody as a unit; so much so that its restrictions are obvious, and likely to produce a monotonous effect if too much of it is offered. Above all, this music is purely instrumental and therefore different from all other folk-music. It is based, though not exclusively, on a peculiar scale, the harmonic minor scale with an augmented fourth. Some commentators read this scale differently by starting at the dominant. Thus it appears as a major scale with a diminished second and a minor sixth, a sort of major-minor mode. The latter scale can be found on the last page of Liszt's Fifteenth Rhapsody, where it runs from _a_ to _a_, thus: _a_, _b_-flat, _c_-sharp, _d_, _e_, _f_, _g_-sharp and _a_. But for every scale of this construction a dozen of the former may be gathered in the Rhapsodies. While the notes are identical in both, the effect upon the ear is different, according to the starting note, just as the descending melodic minor scale is _de facto_ the same as the relative major scale, but not in its effect. The austerity and acidity of the altered harmonic minor scale is the chief characteristic of the melodious and harmonic elements of Hungarian music. Imbued with a plaintive and melancholy flavour this mode will always be recognised as the gipsy kind. To revel in sombre melodies seems to be one half of the purpose of Hungarian music, and in logical opposition a frolicsome gaiety the other half. In the regular czardas, a rustic dance at the wayside inn on the Puszta, the melancholy _lassan_ alternates in well-proportioned intervals with the extravagant and boisterous _friska_. The rhythm may be said to be a sort of spite-rhythm, very decisive in most cases, but most of the time in syncopation. This rhythm proves conclusively that the origin of Hungarian music is instrumental, for even in cantabile periods, where the melody follows a more dreamy vein, the syncopations are seldom missing in the accompaniment. At every point one is reminded that the dance was father to this music, a dance of unconventional movements where the dancer seems to avoid the step which one expected him to take, and instead substitutes a queer but graceful jerk. Where actual jerks in the melody would be inopportune, the ornaments are at hand and help to prevent every semblance of conventionality.
"Liszt, of course, has widened the scope of these ornamental features considerably. His fertility in applying such ornaments to each and every musical thought he is spinning is stupendous. In all his nineteen rhapsodies--the Twentieth Rhapsody is still in manuscript--the style, form, constructive idea, and application of these ornaments are different, but every one is characteristic not only of Hungarian music in general, but of the rhapsody in particular.
"Both the syncopated rhythm and the rich ornamentation which naturally necessitate a frequent tempo rubato help to avoid the monotony which might result from the fact that Hungarian music moves in even rhythm only. Four-quarter and two-quarter time prevail throughout, while three-quarter and six-eight do not seem to fit in the rhythmic design of Hungarian music. Attempts have been made to introduce uneven rhythm, but they were not successful. Where three-quarter and similar rhythm appears, the Hungarian spirit evaporates. Much more variety is available regarding the tempo, the original _lassan_ and _friska_ not being indispensable. A moderate and graceful _allegretto_ is frequently used by Liszt, and he also graduates the speed of the brilliant finales as well as the languor of the introductions of his Rhapsodies."
AS SONG WRITER
"It is not known exactly when Liszt began to compose songs," writes Henry T. Finck in his volume on Songs and Song Writers. "The best of them belong to the Weimar period, when he was in the full maturity of his creative power. There are stories of songs inspired by love while he lived in Paris; and he certainly did write six settings of French songs, chiefly by Victor Hugo. These he prepared for the press in 1842. While less original in melody and modulation than the best of his German songs, they have a distinct French esprit and elegance which attest his power of assimilation and his cosmopolitanism. These French songs, fortunately for his German admirers, were translated by Cornelius. Italian leanings are betrayed by his choice of poems by Petrarca and Bocella; but, as already intimated his favourite poets are Germans: Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Uhland, Rückert and others. Goethe--who could not even understand Schubert, and to whom Liszt's music would have been pure Chinese--is favoured by settings of Mignon's Lied (Kennst du das Land), Es war ein König in Thule, Der du von dem Himmel bist, Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh, Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen äss, Freudvoll und Leidvoll (two versions).
"Mignon was the second of his German songs, and it is the most deeply emotional of all the settings of that famous poem. Longing is its keynote; longing for blue-skyed Italy, with its orange groves, marble treasures and other delights. One of the things which Wagner admired in Liszt's music was 'the inspired definiteness of musical conception' which enabled him to concentrate his thought and feeling in so pregnant a way that one felt inclined to exclaim after a few bars: 'Enough, I have it all.' The opening bar of Mignon's Lied thus seems to condense the longing of the whole song; yet, as the music proceeds, we find it is only a prelude to a wealth of musical detail which colours and intensifies every word and wish of the poem.
"All of the six settings of Goethe poems are gems, and Dr. Hueffer quite properly gave each of them a place in his collection of Twenty Liszt Songs. Concerning the Wanderer's Night Song (Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh), Dr. Hueffer has well said that Liszt has rendered the heavenly calm of the poem by his wonderful harmonies in a manner which alone would secure him a place among the great masters of German song. 'Particularly the modulation from G major back into the original E major at the close of the piece is of surprising beauty.'
"For composers of musical lyrics Schiller wrote much fewer available poems than Goethe. But Schubert owed to him one of his finest songs, The Maiden's Lament, and next to him as an illustrator of Schiller I feel inclined to place Liszt, who is at his best in his settings of three poems from William Tell, The Fisher Boy, The Shepherd and The Alpine Hunter. Liszt, like Schubert, favours poems which bring a scene or a story vividly before the mind's eye, and he loves to write music which mirrors these pictorial features. Schubert's Mullerlieder seemed to have exhausted the possible ways of depicting in music the movements of the waters--but listen to the rippling arpeggios in Liszt's Fisher Boy, embodying the acquisitions of modern pianistic technic. The shepherd's song brings before our eyes and ears the flower meadows and the brooks of the peaceful Alpine world in summer, while the song of the hunter gives us dissolving views of destructive avalanches and appalling precipices, with sudden glimpses, through cloud rifts, of meadows and hamlets at dizzy depths below. Wagner himself, in the grandest mountain and cloud scenes of the Walküre and Siegfried, has not written more superbly dissonant and appropriate dramatic music than has Liszt in this exciting song."
The King of Thule and Lorely are masterpieces and contain in essence all the dramatic lyricism of modern writers, Strauss included.
PIANO AND ORCHESTRA
CONCERTO FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA, No. 1, IN E FLAT
This, the better known of Liszt's two pianoforte concertos, is constructed along the general lines of the symphonic poem--a species of free orchestral composition which Liszt himself gave to the world. The score embraces four sections arranged like the four movements of a symphony, although their internal development is of so free a nature, and they are merged one into another in such away as to give to the work as a whole the character of one long movement developed from several fundamental themes and sundry subsidiaries derived therefrom. The first of these themes [this is the theme to which Liszt used to sing, "Das versteht ihr alle nicht!" but, according to Von Bülow and Ramann, "Ihr könnt alle nichts!"] appears at the outset, being given out by the strings with interrupting chords of wood-wind and brass allegro maestoso leading at once to an elaborate cadenza for the pianoforte. The second theme, which marks the beginning of the second section--in B major, Quasi adagio and 12-8 (4-4) time--is announced by the deeper strings (muted) to be taken up by the solo instrument over flowing left-hand arpeggios. A long trill for the pianoforte, embellished by expressive melodies from sundry instruments of the orchestra, leads to the third section--in F-flat minor, allegretto vivace and 3-4 time--whereupon the strings give out a sparkling scherzo theme which the solo instrument proceeds to develop capriciously. This section closes with a pianissimo cadenza for the pianoforte following which a rhapsodical passage (Allegro animato) leads to the finale--in E-flat major, Allegro marziale animato and 4-4 time--in which the second theme reappears transformed into a spirited march.
The concerto was composed in 1848, revised in 1853, and published in 1857. It was performed for the first time at Weimar during the Berlioz week, February 16, 1855, when Liszt was the pianist and Berlioz conducted the orchestra. It is dedicated to Henri Litolff.
Liszt wrote at some length concerning this concerto in a letter to Eduard Liszt, dated Weimar, March 26, 1857:
"The fourth movement of the concerto from the Allegro marziale corresponds with the second movement, Adagio. It is only an urgent recapitulation of the earlier subject-matter with quickened, livelier rhythm, and contains no new motive, as will be clear to you by a glance through the score. This kind of _binding together_ and rounding off a whole piece at its close is somewhat my own, but it is quite maintained and justified from the stand-point of musical form. The trombones and basses take up the second part of the motive of the Adagio (B major). The pianoforte figure which follows is no other than the reproduction of the motive which was given in the Adagio by flute and clarinet, just as the concluding passage is a Variante and working up in the major of the motive of the Scherzo, until finally the first motive on the dominant pedal B-flat, with a shake-accompaniment, comes in and concludes the whole.
"The Scherzo in E-flat minor, from the point where the triangle begins, I employed for the effect of contrast.
"As regards the triangle I do not deny that it may give offence, especially if struck too strong and not precisely. A preconceived disinclination and objection to instruments of percussion prevails, somewhat justified by the frequent misuse of them. And few conductors are circumspect enough to bring out the rhythmic element in them, without the raw addition of a coarse noisiness, in works in which they are deliberately employed according to the intention of the composer. The dynamic and rhythmic spicing and enhancement, which are effected by the instruments of percussion, would in more cases be much more effectually produced by the careful trying and proportioning of insertions and additions of that kind. But musicians who wish to appear serious and solid prefer to treat the instruments of percussion _en canaille_, which must not make their appearance in the seemly company of the symphony. They also bitterly deplore inwardly that Beethoven allowed himself to be seduced into using the big drum and triangle in the Finale of the Ninth Symphony. Of Berlioz, Wagner, and my humble self, it is no wonder that 'like draws to like,' and, as we are treated as impotent _canaille_ amongst musicians, it is quite natural that we should be on good terms with the _canaille_ among the instruments. Certainly here, as in all else, it is the right thing to seize upon and hold fast [the] mass of harmony. In face of the most wise proscription of the learned critics I shall, however, continue to employ instruments of percussion, and think I shall yet win for them some effects little known."
"This eulogy of the triangle," Mr. Philip Hale says, "was inspired by the opposition in Vienna when Pruckner played the concerto in that city (season of 1856-57). Hanslick cursed the work by characterising it as a 'Triangle Concerto,' and for some years the concerto was therefore held to be impossible. It was not played again in Vienna until 1869, when Sophie Menter paid no attention to the advice of the learned and her well-wishers. Lina Ramann tells the story. Rubinstein, who happened to be there, said to her: 'You are not going to be so crazy as to play this concerto? No one has yet had any luck with it in Vienna.' Bösendorfer, who represented the Philharmonic Society, warned her against it. To which Sofie replied coolly in her Munich German: 'Wenn i dös nit spielen kann, speil i goar nit--i muss ja nit in Wien spielen' ('if I can't play it, I don't play at all--I must not play in Vienna'). She did play it, and with great success.
"Yet the triangle is an old and esteemed instrument. In the eighteenth century it was still furnished with metal rings, as was its forbear, the sistrum. The triangle is pictured honourably in the second part of Michael Prätorius' 'Syntagma musicum' (Part II., plate xxii., Wolffenbüttel, 1618). Haydn used it in his military symphony, Schumann in the first movement of his B-flat symphony; and how well Auber understood its charm!"
CONCERTO FOR PIANO, NO. 2, IN A MAJOR
This concerto, as well as the one in E-flat, was probably composed in 1848. It was revised in 1856 and in 1861, and published in 1863. It is dedicated to Hans von Bronsart, by whom it was played for the first time January 7, 1857, at Weimar.
The autograph manuscript of this concerto bore the title, "Concert Symphonique," and, as Mr. Apthorp once remarked, "The work might be called a symphonic poem for pianoforte and orchestra, with the title, 'The Life and Adventures of a Melody.'"
The concerto is in one movement. The first and chief theme binds the various episodes into an organic whole. Adagio sostenuto assai, A major, 3-4. The first theme is announced at once by wood-wind instruments. It is a moaning and wailing theme, accompanied by harmonies shifting in tonality. The pianoforte gives in arpeggios the first transformation of this musical thought and in massive chords the second transformation. The horn begins a new and dreamy song. After a short cadenza of the solo instrument a more brilliant theme in D minor is introduced and developed by both pianoforte and orchestra. A powerful crescendo (pianoforte alternating with string and wood-wind instruments) leads to a scherzo-like section of the concerto, Allegro agitato assai, B-flat minor, 6-8. A side motive fortissimo (pianoforte) leads to a quiet middle section. Allegro moderato, which is built substantially on the chief theme (solo 'cello). A subsidiary theme, introduced by the pianoforte, is continued by flute and oboe, and there is a return to the first motive. A pianoforte cadenza leads to a new tempo. Allegro deciso, in which rhythms of already noted themes are combined, and a new theme appears (violas and 'cellos), which at last leads back to the tempo of the quasi-scherzo. But let us use the words of Mr. Apthorp rather than a dry analytical sketch: 'From this point onward the concerto is one unbroken series of kaleidoscopic effects of the most brilliant and ever-changing description; of musical form, of musical coherence even, there is less and less. It is as if some magician in some huge cave, the walls of which were covered with glistening stalactites and flashing jewels, were revealing his fill of all the wonders of colour, brilliancy, and dazzling light his wand could command. Never has even Liszt rioted more unreservedly in fitful orgies of flashing colour. It is monstrous, formless, whimsical, and fantastic, if you will; but it is also magical and gorgeous as anything in the Arabian Nights. It is its very daring and audacity that save it. And ever and anon the first wailing melody, with its unearthly chromatic harmony, returns in one shape or another, as if it were the dazzled neophyte to whom the magician Liszt were showing all these splendours, while initiating it into the mysteries of the world of magic, until it, too, becomes magical, and possessed of the power of working wonders by black art.'
THE DANCE OF DEATH
Liszt's Todtentanz is a tremendous work. This set of daring variations had not been heard in New York since Franz Rummel played them years ago, under the baton of the late Leopold Damrosch, although d'Albert, Siloti and Alexander Lambert have had them on their programmes--in each case some circumstance prevented our hearing them here. Harold Bauer played them with the Boston Symphony, both in Boston and Brooklyn, and Philip Hale, in his admirable notes on these concerts, has written in part: "Liszt was thrilled by a fresco in the Campo Santo of Pisa, when he sojourned there in 1838 and 1839. This fresco, The Triumph of Death, was for many years attributed to a Florentine, Andrea Orcagna, but some insist that it was painted by Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti."
The right of this fantastical fresco portrays a group of men and women, who, with dogs and falcons, appear to be back from the chase, or they may be sitting as in Boccaccio's garden. They are sumptuously dressed. A minstrel and a damsel sing to them, while cupids flutter about and wave torches. But Death flies swiftly toward them, a fearsome woman, with hair streaming wildly, with clawed hands. She is bat-winged, and her clothing is stiff with mire. She swings a scythe, eager to end the joy and delight of the world. Corpses lie in a heap at her feet--corpses of kings, queens, cardinals, warriors, the great ones of the earth, whose souls, in the shape of new born babes, rise out of them. "Angels like gay butterflies" are ready to receive the righteous, who fold their hands in prayer; demons welcome the damned, who shrink back with horror. The devils, who are as beasts of prey or loathsome reptiles, fight for souls; the angels rise to heaven with the saved; the demons drag their victims to a burning mountain and throw them into the flames. And next this heap of corpses is a crowd of beggars, cripples, miserable ones, who beg Death to end their woe; but they do not interest her. A rock separates this scene from another, the chase. Gallant lords and noble dames are on horseback, and hunters with dogs and falcons follow in their train. They come upon three open graves, in which lie three princes in different stages of decay. An aged monk on crutches, possibly the Saint Macarius, points to this _memento mori_. They talk gaily, although one of them holds his nose. Only one of the party, a woman, rests her head on her hand and shows a sorrowful face. On mountain heights above are hermits, who have reached through abstinence and meditation the highest state of human existence. One milks a doe while squirrels play about him; another sits and reads; a third looks into a valley that is rank with death. And, according to tradition, the faces in this fresco are portraits of the painter's contemporaries.
How such a scene must have appealed to Liszt is easily comprehensible, and he put it into musical form by taking a dour Dies Irae theme and putting it through the several variations of the emotions akin to the sardonic. The composer himself referred to the work as "a monstrosity," and he must have realised full well that it would stick in the crop of the philistines. And it has. But Von Bülow stood godfather to the work and dared criticism by playing it.
As a work it is absolutely unconventional and follows no distinct programme, as does the Saint-Saëns "clever cemetery farce." Its opening is gloomily impressive and the orchestration fearfully bold. The piano in it is put to various uses, with a fill of _glissandi_ matching the diabolic mood. The cadenzas might be dispensed with, but, after all, the piece was written by Liszt, and cadenzas were a part of his nature. But to take this work lightly is to jest with values. The theme itself is far too great to be depreciated and the treatments of it are marvellous. Our ears rebel a bit that the several variations were not joined--which they might easily have been--and then the work would sound more _en bloc_. But, notwithstanding, it is one of the most striking of Liszt's piano compositions.
BURMEISTER ARRANGEMENTS
Richard Burmeister made an arrangement of Liszt's Concerto Pathétique in E minor by changing its original form for two pianos into a concerto for piano solo with orchestral accompaniment. Until now the original has remained almost an unknown composition; partly for the reason that it needed for a performance two first rank piano virtuosi to master the extreme technical difficulties and partly that Liszt had chosen for it such a rhapsodical and whimsical form as to make it an absolutely ineffective concert piece. Even Hans von Bülow tried in a new edition to improve some passages by making them more consistent, but without success.
However, as the concerto contains pathetic musical ideas, among the best Liszt conceived and is of too much value to be lost, Mr. Burmeister ventured to give it a form by which he hopes to make it as popular as the famous E-flat major concerto by the same composer. The task was a rather risky one, as some radical changes had to be made and the character of the composition preserved.
To employ a comparison, Mr. Burmeister cut the concerto like a beautiful but badly tuned bell into pieces and melted and moulded it again into a new form. Some passages had to change places, some others to be omitted, others again repeated and enlarged. Mr. Burmeister went even so far as to add some of his own passages--for instance, a cadence at the beginning of the piano part, the end of the slow movement and a short fugato introducing the finale. As to the new form, the result now comes very near to a restoration of the old classical form: Allegro--Andante--Allegro.
Mr. Burmeister has also made a very effective welding of Liszt's diabolic Mephisto Waltz for piano and orchestra which he has successfully played in Germany. He also arranged the Fifth Hungarian Rhapsody for piano and orchestra (Héroïde--Elégiaque). To Mr. Burmeister I am indebted for valuable information regarding his beloved master Liszt, with whom he studied in Weimar, Rome and Budapest.
THE OPERATIC PARAPHRASES
"It is commonly assumed that the first musician who made a concert speech of the kind now so much in vogue was Hans von Bülow," says Mr. Finck. "Probably he was the first who made such speeches frequently, and he doubtless made the longest on record, when, on March 28, 1892, he harangued a Philharmonic audience in Berlin on Beethoven and Bismarck; this address covers three pages of Bülow's invaluable Briefe und Schriften. The first concert speech, however, was made by that many-sided innovator, Franz Liszt, who tells about it in an amusing letter he wrote from Milan to the Paris _Gazette Musicale_, in 1837. It was about this time that he originated the custom of giving 'piano recitals,' as he called them; that is, monologues by the solo pianist, without assisting artist or orchestra. In Italy, where he first took to this habit, it was particularly risky, because the Italians cared for little besides operatic pomp, vocal display, and strongly spiced musical effect. For pianists, in particular, they had little or no use. In those days (and times have not changed), a pianist travelling in Italy was wise if, in the words of Liszt, he 'pined for the sun rather than for fame, and sought repose rather than gold.'
"He succeeded, nevertheless, in making the Italians interested in piano playing, but he had to stoop to conquer. When he played one of his own études, a gentleman in the pit called out that he had come to the theatre to be entertained and not to hear a 'studio.' Liszt thereupon improvised fantasias on Italian operatic melodies, which aroused tumultuous enthusiasm. He also asked the audiences, after the fashion of the time, to suggest themes for him to improvise on or topics for him to illustrate in tones. One auditor suggested the Milan Cathedral, another the railway, while a third sent up a paper asking Liszt to discuss on the piano the question: 'Is it better to marry or remain a bachelor?' This was a little too much even for the pianist, who was destined to become the supreme master of programme music, so he made a speech. To cite his own words: 'As I could only have answered this question after a long pause, I preferred to recall to the audience the words of a wise man: "Whatever you do, marry or remain single, you will be sure to regret it." You see, my friend, that I have found a splendid means of rendering a concert cheerful when ennui makes it rather a cool duty than a pleasure. Was I wrong to say my _Anch'io_ in this land of improvisation?'
"The operatic fantasias which Liszt first improvised for the Italians found great favour in other countries; so much so that eager publishers used to follow him from city to city, begging him to put them on paper, and allow them to print them. There are thirty-six of these fantasias in all, ranging from Sonnambula and Lucia to the operas of Meyerbeer, Verdi, and Wagner. It has been the fashion among critics to sneer at them, but, as Saint-Saëns has said, there is much pedantry and prejudice in these sneers. In structure they are as artistic as the overtures to such operas as Zampa, Euryanthe, and Tannhäuser, which likewise are 'practically nothing but fantasias on the operas which they introduce.' Berlioz was the first to point out how, in these pieces, Liszt actually improves on the originals; in the Robert the Devil fantasia, for instance, his ingenious way of combining the Bertram aria of the third act with the aria of the ballet of nuns produced an 'indescribable dramatic effect.' What is more, these fantasias contain much of Liszt's own genius, not to speak of his wonderful pianistic idiom. He scattered his own pearls and diamonds among them lavishly."
THE ETUDES
The late Edward Dannreuther, who changed his opinion of Liszt, wrote a short introduction to his edition of the Transcendental Studies (Augener & Co.) which is of interest.
"The Etudes, which head the thematic catalogue of Liszt's works, show, better than anything else, the transformation his style has undergone; and for this reason it may be well to trace the growth of some of them. Etudes en douze exercices, par François Liszt, Op. 1, were published at Marseilles in 1827. They were written during the previous year, Liszt being then under sixteen. The second set of Etudes, dédiées a Monsieur Charles Czerny, appeared in 1839, but were cancelled; and the Etudes d'exécution transcendante, again dedicated to Czerny, "en témoignage de reconnaissance et de respectueuse amitié de son élève," appeared in 1852. The now cancelled copy of the Etudes which Schumann had before him in 1839, when he wrote his brilliant article, shows these studies to be more extravagant and, in some instances, technically more difficult than even the final version. The germs of both the new versions are to be seen in the Op. 1 of 1827. Schumann transcribed a couple of bars from the beginning of Nos. 1, 5, 9, and 11, from both the new and old copies, and offered a few of his swift and apt comments. The various changes in these Etudes may be taken to represent the history of the pianoforte during the last half of the nineteenth century, from the 'Viennese Square' to the concert grand, from Czerny's Schule der Geläufigkeit to Liszt's Danse macabre. Czerny might have written the original exercise No. 1, but it would not have been so shapely a thing as Liszt's final version. The difference between the two versions of No. 1 is, however, considerably less than that which separates Nos. 2, 3, and 4 from their predecessors. If the earlier and the later versions of No. 3 in F and No. 4 in D minor were signed by different composers, the resemblance between them would hardly attract notice. Of No. 2 little remains as it stood at first. Instead of a reduction there is an increase (38 to 102) in the number of bars. Some harmonic commonplaces which disfigure the original, as, for instance, the detour to C (bars 9-16), have been removed. The remainder is enlarged, so as to allow of more extensive modulation, and thus to avoid redundancy. A short introduction and a coda are added, and the diction throughout is thrown into high relief. Paysage, No. 3 in F, has been subjected to further alteration since Schumann wrote about it. In his article he commends the second version as being more interesting than the first, and points to a change of movement from square to triple time, and to the melody which is superadded, as improvements. On the other hand he calls an episode in A major 'comparatively trivial,' and this, it may be noticed, is omitted in the final version. As it now stands, the piece is a test study for pianists who aim at refinement of style, tone, and touch. The Etude entitled Mazeppa is particularly characteristic of Liszt's power of endurance at the instrument, and it exhibits the gradual growth of his manner, from pianoforte exercises to symphonic poems in the manner of Berlioz. It was this Etude, together perhaps with Nos. 7 (Vision), 8 (Wilde Jagd), and 12 (Chasse-neige), that induced Schumann to speak of the entire set as Wahre Sturm- und Graus-Etuden (Studies of storm and dread), studies for, at the most, ten or twelve players in the world. The original of No. 5, in B flat, is a mere trifle, in the manner of J. B. Cramer--the final version entitled Feux follets is one of the most remarkable transformations extant, and perhaps the best study of the entire series, consistent in point of musical design and full of delicate technical contrivances. Ricordanza, No. 9, and Harmonies du soir, No. 11, may be grouped together as showing how a musical Stimmungsbild (a picture of a mood or an expression of sentiment) can be evoked from rather trite beginnings. Schumann speaks of the melody in E major, which occurs in the middle of the latter piece, as "the most sincerely felt"; and in the last version it is much improved. Both pieces, Ricordanza and Harmonies du soir, show to perfection the sonority of the instrument in its various aspects. The latter piece, Harmonies du soir in the first, as well as in the final version, appears as a kind of Nocturne. No. 10, again, begins as though it were Czerny's (_a_) and in the cancelled edition is developed into an Etude of almost insuperable difficulty (_b_). As finally rewritten, this study is possible to play and well worth playing (_c_).
"No. 12 also has been recast and much manipulated, but there is no mending of weak timber. We must also mention Ab-Irato, an Etude in E minor cancelled and entirely rewritten; three Etudes de concert (the second of which has already been mentioned as Chopinesque); and two fine Etudes, much later in date and of moderate difficulty, Waldesrauschen and Gnomentanz. The Paganini Studies, _i.e._, transcriptions in rivalry with Schumann of certain Caprices for the violin by Paganini, and far superior to Schumann's, do not call for detailed comment. They were several times rewritten (final edition, 1852) as Liszt, the virtuoso, came to distinguish between proper pianoforte effects and mere haphazard bravura."
The first version of the Ab-Irato was a contribution to Fétis' and Moscheles' Méthode des Méthodes, Paris, 1842, where it is designated Morceau de Salon--Etude de Perfectionnement. The second version, Berlin, 1852, was presented as "entièrement revue et corrigée par l'Auteur" and called Ab-Irato (_i.e._ in a rage, or in a fit of temper). It exceeds the first version by 28 bars and is a striking improvement, showing the growth of Liszt's technic and his constant effort to be emphatic and to avoid commonplace.
No pianist can afford to ignore Liszt's Etudes--he may disparage them if he chooses, but he ought to be able to play them properly. We play the three B's, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, each from a somewhat different point of view. But these great men have this in common, that in each case, yet in a different degree, when we play their music we address the hearer's intellect rather than his nervous sensibility--though the latter is never excluded. With Liszt and his pupils the appeal is, often and without disguise, rather an appeal to the hearer's nerves; but the methods employed are, in the master's case at least, so very clever, and altogether _hors ligne_, that a musician's intelligence, too, may be delighted and stimulated.
Of the B-minor sonata Dannreuther has written:
"The work is a curious compound of true genius and empty rhetoric, which contains enough of genuine impulse and originality in the themes of the opening section, and of suave charm in the melody of the section that stands for the slow movement, to secure the hearer's attention. Signs of weakness occur only in the centre, where, according to his wont, Liszt seems unable to resist the temptation to tear passion to tatters and strain oratory to bombast. None the less the Sonata is an interesting study, eminently successful in parts, and well worthy the attention of pianists.
"Two Ballades, a Berceuse, a Valse-impromptu, a Mazurka, and two Polonaises sink irretrievably if compared with Chopin's pieces similarly entitled. The Scherzo und Marsch in D minor, an inordinately difficult and somewhat dry piece, falls short of its aim. Two legends, St. Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds, a clever and delicate piece, and St. Francis of Paula stepping on the waves, a kind of Etude, are examples of picturesque and decorous programme music.
"Liszt was also a master in the notation of pianoforte music--a very difficult matter indeed, and one in which even Chopin frequently erred. His method of notation coincides in the main with that of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, and Brahms. Let the player accurately play what is set down and the result will be satisfactory. The perspicuity of certain pages of Liszt's mature pianoforte pieces, such as the first two sets of Années de pèlerinage, Consolations, Sonata in B minor, the Concertos, the Danse macabre, and the Rhapsodies hongroises, cannot be surpassed. His notation often represents a condensed score, and every rest not absolutely necessary is avoided; again, no attempt is made to get a semblance of an agreement between the rhythmic division of the bar and the freedom of certain rapid ornamental passages, but, on the other hand, everything essential to the rendering of accent or melody, to the position of the hands on the keyboard, to the details of special fingering and special pedalling, is faithfully recorded. Thus the most complex difficulties, as in the Fantaisies Dramatiques, and even apparently uncontrollable effects of _tempo rubato_, as in the first fifteen Rhapsodies or the Etude Ricordanza, or the Tre Sonetti di Petrarca, are so closely indicated that the particular effect intended cannot be mistaken."
THE MASSES AND THE PSALMS
In his studies of Liszt's religious music, contributed to the Oxford History of Music, Edward Dannreuther, then no longer a partisan of Liszt, said of his mass:
"Among Liszt's many contributions to the répertoire of Catholic church music the Missa solemnis, known as the Graner Festmesse, is the most conspicuous. Written to order in 1855, performed at the Consecration of the Basilica at Gran, in Hungary, in 1856, it was Liszt's first serious effort in the way of church music proper, and shows him at his best in so far as personal energy and high aim are concerned. 'More prayed than composed,' he said, in 1856, when he wanted to smooth the way for it in Wagner's estimation--'more criticised than heard,' when it failed to please in the Church of St. Eustache, in Paris, in 1866. It certainly is an interesting and, in many ways, a remarkable work.
"Liszt's instincts led him to perceive that the Catholic service, which makes a strong appeal to the senses, as well as to the emotions, was eminently suited to musical illustration. He thought his chance lay in the fact that the function assigned to music in the ceremonial is mainly decorative, and that it would be possible to develop still further its emotional side. The Church employs music to enforce and embellish the Word. But the expansion of music is always controlled and in some sense limited by the Word--for the prescribed words are not subject to change. Liszt, however, came to interpret the Catholic ritual in a histrionic spirit, and tried to make his music reproduce the words not only as _ancilla theologica et ecclesiastica_, but also as _ancilla dramaturgica_. The influence of Wagner's operatic method, as it appears in Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and Das Rheingold, is abundantly evident; but the result of this influence is more curious than convincing. By the application of Wagner's system of Leitmotive to the text of the mass, Liszt succeeded in establishing some similarity between different movements, and so approached uniformity of diction. It will be seen, for example, that his way of identifying the motive of the Gloria with that of the Resurrexit and that of the Hosanna, or the motive of the Sanctus and the Christie Eleison with that of the Benedictus, and also his way of repeating the principal preceding motives in the 'Dona nobis pacem,' especially the restatement, at its close, of the powerful motive of the Credo, has given to the work a musical unity which is not always in very clear accordance with the text.
"In the Hungarian Coronation Mass (Ungarische Krönungsmesse, 1866-7) Liszt aimed at characteristic national colour, and tried to attain it by persistently putting forward some of the melodic formulæ common to music of the Hungarian type which occurs in the national Rakoczy March and in numberless popular tunes--or an emphatic melisma known to everybody through the famous Rhapsodies. From beginning to end the popular Hungarian element is represented by devices of this kind in a manner which is always ingenious and well suited to the requirements of a national audience.
"But the style of the entire Mass is as incongruous as a gipsy musician in a church vestment--doubly strange to students of the present day, who in Liszt's Rhapsodies and Brahms' Ungarische Tänze have become familiar with the rhythmical and melodic phrases of the Hungarian gipsy idiom, and who all along have known them in their most mundane aspect. Apart, however, from its incongruities of style, the Offertorium is a shapely composition with a distinct stamp of its own.
"Liszt's manner of writing for solo and choral voices is generally practical and effective. The voice-parts are carefully written so as to lessen the difficulties of intonation which the many far-fetched modulations involve, and are skilfully disposed in point of sonority. The orchestration, always efficient, is frequently rich and beautiful."
The opinion on this work, expressed in the _Tageblatt_ by Dr. Leopold Schmidt (who used to be an uncompromising opponent of Liszt), is illuminative of the present status of the Liszt cult:
"The Graner Messe is the older of Liszt's two Hungarian festival masses, and was composed in 1855. The dispute as to its significance has lost its point in these days of emancipation from the embarrassments and prejudices of a former generation. In church music, as in everything else, we now allow every writer to express his personality, and a personality with the poetic qualities of Liszt wins our sympathies at the outset.... The dramatic insistence on diverse details diminishes the grandeur of the style; this method is out of place here, and is no adequate substitute for the might of the older form-language. All the other peculiar traits of Liszt we find here: the pictorial element, the unconsciously theatrical (Wagner's influence is strongly felt), and the preponderating of the instrumental over the vocal. Nevertheless, the Graner Messe is probably Liszt's most important and most personal creation. The touching entreaty of the Kyrie, the beginning of the Gloria with its fabulously pictorial effect, the F-sharp major part of the Credo are beauties of a high order. The final portions are less inspired, the impression is weakened; but we learn to love this work for many tender lyric passages, for the original treatment of the text, and the genuine piety which pervades and ennobles it." This mass was sung at the Worcester festival in 1909 under the conductorship of Arthur Mees.
In St. Elisabeth, which is published as a concert oratorio, Dannreuther thinks that Liszt has produced something like an opera sacra. Lina Ramann said that when the work was performed with scenic accessories it came as a surprise to the composer. He took his cue from the order of Moritz v. Schwindt's frescoes, which illustrate the history of Elisabeth of Hungary in the restored hall of the Wartburg at Eisenach and planned six scenes for which Otto Roquette furnished the verse. The scenes are: the arrival of the child from Hungary--a bright sunny picture; the rose miracle--a forest and garden scene; the Crusaders--a picture of Medæival pageantry; Elisabeth's expulsion from the Wartburg--a stormy nocturne; Elisabeth's death, solemn burial, and canonisation. Five sections belong to the dramatic presentation of the story. The sixth and last, the burial and canonisation, is an instrumental movement which serves as a prologue. The leitmotive, five in number, consist of melodies of a popular type.
William J. Henderson, who can hardly be accused of being a Lisztianer, wrote of the St. Elisabeth--after a performance some years ago in Brooklyn at the Academy of Music, under the conductorship of Walter Hall--as follows:
"To the great majority of the hearers, and to most of the performers, the work must have been a novelty, and had the attraction of curiosity. It is an early attempt at that dramatic narration, with an illusive 'atmosphere' supplied by the orchestra, which has been so extensively practised since its composition. If Liszt had had the advantage of his own experiment, and of the subsequent failures and successes of other composers in the same attempt, no doubt his work would have been more uniformly successful. As it is, no work which is heard in New York but once in twenty years can be called a popular success. It is true that it is worth a hearing oftener than that. True, also, that in Prague, with the advantage of costumes and scenery, it had a 'run' of some sixty nights. There is a strongly patriotic Magyar strain both in the book and in the music, which would account for popular success in Hungary, if not in Bohemia. But it must be owned that the orchestral introduction is tedious, and much of the music of the first part a very dry recitative. In this respect, however, the work acquires strength by going. The Crusaders' March, which ends the first part, is so effective an orchestral number that it is odd it should never be done in the concert room. In the second part, much of the music allotted to Elisabeth is melodious and pathetic, the funeral scene and the funeral march are effective ensemble writing, and the last series of choruses, largely of churchly 'plain song' for the voices with elaborate orchestral embroidery, are impressive and even majestic."
In 1834 Liszt wrote to the _Gazette Musicale_ and described his own and Berlioz's ideal of romantic religious music thus: "For want of a better term we may well call the new music Humanitarian. It must be devotional, strong, and drastic, uniting--on a colossal scale--the theatre and the church, dramatic and sacred, superb and simple, fiery and free, stormy and calm, translucent and emotional." Berlioz played up to this romantic programme even better than Liszt. Need we adduce the tremendous Requiem! Liszt's Graner-messe follows a close second.
Even if Liszt's bias was essentially histrionic his oratorio Christus (1863-1873) is his largest and most sustained effort and the magnum opus of his later years; you may quite agree with Dannreuther that its conception is Roman Catholic, devotional, and contemplative in a Roman Catholic sense both in style and intended effect. It contains nothing that is not in some way connected with the Catholic ritual or the Catholic spirit; and, more than any other work of its composer, continues our critic, recognises and obeys the restrictions imposed by the surroundings of the Church service. The March of the Three Kings was inspired by a picture in the Cologne Cathedral. The Beatitudes and the Stabat Mater Dolorosa contain pathetic and poignant writing.
"Liszt's Thirteenth Psalm is of especial importance, because the epoch-making ecclesiastical music of the great composer is as yet so little known in America," declares Mr. Finck. "This is the real music of the future for the church, and it is inspired as few things are in the whole range of music. Liszt himself considered it one of his master-works. In one of his letters to Brendel, he says that it 'is one of those I have worked out most fully, and contains two fugue movements and a couple of passages which were written with tears of blood.' He had reason to write with tears of blood; he had given to the world a new orchestral form, had found new paths for sacred music, had done more as a missionary for his art than any other three masters, yet contemporaneous criticism was as bitter against him as if he had been an invading Hun. To him the Psalmist's words, 'How long shall they that hate me, be exalted against me?' had a meaning which could indeed be recorded only in 'tears of blood.' There is a pathos in this psalm that one would seek for in vain in any other sacred work since Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. Liszt himself has well described it in the letter referred to (vol. II, p. 72): 'Were any one of my more recent works likely to be performed at a concert with orchestra and chorus, I would recommend this psalm. Its poetic subject welled up plenteously out of my soul; and besides I feel as if the musical form did not roam about beyond the given tradition. It requires a lyrical tenor; in his song he must be able to pray, to sigh, and lament, to become exalted, pacified, and biblically inspired. Orchestra and chorus, too, have great demands made upon them. Superficial or ordinarily careful study would not suffice.'"
This superb psalm, performed at the recent Birmingham Musical Festival, recalls to an English critic an interesting comment of the composer's in regard to that particular work. When Sir Alexander Mackenzie met Liszt in Florence several years ago, Sir Alexander said he was glad to tell him (Liszt) that a performance of his Thirteenth Psalm had been announced in England. A grim smile passed over the face of the great composer as he replied: "O Herr, wie lang?" ("O Lord, how long?"), the opening words of the psalm.
Mr. Richard Aldrich writes of the Angelus as follows:
"The little Angelus of Liszt is one of the very few pieces of chamber music that he composed--his genius was more at home upon the pianoforte, in the orchestra and in the massive effects of choral singing. This piece has the character suggested in its subtitle: 'Prayer to the Guardian Angels,' and is an expression of the deeply religious, mystical side of his nature that led him to take holy orders in the Church of Rome. It was originally written for a string quartet, but the master added a fifth part for contrabass for a performance of it given in London in 1884 by a large string orchestra under the direction of his pupil, Walter Bache. It is given this afternoon in this form. The sense of yearning, of aspiration and of spiritual elevation toward celestial things is what the composer has aimed to embody in the music. After brief preluding on the muted strings (without the contrabass) the first violins take up a sustained cantabile that soon rises to a fervent climax, fortissimo, and breaking into triplets reaches the highest positions on the first violin, accompanied by full and vibrant harmony on the other instruments, as though publishing feelings of the utmost exaltation. There is a pause and the piece ends with the quiet feeling in which it began."
"A most welcome novelty is the Chorus of Angels, composed by Liszt in 1849 for the celebration of the hundredth birthday of Goethe," said Mr. Finck. "It is a setting of some of the most mystical lines in Faust, originally written for mixed voices and pianoforte, and subsequently arranged for women's voices and harp. Mr. Damrosch used Zoellner's arrangement for choir and orchestra, and in this version it proved to be one of the most ethereal and fascinating of Liszt's creations.
"Now that Mr. Damrosch has begun to explore the stores of Liszt's choral music he will doubtless bring to light many more of these hidden treasures. In doing so he will simply follow in the footsteps of his father, who was one of Liszt's dearest friends, and who steadily preached his gospel in New York. Of this good work an interesting illustration is given in the eighth volume of Liszt's letters, issued a few weeks ago by Breitkopf & Härtel. On December 27, 1876, Liszt wrote to Leopold Damrosch:
"'ESTEEMED FRIEND: A few days ago I sent you the score of my Triomphe funèbre du Tasse. This funeral ode came into my mind on the street of Tasso's Lament and Triumph, in which I often walk on the way to my residence on the Monte Mario. The enclosed commentary on it--based on the Tasso biography of Pier Antonio Serassi--I beg you to print on your concert programme in a good English translation.
"'I trust that this work may be received in New York with the same favor that has been accorded to some of my other compositions. Amid the incessant European fault-finding, the American kindness gives me some consolation. Once more, I thank my esteemed friend Damrosch for his admirable interpretations of my works, and remain his cordially devoted
"'FRANZ LISZT.'"
THE RAKOCZY MARCH
When Prince Franz Rakoczy II (1676-1735), with his young wife, the Princess Amalie Caroline of Hesse, made his state entry into his capital of Eperjes, his favourite musician, the court violinist Michael Barna, composed a march in honour of the illustrious pair and performed it with his orchestra. This march had originally a festive character, but was revised by Barna. He had heard that his noble patron, after having made peace with the Emperor Leopold I in 1711, was, in spite of the general amnesty, again planning a national rising against the Austrian house. Barna flung himself at the prince's feet and with tears in his eyes, cried "O gracious Prince, you abandon happiness to chase nothing!" To touch his master's heart he took his violin and played the revised melody with which he had welcomed the prince, then happy and in the zenith of his power. Rakoczy died in Turkey, where he, with some faithful followers, among them the gipsy chief Barna, lived in exile.
This Rakoczy March, full of passion, temperament, sorrow, and pain, soon became popular among the music loving gipsies as well as among the Hungarian people. The first copy of the Rakoczy March came from Carl Vaczek, of Jaszo, in Hungary, who died in 1828, aged ninety-three. Vaczek was a prominent dilettante in music, who had often appeared as flautist before the Vienna Court, and enjoyed the reputation of a great musical scholar. Vaczek heard the Rakoczy March from a granddaughter of Michael Barna, a gipsy girl of the name of Panna Czinka, who was famous in her time for her beauty and her noble violin playing throughout all Hungary. Vaczek wrote down the composition and handed the manuscript to the violinist Ruzsitska. He used the Rakoczy Lied as the basis of a greater work by extending the original melody by a march and a "battle music." All three parts formed a united whole.
The original melody composed by Michael Barna remained, however, the one preferred by the Hungarian people. In the Berlioz transcription the composition of Ruzsitska was partially employed. Berlioz worked together the original melody; that is, the Rakoczy Lied proper, and the battle music of Ruzsitska and placed them in his Damnation de Faust.
The Rakoczy March owes its greatest publicity to the above named Panna Czinka. The gipsy girl's great talent as a violinist was recognised by her patron, Joann von Lanyi, who had her educated in the Upper Hungarian city of Rozsnyo, where as a pupil of a German kapellmeister she received adequate musical instruction. When she was fifteen she married a gipsy, who was favourably known as the player of the viola de gamba in Hungary. With her husband and his two brothers, who also were good musicians, she travelled through all Hungary and attracted great attention, especially by the Rakoczy March. Later her orchestra, over which she presided till her death, consisted only of her sons. Her favourite instrument, a noble Amati, which had been presented to her by the Archbishop of Czaky, was, in compliance with her wishes expressed in life, buried with her.
The Rakoczy March has meanwhile undergone countless revisions, of which the most important is beyond doubt that of Berlioz.
Berlioz composed this march while in Hungary, and had it performed there. Its first performance at Pesth led to a scene of excitement which is one of the best-remembered incidents in Berlioz's life. In consequence of its success, Berlioz was asked to leave the original score in Pesth, which he did; requesting, however, to be furnished with a copy without the Coda, as he intended to rewrite that section. The new Coda is the one always played now, the old one having indeed disappeared.
Liszt's arrangement of the same march, it may be remembered, led to a debate in the Hungarian Diet, in which M. Tisza spoke of the march as the work of Franz Rakoczy II. He was wrong; and so was Berlioz mistaken in saying that it is by an unknown composer. Its real author, according to a statement quoted by Liszt's biographer, Miss Ramann, was a military band master named Scholl. Liszt had really made his transcription in 1840, but refrained, out of respect for Berlioz, from publishing it till 1870.
VI
MIRRORED BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES
VON LENZ
The Russian councillor and the author of the well-known work, Beethoven et Ses Trois Styles, has contributed quite a small library of articles on Liszt, but as it is impossible to quote all of them, we select the following, which refers more particularly to his own intimacy and first acquaintance with the great musician:
"In 1828 I had come to Paris, at the age of nineteen, to continue my studies there, and, moreover, as before, to take lessons on the piano; now, however, with Kalkbrenner. Kalkbrenner was a man of Hebrew extraction, born in Berlin; and in Paris under Charles X he was the Joconde of the drawing-room piano. Kalkbrenner was a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and the fair Camille Mock, afterward Madame Pleyel, who was not indifferent to Chopin or Liszt, was the favourite pupil of the irresistible Kalkbrenner. I heard her, between Kalkbrenner and Onslow, play in the sextuor of the last named composer at the house of Baron Trémont, a tame musical Mæcenas of that day in Paris. She played the piano as a pretty Parisian wears an elegant shoe. Nevertheless I was in danger of becoming Kalkbrenner's pupil, but my stars and Liszt willed it otherwise. Already on the way to Kalkbrenner (who plays a note of his now?), I came to the boulevards, and read on the theatre bills of the day, which had much attraction for me, the announcement of an extra concert to be given by Liszt at the Conservatoire (it was in November), with the piano concerto of Beethoven, in E flat, at the head. At that time Beethoven was, and not in Paris only, a Paracelsus in the concert room. I only knew this much of him, that I had been very much afraid of the very black-looking notes in his D-major trio and choral fantasia, which I had once and again looked over in a music shop of my native town, Riga, in which there was much more done in business than in music.
"If any one had told me as I stood there innocently, and learned from the factotum that there were such things as piano concertos by Beethoven, that I should ever write six volumes in German and two in French on Beethoven! I had heard of a septet, but the musician who wrote that was called J. N. Hummel.
"From the bill on the boulevards I concluded, however, that anyone who could play a concerto of Beethoven in public must be a very wonderful fellow, and of quite a different breed from Kalkbrenner, the composer of the fantasia, Effusio Musica. That this Effusio was mere rubbish I already understood, young and heedless though I was.
"In this way, on the then faithful boulevards of Paris, I met for the first time in my life the name of Liszt, which was to fill the world. This bill of the concert was destined to exert an important influence on my life. I can still see, after so many years, the colours of the important paper--thick monster letters on a yellow ground--the fashionable colour at the time in Paris. I went straight to Schlesinger's, then the musical exchange of Paris, Rue Richelieu.
"'Where does Mr. Liszt live?' I asked, and pronounced it Litz, for the Parisians have never got any further with the name of Liszt than Litz.
"The address of Liszt was Rue Montholon; they gave it me at Schlesinger's without hesitation. But when I asked the price of _Litz_, and expressed my wish to take lessons from him, they all laughed at me, and the shopmen behind the counters tittered, and all said at once, 'He never gives a lesson; he is no professor of the piano!'
"I felt that I must have asked something very foolish. But the answer, no professor of the piano, pleased me nevertheless, and I went straightway to the Rue Montholon.
"Liszt was at home. That was a great rarity, said his mother, an excellent woman with a true German heart, who pleased me very much; her Franz was almost always in church, and no longer occupied himself with music at all. Those were the days when Liszt wished to become a Saint-Simonist. It was a great time, and Paris the centre of the world. There lived Rossini and Cherubini, also Auber, Halévy, Berlioz and the great violinist, Baillot; the poet, Victor Hugo, had lately published his Orientales, and Lamartine was recovering from the exertion of his Méditations Poétiques. Georges Sand was not yet fairly discovered; Chopin not yet in Paris. Marie Taglioni danced tragedies at the Grand Opéra; Habeneck, a German conductor, directed the picked orchestra of the Conservatoire, where the Parisians, a year after Beethoven's death, for the first time heard something of him. Malibran and Sontag sang at the Italian Opéra the Tournament duet in Tancredi. It was in the winter of 1828-9 Baillot played quartets; Rossini gave his Guillaume Tell in the spring.
"In Liszt I found a thin, pale-looking young man, with infinitively attractive features. He was lounging, deep in thought, lost in himself on a broad sofa, and smoking a long Turkish pipe, with three pianos standing around him. He made not the slightest movement on my entrance, but rather appeared not to notice me at all. When I explained to him that my family had directed me to Kalkbrenner, but I came to him because he wished to play a concerto by Beethoven in public, he seemed to smile. But it was only as the glitter of a dagger in the sun.
"'Play me something,' he said, with indescribable satire, which, however, had nothing to wound in it, just as no harm is done by summer lightning.
"'I play the sonata for the left hand (pour la main gauche principale), by Kalkbrenner,' I said, and thought I had said something correct.
"'That I will not hear; I don't know it, and don't wish to,' he answered, with increased satire and suppressed scorn.
"I felt that I was playing a pitiful part--doing penance, perhaps, for others, for Parisians; but I said to myself, the more I looked at this young man, that this Parisian (for such he seemed to be by his whole appearance) must be a genius, and I would not without further skirmishes be beaten off the field. I went with modest but firm step to the piano standing nearest to me.
"'Not that one,' cried Liszt, without in the least changing his half reclining position on the sofa; 'there, to that other one.'
"I stepped to the second piano. At that time I was absorbed in the 'Aufforderung zum Tanz'; I had married it for love two years before, and we were still in our honeymoon. I came from Riga, where, after the unexampled success of the 'Freischütz,' we had reached the piano compositions of Weber, which did not happen till long after in Paris, where the Freischütz was called Robin des Bois(!). I learnt from good masters. When I tried to play the first three A-flats of the Aufforderung, the instrument gave no sound. What was the matter? I played forcibly, and the notes sounded quite piano. I seemed to myself quite laughable, but without taking any notice I went bravely on to the first entry of the chords; then Liszt rose, stepped up to me, took my right hand without more ado off the instrument, and asked:
"'What is that? That begins well!'
"'I should think so,' I said; 'that is by Weber.'
"'Has he written for the piano, too?' he asked with astonishment. 'We only know here the Robin des Bois.'
"'Certainly he has written for the piano, and more finely than any one!' was my equally astonished answer. 'I have in my trunk,' I added, 'two polonaises, two rondos, four sets of variations, four solo sonatas, one which I learned with Wehrstaedt, in Geneva, which contains the whole of Switzerland, and is incredibly beautiful; there all the fair women smile at once. It is in A flat. You can have no idea how beautiful it is! Nobody has written so for the piano, you may believe me.'
"I spoke from my heart, and with such conviction that I made a visible impression on Liszt. He answered in a winning tone: 'Now, pray bring me all that out of your trunk and I will give you lessons for the first time in my life, because you have introduced me to Weber on the piano, and also were not frightened at this heavy instrument. I ordered it on purpose, so as to have played ten scales when I had played one. It is an altogether impracticable piano. It was a sorry joke of mine. But why did you talk about Kalkbrenner, and a sonata by him for the left hand? But now play me that thing of yours that begins so seriously. There, that is one of the finest instruments in Paris--there, where you were going to sit down first.'
"Now I played with all my heart the 'Aufforderung,' but only the melody marked wiegend, in two parts. Liszt was charmed with the composition. 'Now bring that,' he said; 'I must have a turn at that!'
"At our first lesson Liszt could not tear himself away from the piece. He repeated single parts again and again, sought increased effects, gave the second part of the minor in octaves and was inexhaustible in praise of Weber. With Weber's sonata in A flat Liszt was perfectly delighted. I had studied it in much love with Wehrstaedt at Geneva, and gave it throughout in the spirit of the thing. This Liszt testified by the way in which he listened, by lively gestures and movements, by exclamations about the beauty of the composition, so that we worked at it with both our heads! This great romantic poem for the piano begins, as is well known, with a tremolo of the bass on A flat. Never had a sonata opened in such a manner! It is as sunshine over the enchanted grove in which the action takes place. The restlessness of my master became so great over the first part of this allegro that even before its close he pushed me aside with the words, 'Wait! wait! What is that? I must go at that myself!' Such an experience one had never met with. Imagine a genius like Liszt, twenty years old, for the first time in the presence of such a master composition of Weber, before the apparition of this knight in golden armour!
"He tried his first part over and over again with the most various intentions. At the passage in the dominant (E flat) at the close of the first part (a passage, properly speaking, the sonata has not; one might call it a charming clarinet phrase interwoven with the idea) Liszt said, 'It is marked legato. Now, would not one do it better _pp._ and staccato? Yet there is a leggieramente as well." He experimented in all directions. In this way it was given me to observe how one genius looks upon another and appreciates him for himself.
"'Now what is the second part of the first allegro like?' asked Liszt, and looked at it. It seemed to me simply impossible that any one could read at sight this thematic development, with octaves piled one on another for whole pages.
"'This is very difficult,' said Liszt, 'yet harder still is the coda,' and the combining of the whole in this close, here at this centrifugal figure (thirteenth bar before the end). The passage (in the second part, naturally in the original key of A flat), moreover, we must not play staccato; that would be somewhat affected; but we must also not play it legato; it is too thin for that. We'll do it spiccato; let us swim between the two waters.'
"If I had wondered at the fire and life, the pervading passion in the delivery of the first part by Liszt, I was absolutely astonished in the second part at his triumphant repose and certainty, and the self-control with which he reserved all his force for the last attack. 'So young, and so wise!' I said to myself, and was bewildered, absorbed, discouraged.
"In the andante of the sonata I learned in the first four bars more from Liszt than in years from my former good teachers. 'You must give out this opening just as Baillot plays a quartet; the accompanying parts consist of the detached semiquavers, but Baillot's parts are very good, and yours must not be worse. You have a good hand, and can learn it. Try it, it is not easy; one might move stones with it. I can just imagine how the hussars of the piano tear it to pieces! I shall never forget that it is through you I have learned to know the sonata. Now you shall learn something from me; I will tell you all I know about our instrument.'
"The demi-semiquaver figure in the bass (at the thirty-fifth bar of this andante) is heard only too often given out as a 'passage' for the left hand; the figure should be delivered caressingly--it should be an amorous violoncello solo. In this manner Liszt played it, but gave out in fearful majesty the outbursts of octaves on the second subject in C major, that Henselt calls the 'Ten Commandments'--an excellent designation. And now, as for menuetto capriccioso and rondo of the sonata. How shall I describe what Liszt made of these genial movements on a first acquaintance? How he treated the clarinet solo in the trio of the menuetto, and the winding of the rondo? How Liszt glorified Weber on the piano; how like an Alexander he marched in triumphant procession with Weber (especially in the 'Concertstück') through Europe, the world knows, and future times will speak of it."
BERLIOZ
In the preface to Berlioz's published Correspondence, is the following account of Liszt's evenings with the great French composer and his first wife:
"The first years of their married life were full of both hardship and charm. The new establishment, the revenues of which amounted, to begin with, to a lump sum of 300 francs, was migratory--at one time in the Rue Neuve Saint-Marc, at another at Montmartre, and then in a certain Rue Saint-Denis of which it is impossible now to find trace. Liszt lived in the Rue de Province, and paid frequent visits to the young couple; they spent many evenings together, when the great pianist would play Beethoven's sonatas in the dark, in order to produce a greater impression. In his turn, Berlioz took up the cudgels for his friend in the newspapers to which he was accustomed to contribute--the _Correspondent_, the _Revue Européenne_ and, lastly, the _Débats_. How angry he became when the volatile Parisians attempted to espouse the cause of Thalberg against his rival! A lion showing his teeth could not have appeared more formidable. Death to him who dared to say Liszt was not the first pianist of all time, past, present, and to come! And when the critic enunciated any musical axiom as being beyond discussion, he really thought it so, for he never went against his own convictions, and bore himself in regard to mediocrities with a contempt savouring of rudeness. Liszt after all gave him back measure for measure, transcribing the Symphonie Fantastique, and playing at the numerous concerts which the young maestro gave during the winter with ever increasing success."
In 1830, after many repeated failures Berlioz won the much coveted "Prix de Rome" at the Paris Conservatoire, which entitled him to reside three years in Italy at the expense of the French Government. Before he started for the musical land of promise, Berlioz gave two concerts, and relates in his Memoirs the circumstances under which he first became acquainted with Liszt:
"On the day before the concert I received a visit from Liszt, whom I had never yet seen. I spoke to him of Goethe's Faust, which he was obliged to confess he had not read, but about which he soon became as enthusiastic as myself. We were strongly attracted to one another, and our friendship has increased in warmth and depth ever since. He was present at the concert, and excited general attention by his applause and enthusiasm."
When Berlioz gave his first concert in Paris, after his return from Italy, he wrote:
"Weber's Concertstück, played by Liszt with the overpowering vehemence which he always puts into it, obtained a splendid success. Indeed I so far forgot myself, in my enthusiasm for Liszt, as publicly to embrace him on the stage--a stupid impropriety which might have covered us both with ridicule had the spectators been disposed to laugh."
Liszt's and Berlioz's intimacy was renewed at Prague, as will be seen from the composer's account:
"I gave six concerts at Prague, either in the theatre or in Sophie's concert room. At the latter I remember to have had the delight of performing my symphony of Romeo and Juliet for Liszt for the first time. Several movements of the work were already known in Prague....
"That day, having already encored several pieces, the public called for another, which the band implored me not to repeat; but as the shouts continued Mr. Mildner took out his watch, and held it up to show that the hour was too far advanced to allow of the orchestra remaining till the end of the concert if the piece was played a second time, since there was an opera at 7 o'clock. This clever pantomime saved us. At the end of the séance, just as I was begging Liszt to serve as my interpreter, and thank the excellent singers, who had been devoting themselves to the careful study of my choruses for the last three weeks and had sung them so bravely, he was interrupted by them with an inverse proposal. Having exchanged a few words with them in German, he turned to me and said: 'My commission is changed; these gentlemen rather desire me to thank you for the pleasure you have given them in allowing them to perform your work, and to express their delight at your evident satisfaction.'"
At a banquet in honour of Berlioz the composer says:
"Liszt was unanimously chosen to make the presentation speech instead of the chairman, who had not sufficient acquaintance with the French language. At the first toast he made me, in the name of the assembly, an address at least a quarter of an hour long, with a warmth of spirit, an abundance of ideas and a choice of expressions, which excited the envy of the orators present, and by which I was profoundly touched. Unhappily, if he spoke well, he also drank well--the treacherous cup inaugurated by the convives held such floods of champagne that all Liszt's eloquence made shipwreck in it. Belloni and I were still in the streets of Prague at 2 o'clock in the morning persuading him to wait for daylight before exchanging shots at two paces with a Bohemian who had drunk better than himself. When day came we were not without anxiety about Liszt, whose concert was to take place at noon. At half-past eleven he was still sleeping; at last some one awoke him; he jumped into a cab, reached the hall, was received with three rounds of applause and played as I believe he has never played in his life before."
Berlioz, in his À Travers Chants, relates the following incident:
"One day Liszt was playing the adagio of Beethoven's sonata in C-sharp minor before a little circle of friends, of which I formed part, and followed the manner he had then adopted to gain the applause of the fashionable world. Instead of those long sustained notes, and instead of strict uniformity of rhythm, he overlaid it with trills and the tremolo. I suffered cruelly, I must confess--more than I have ever suffered in hearing our wretched cantatrices embroider the grand air in the 'Freischütz'; for to this torture was added my distress at seeing an artist of his stamp falling into the snare which, as a rule, only besets mediocrities. But what was to be done? Liszt was then like a child, who when he stumbles, likes to have no notice taken, but picks himself up without a word and cries if anybody holds him out a hand. He had picked himself up splendidly. A few years afterward one of those men of heart and soul that artists are always happy to come across (Mr. Legouvé), had invited a small party of friends--I was one of them.
"Liszt came during the evening, and finding the conversation engaged on the valuable piece by Weber, and why when he played it at a recent concert he had received a rather sorry reception, he went to the piano to reply in this manner to Weber's antagonists. The argument was unanswerable, and we were obliged to acknowledge that a work of genius was misunderstood. As he was about to finish, the lamp which lighted the apartment appeared very soon to go out; one of us was going to relight it: 'Leave it alone,' I said to him; 'if he will play the adagio of Beethoven's sonata in C-sharp minor this twilight will not spoil it.'
"'Willingly,' said Liszt; 'but put the lights out altogether; cover the fire that the obscurity may be more complete.' Then, in the midst of darkness, after a moment's pause, rose in its sublime simplicity the noble elegy he had once so strangely disfigured; not a note, not an accent was added to the notes and the accents of the author. It was the shade of Beethoven, conjured up by the virtuoso to whose voice we were listening. We all trembled in silence, and when the last chord had sounded no one spoke--we were in tears."
Berlioz in a letter to Liszt wrote as follows to the pianist on his playing:
"On my return from Heckingen I stayed some days longer at Stuttgart, a prey to new perplexities. You, my dear Liszt, know nothing of these uncertainties; it matters little to you whether the town to which you go has a good orchestra, whether the theatre be open or the manager place it at your disposal, etc. Of what use indeed would such information be to you? With a slight modification of the famous mot of Louis XIV you may say with confidence, I myself am orchestra, chorus, and conductor. I make my piano dream or sing at pleasure, re-echo with exulting harmonies and rival the most skilful bow in swiftness. Neither theatre, nor long rehearsals, for I want neither musicians nor music.
"Give me a large room and a grand piano, and I am at once master of a great audience. I have but to appear before it to be overwhelmed with applause. My memory awakens, my fingers give birth to dazzling fantasias, which call forth enthusiastic acclamations. I have but to play Schubert's Ave Maria or Beethoven's Adelaïde to draw every heart to myself, and make each one hold his breath. The silence speaks; admiration is intense and profound. Then come the fiery shells, a veritable bouquet of grand fireworks, the acclamations of the public, flowers and wreaths showered upon the priest of harmony as he sits quivering on his tripod, beautiful young women kissing the hem of his garment with tears of sacred frenzy; the sincere homage of the serious, the feverish applause forced from the envious, the intent faces, the narrow hearts amazed at their own expansiveness. And perhaps next day the inspired young genius departs, leaving behind him a trail of dazzling glory and enthusiasm. It is a dream! It is one of those golden dreams inspired by the name of Liszt or Paganini. But the composer who, like myself, must travel to make his work known, has, on the contrary, to nerve himself to a task which is never ending, still beginning, and always unpleasant."
The well-known dramatist, Scribe, once wrote a libretto for Berlioz, but in consequence of some difficulty with the director of the Paris Grand Opéra he demanded the return of the work, and handed it over to Gounod, who subsequently wrote the music. Berlioz devotes some space to these proceedings in his Memoirs, and in the course of his remarks says:
"When I saw Scribe, on my return to Paris, he seemed slightly confused at having accepted my offer, and taken back my poem. 'But, as you know,' said he, 'Il faut que le prêtre vive de l'autêl.' Poor fellow! he could not, in fact, have waited; he has only some 200,000 or 300,000 per annum, a house in town, three country houses etc. Liszt made a capital pun when I repeated Scribe's speech to him. 'Yes,' said he, 'by his hotel'--comparing Scribe to an innkeeper."
D'ORTIGUE
D'Ortigue, who is better known as a theorist than a composer and musical critic, was a great admirer of Liszt, as may be seen by the following extract from his writings:
"Beethoven is for Liszt a god, before whom he bows his head. He considered him as a deliverer whose arrival in the musical realm has been illustrated through the liberty of poetical thought, and through the abolishing of old dominating habits. Oh, one must be present when he begins with one of those melodies, one of those posies which have long been called symphonies! One must see his eyes when he opens them as if receiving an inspiration from above, and when he fixes them gloomily on the ground. One must see him, hear him, and be silent.
"We feel here only too well how weak is the expression of our imagination. He conquers everything but his nerves; his head, hands and whole body are in violent motion; in one word, you see a dreadfully nervous man agitatedly playing his piano!"
BLAZE DE BURY
Baron Blaze de Bury, in a musical feuilleton contributed to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, no doubt more in fun than ill feeling, wrote as follows on Liszt and his Hungarian sword:
"We must have dancers, songstresses, and pianists. We have enthusiasm and gold for their tour de force. We abandon Petrarch in the streets to bring Essler to the Capitol; we suffer Beethoven and Weber to die of hunger, to give a sword of honor to Mr. Liszt."
Liszt was furious when this met his eye, and wrote immediately a long letter to the editor of the _Revue_, of which the following is the essential passage:
"The sword which has been given to me at Pesth is a reward awarded by a nation under a national form. In Hungary--in this country of ancient and chivalrous manners--the sword has a patriotic significance. It is the sign of manhood par excellence; it is the arm of all men who have the right to carry arms. While six out of the most remarkable men of my country presented it to me, with the unanimous acclamations of my compatriots, it was to acknowledge me again as a Hungarian after an absence of fifteen years."
OSCAR COMMETTANT
Oscar Commettant, in one of his works, gives the following satirical sketch of Liszt in the height of his popularity in the Parisian concert rooms:
"A certain great pianist, who is as clever a manager as he is an admirable executant, pays women at a rate of 25 frs. per concert to pretend to faint away with pleasure in the middle of a fantasia taken at such a rapid pace that it would have been humanly impossible to finish it. The pianist abruptly left his instrument to rush to the assistance of the poor fainting lady, while everybody in the room believed that, but for that accident, the prodigious pianist would have completed the greatest of miracles. It happened one night that a woman paid to faint forgot her cue and fell fast asleep. The pianist was performing Weber's Concertstück. Reckoning on the fainting of this female to interrupt the finale of the piece, he took it in an impossible time. What could he do in such a perplexing cause? Stumble and trip like a vulgar pianist, or pretend to be stopped by a defective memory? No; he simply played the part which the faintress (excuse the word) ought to have acted, and fainted away himself. People crowded around the pianist, who had become doubly phenomenal through his electric execution, and his frail and susceptible organization. They carried him out into the greenroom. The men applauded as if they meant to bring down the ceiling; the women waved their handkerchiefs to manifest their enthusiasm, and the faintress, on waking, fainted, perhaps really, with despair of not having pretended to faint."
LEON ESCUDIER
The once celebrated musical publisher and director of the Parisian Italian Opera season gives the following description of Danton's statuette of Liszt, which was exhibited in the Paris salon half a century ago:
"The pianist is seated before a piano, which he is about to destroy under him. His fingers multiply at the ends of his hands; I should think so--Danton made him ten at each hand. His hair like a willow floats over his shoulders. One would say that he is whistling. Now for the account. Liszt saw the statue, and made a grimace. He found that the sculptor had exaggerated the length of his hair. It was a criticism really pulled by the hair. Danton knew it.
"But after Liszt had gone he went again to work and made immediately a second statuette. In this, one only sees a head of hair (the pianist is seen from the back) always seated before the piano. The head of hair, which makes one think of a man hidden behind, plays the piano absolutely like the first model. All the rest is the same."
Leon Escudier also relates an incident at one of Henri Herz's concerts:
"A piece for four pianos was to be played. Herz knew how to choose his competitors. The three other pianists were Thalberg, Liszt, and Moscheles. The room was crowded, as may be imagined. The audience was calm at first; but not without slight manifestations of impatience quite natural under the circumstances. They did not consider the regrettable habit that Liszt had, at this epoch, to make people wait for him. Punctuality, however, is the politeness of kings, and Liszt was a king of the piano. Briefly, the pianists gave up waiting for Liszt; but this resolution was not taken without a little confusion in the artists' room. The musical parts were changed at the piano, and they were going to play a trio instead of a quatour, when Liszt appeared. It was time! They were about to commence without him. While the four virtuosi seated themselves they perceived that the musical parts were not the same which belonged to them. In the confusion which preceded their installation the parts got mixed, and No. 1 had before his eyes the part of No. 3; the No. 2 had No. 1, and so on. What was to be done?--rise and rearrange the parts! The public was already disappointed by the prolonged waiting that they had experienced. They murmured. The four virtuosi looked at each other sternly, not daring to rise, when Herz took a heroic resolution, exclaiming: 'Courage! Allons toujours!' And he gave the signal in passing his fingers over the keyboard. The others played, and the four great pianists improvised each the part of the other. The public did not notice the change, and finished by applauding loudly."
MOSENTHAL
Anton Rubinstein's librettist, in some reminiscences of his collaborateur says:
"It must have been in 1840 that I saw Rubinstein for the first time, when scarcely ten years old; he had travelled in Paris with his teacher, and plucked his first laurels with his childish hands. It was then that Franz Liszt, hearing the boy play, and becoming acquainted with his first compositions, with noble enthusiasm proclaimed him the sole inheritor of his fame. The prediction has been fulfilled; already in the fulness of his activity, Liszt recognised in Rubinstein a rival on equal footing with himself, and since he has ceased to appear before the public he has greeted Rubinstein as the sole ruler in the realm of pianists. When Rubinstein was director of the Musical Society in Vienna, 1876, and the élite of the friends of art gathered every week in his hospitable house, I once had the rare pleasure of hearing him and Liszt play, not only successively during the same evening, but also together on the piano. The question, which of the two surpassed the other, recalled the old problem whether Goethe or Schiller is the greatest German poet. But when they both sat down to play a new concerto by Rubinstein, which Liszt, with incredible intuition, read at sight, it was really as good as a play to watch the gray-haired master, as, smiling good-naturedly, he followed his young artist, and allowed himself, as if on purpose, to be surpassed in fervor and enthusiastic powers."
MOSCHELES
There are several allusions to Liszt in Moscheles' Diary. Liszt visited London in 1840, and Moscheles records:
"At one of the Philharmonic Concerts he played three of my studies quite admirably. Faultless in the way of execution, by his talent he has completely metamorphosed these pieces; they have become more his studies than mine. With all that they please me, and I shouldn't like to hear them played in any other way by him. The Paganini studies too were uncommonly interesting to me. He does anything he chooses, and does it admirably; and those hands raised aloft in the air come down but seldom, wonderfully seldom, upon a wrong note. 'His conversation is always brilliant,' adds Mrs. Moscheles. 'It is occasionally dashed with satire or spiced with humour. The other day he brought me his portrait, with his hommages respectueux written underneath; and what was the best "hommage" of all he sat down to the piano, and played me the Erl King, the Ave Maria and a charming Hungarian piece.'"
Liszt was again in London in 1841, and Moscheles records that at the Philharmonic Society's concert, on July 14:
"The attention of the audience was entirely centred upon Liszt. When he came forward to play in Hummel's septet one was prepared to be staggered, but only heard the well-known piece which he plays with the most perfect execution, storming occasionally like a Titan, but still in the main free from extravagance; for the distinguishing mark of Liszt's mind and genius is that he knows perfectly the capability of the audience and the style of music he brings before them, and uses his powers, which are equal to everything, merely as a means of eliciting the most varied kinds of effects."
Mrs. Moscheles, in some supplementary notes to her husband's Diary, says:
"Liszt and Moscheles were heard several times together in the Preciosa variations, on which Moscheles remarks: 'It seemed to me that we were sitting together on Pegasus.' When Moscheles showed him his F-sharp and D-minor studies, which he had written for Michetti's Beethoven Album, Liszt, in spite of their intricacies and difficulties, played them admirably at sight. He was a constant visitor at Moscheles' house, often dropping in unexpectedly; and many an evening was spent under the double fascination of his splendid playing and brilliant conversation. The other day he told us: 'I have played a duet with Cramer; I was the poisoned mushroom, and I had at my side my antidote of milk.'"
Moscheles attended the Beethoven Festival at Bonn, in 1845, and on August 10 recorded in his Diary:
"I am at the Hôtel de l'Étoile d'Or, where are to be found all the crowned heads of music--brown, gray or bald. This is a rendezvous for all ladies, old and young, fanatics for music, all art judges, German and French reviewers and English reporters; lastly, the abode of Liszt, the absolute monarch, by virtue of his princely gifts, outshining all else.... I have already seen and spoken to colleagues from all the four quarters of the globe; I was also with Liszt, who had his hands full of business, and was surrounded with secretaries and masters of ceremonies, while Chorley sat quietly ensconced in the corner of a sofa. Liszt too kissed me; then a few hurried and confused words passed between us, and I did not see him again until I met him afterwards in the concert room."
On August 12, Moscheles records:
"I was deeply moved when I saw the statue of Beethoven unveiled, the more so because Hähnel has obtained an admirable likeness of the immortal composer. Another tumult and uproar at the table d'hôte in the 'Stern' Hotel. I sat near Bachez, Fischof and Vesque, Liszt in all his glory, a suite of ladies and gentlemen in attendance on him, Lola Montez among the former."
At the banquet after the unveiling of Beethoven's statue at Bonn, Moscheles records:
"Immediately after the king's health had been proposed, Wolff, the improvisatore, gave a toast which he called the 'Trefoil.' It was to represent the perfect chord--Spohr the key-note, Liszt the connecting link between all parties, the third, Professor Breidenstein, the dominant leading all things to a happy solution. (Universal applause.) Spohr proposes the health of the Queen of England, Dr. Wolff that of Professor Hähnel, the sculptor of the monument, and also that of the brass founder. Liszt proposes Prince Albert; a professor with a stentorian voice is laughed and coughed down--people will not listen to him; and then ensued a series of most disgraceful scenes which originated thus: Liszt spoke rather abstrusely upon the subject of the festival. 'Here all nations are met to pay honour to the master. May they live and prosper--the Dutch, the English, the Viennese--who have made a pilgrimage hither!' Upon this Chelard gets up in a passion, and screams out to Liszt, 'Vous avez oublié les Français.'
"Many voices break in, a regular tumult ensues, some for, some against the speaker. At last Liszt makes himself heard, but in trying to exculpate himself seems to get entangled deeper and deeper in a labyrinth of words, seeking to convince his hearers that he had lived fifteen years among Frenchmen, and would certainly not intentionally speak slightingly of them. The contending parties, however, become more uproarious, many leave their seats, the din becomes deafening and the ladies pale with fright. The fête is interrupted for a full hour, Dr. Wolff, mounting a table, tries to speak, but is hooted down three or four times, and at last quits the room, glad to escape the babel of tongues. Knots of people are seen disputing in every part of the great salon, and, the confusion increasing, the cause of dispute is lost sight of. The French and English journalists mingle in this fray, by complaining of omissions of all sorts on the part of the festival committee. When the tumult threatens to become serious the landlord hits upon the bright idea of making the band play its loudest, and this drowns the noise of the brawlers, who adjourned to the open air.
"The waiters once more resumed their services, although many of the guests, especially ladies, had vanished. The contending groups outside showed their bad taste and ridiculous selfishness, for Vivier and some Frenchmen got Liszt among them, and reproached him in a most shameful way. G. ran from party to party, adding fuel to the fire; Chorley was attacked by a French journalist; M. J. J. (Jules Janin) would have it that the English gentleman, Wentworth Dilke, was a German who had slighted him; I stepped in between the two, so as at least to put an end to this unfair controversy. I tried as well as I could to soothe these overwrought minds, and pronounced funeral orations over those who had perished in this tempest of words. I alone remained shot proof and neutral, so also did my Viennese friends. By 6 o'clock in the evening I became almost deaf from the noise, and was glad to escape."
DWIGHT
John S. Dwight, the Boston musical critic, in an article on Dr. von Bülow, written while travelling in Germany with a friend, relates the following interview with Liszt:
"It was in Berlin, in the winter of 1861, that we had the privilege of meeting and hearing Bülow. We were enjoying our first and only interview with Liszt, who had come for a day or two to the old Hôtel de Brandebourg, where we were living that winter. On the sofa sat his daughter, Mrs. von Bülow, bearing his unmistakable impress upon her features; the welcome was cordial, and the conversation on the part of both of them was lively and most interesting; chiefly of course it was about music, artists, etc., and nothing delighted us more than the hearty appreciation which Liszt expressed of Robert Franz, then, strange as it may seem, but very little recognised in Germany. Of some other composers he seemed inclined to speak ironically and even bitterly, as if smarting under some disappointment--perhaps at the unreceptive mood of the Berliners toward his own symphonic poems, to whose glories Bülow had been labouring to convert them.
"Before we had a chance to hint of one hope long deferred, that of hearing Liszt play, he asked, 'Have you heard Bülow?' alluding to him more than once as the pianist to be heard--his representative and heir, on whom his mantle had verily fallen. Thinking it possible that there was some new grand composition by some one of his young disciples to be brought out, and that he had come to Berlin to stand godfather, as it were, to that, we modestly ventured to inquire. He smilingly replied, 'No; I am here literally as godfather, having come to the christening of my grandchild.' Presently the conversation was interrupted by a rap at the door, and in came with lively step a little man, who threw open the furs in which he was buried, Berlin fashion, and approached the presence, bowed his head to the paternal laying on of hands, and we were introduced to Von Bülow."
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The author of the charming fairy tales, which are still admired by young as well as old people, in his usual graceful style, gives a description of a Liszt concert in 1840:
"In Hamburg, at the City of London Hotel, Liszt gave a concert. In a few minutes the hall was crowded. I came too late, but I got the best place--close upon the orchestra, where the piano stood--for I was brought up by a back staircase. Liszt is one of the kings in the realm of music. My guide brought me to him, as I have said, up a back stair, and I am not ashamed to acknowledge this. The hall--even the side rooms--beamed with lights, gold chains and diamonds. Near me, on a sofa, reclined a young Jewess, stout and overdressed. She looked like a walrus with a fan. Grave Hamburg merchants stood crowded together, as if they had important business 'on 'Change' to transact. A smile rested on their lips, as though they had just sold 'paper' and won enormously. The Orpheus of mythology could move stones and trees by his playing. The new Liszt-Orpheus had actually electrified them before he played. Celebrity, with its mighty prestige, had opened the eyes and ears of the people. It seemed as if they recognised and felt already what was to follow. I myself felt in the beaming of those many flashing eyes, and that expectant throbbing of the heart, the approach of the great genius who with bold hands had fixed the limits of his art in our time. London, that great capital of machinery, or Hamburg, the trade emporium of Europe, is where one should hear Liszt for the first time; there time and place harmonise; and in Hamburg I was to hear him. An electric shock seemed to thrill the hall as Liszt entered. Most of the ladies rose. A sunbeam flashed across each face, as though every eye were seeing a dear, beloved friend. I stood quite close to the artist. He is a slight young man. Long, dark hair surrounded the pale face. He bowed and seated himself at the instrument. Liszt's whole appearance and his mobility immediately indicate one of those personalities toward which one is attracted solely by their individuality. As he sat at the piano the first impression of his individuality and the trace of strong passions upon his pale countenance made me imagine that he might be a demon banished into the instrument from which the tones streamed forth. They came from his blood; from his thoughts; he was a demon who had to free his soul by playing; he was under the torture; his blood flowed, and his nerves quivered. But as he played the demonia disappeared. I saw the pale countenance assume a nobler, more beautiful expression. The divine soul flashed from his eyes, from every feature; he grew handsome--handsome as life and inspiration can make one. His Valse Infernale is more than a daguerreotype from Meyerbeer's Robert. We do not stand before and gaze upon the well-known picture. No, we transport ourselves into the midst of it. We gaze deep into the very abyss, and discover new, whirling forms. It did not seem to be the strings of a piano that were sounding. No, every tone was like an echoing drop of water. Any one who admires the technic of art must bow before Liszt; he that is charmed with the genial, the divine gift, bows still lower. The Orpheus of our day has made tones sound through the great capital of machinery and a Copenhagener has said that 'his fingers are simply railroads and steam engines.' His genius is more powerful to bring together the great minds of the world than all the railroads on earth. The Orpheus of our day has preached music in the trade emporium of Europe, and (at least for a moment) the people believed the gospel. The spirit's gold has a truer ring than that of the world. People often use the expression 'a sea of sound' without being conscious of its significance, and such it is that streams from the piano at which Liszt sits. The instrument appears to be changed into a whole orchestra. This is accomplished by ten fingers, which possess a power of execution that might be termed superhuman. They are guided by a mighty genius. It is a sea of sound, which in its very agitation is a mirror for the life task of each burning heart. I have met politicians who, at Liszt's playing, conceived that peaceful citizens at the sound of the Marseillaise might be so carried away that they might seize their guns and rush forth from hearths and homes to fight for an idea! I have seen quiet Copenhageners, with Danish autumnal coolness in their veins, become political bacchantes at his playing. The mathematician has grown giddy at the echoing fingers and the reckoning of the sounds. Young disciples of Hegel (and among those the really gifted and not merely the light-headed, who at the mere galvanic stream of philosophy make a mental grimace) perceived in this sea of music the wave-like advances of knowledge toward the shore of perfection. The poet found the rein of his heart's whole lyric, or the rich garment of his boldest delineation. The traveller (yes, I conclude with myself) receives musical pictures of what he sees or will see. I heard his playing as it were an overture to my journey. I heard how my heart throbbed and bled on my leaving home. I heard the farewell of the waves--the waves that I should only hear again on the cliffs of Terracina. Organ tones seemed to sound from Germany's old cathedrals. The glaciers rolled from the Alpine hills, and Italy danced in carnival dresses, and struck with her wooden sword while she thought in her heart of Cæsar, Horace and Raphael. Vesuvius and Ætna burned. The trumpet of judgment resounded from the hills of Greece, where the old gods are dead. Tones that I knew not--tones for which I have no words--pointed to the East, the home of fancy, the poet's second fatherland. When Liszt had done playing the flowers rained down on him. Young, pretty girls, old ladies, who had once been pretty girls, too, threw their bouquets. He had indeed thrown a thousand bouquets into their hearts and brain.
"From Hamburg Liszt was to fly to London, there to strew new tone-bouquets, there to breathe poetry over material working day life. Happy man! who can thus travel throughout his whole life, always to see people in their spiritual Sunday dress--yea, even in the wedding garment of inspiration. Shall I often meet him? That was my last thought, and chance willed it that we meet on a journey at a spot where I and my readers would least expect it--met, became friends, and again separated. But that belongs to the last chapter of this journey. He now went to the city of Victoria--I to that of Gregory the Sixteenth."
HEINE
There are several reminiscences of Liszt to be found in the collected works of the great German author. Heine, writing in 1844 at Paris, says:
"When I some time ago heard of the marvellous excitement which broke out in Germany, and more particularly in Berlin, when Liszt showed himself there, I shrugged my shoulders and thought quiet, Sabbath-like Germany does not want to lose the opportunity of indulging in a little 'permitted' commotion; it longs to stretch its sleep-stiffened limbs, and my Philistines on the banks of the Spree are fond of tickling themselves into enthusiasm, while one declaims after the other, 'Love, ruler of gods and men!' It does not matter to them, thought I, what the row is about, so long as it is a row, whether it is called George Herwegh (the "Iron Lark"), Fanny Essler or Franz Liszt. If Herwegh be forbidden we turn to the politically 'safe' and uncompromising Liszt. So thought I, so I explained to myself the Liszt mania; and I accepted it as a sign of the want of political freedom on the other side of the Rhine. But I was in error, which I recognised for the first time at the Italian Opera House where Liszt gave his first concert, and before an assembly which is best described as the élite of society here. They were, anyhow, wide-awake Parisians: people familiar with the greatest celebrities of modern times, totally blasé and preoccupied men, who had 'done to death' all things in the world, art included; women equally 'done up' by having danced the polka the whole winter through. Truly it was no German sentimental, Berlin-emotional audience before which Liszt played--quite alone, or rather accompanied only by his genius. And yet, what an electrically powerful effect his mere appearance produced! What a storm of applause greeted him! How many bouquets were flung at his feet! It was an impressive sight to see with what imperturbable self-possession the great conqueror allowed the flowers to rain upon him and then, at last, graciously smiling, selected a red camellia and stuck it in his buttonhole. And this he did in the presence of several young soldiers just arrived from Africa, where it did not rain flowers but leaden bullets, and they were decorated with the red camellias of their own heroes' blood, without receiving any particular notice either here for it. Strange, thought I, these Parisians have seen Napoleon, who was obliged to supply them with one battle after another to retain their attention--these receive our Franz Liszt with acclamation! And what acclamation!--a positive frenzy, never before known in the annals of furore."
Heine relates the following curious conversation he had with a medical man about Liszt:
"A physician whose specialty is woman, whom I questioned as to the fascination which Liszt exercises on his public, smiled very strangely, and at the same time spoke of magnetism, galvanism, and electricity, of contagion in a sultry hall, filled with innumerable wax-lights, and some hundred perfumed and perspiring people, of histrionic epilepsy, of the phenomenon of tickling, of musical cantharides, and other unmentionable matters, which, I think, have to do with the mysteries of the bona dea; the solution of the question, however, does not lie perhaps so strangely deep, but on a very prosaic surface. I am sometimes inclined to think that the whole witchery might be explained thus--namely, that nobody in this world knows so well how to organise his successes, or rather their mise en scène, as Franz Liszt. In this art he is a genius, a Philadelphia, a Bosco, a Houdin--yea, a Meyerbeer. The most distinguished persons serve him gratis as compères, and his hired enthusiasts are drilled in an exemplary way."
This amusing anecdote about Liszt and the once famous tenor, Rubini, is also told by Heine:
"The celebrated singer had undertaken a tour with Franz Liszt, sharing expenses and profits. The great pianist took Signor Belloni about with him everywhere (the entrepreneur in general of his reputation), and to him was left the whole of the business management. When, however, all accounts had been settled up, and Signor Belloni presented his little bill, what was Rubini's horror to find that among the mutual expenses there appeared sundry considerable items for 'laurel wreaths,' 'bouquets,' 'laudatory poems,' and suchlike 'ovation expenses.'
"The naïve singer had, in his innocence, imagined that he had been granted these tokens of public favour solely on account of his lovely voice. He flew into a great rage, and swore he would not pay for the bouquets which probably contained the most expensive camellias."
That Heine could appreciate Liszt seriously, these extracts testify sufficiently:
"He (Liszt) is indisputably the artist in Paris who finds the most unlimited enthusiasm as well as the most zealous opponents. It is a characteristic sign that no one speaks of him with indifference. Without power no one in this world can excite either favourable or hostile passions. One must possess fire to excite men to hatred as well as to love. That which testifies especially for Liszt is the complete esteem with which even his enemies speak of his personal worth. He is a man of whimsical but noble character, unselfish and without deceit. Especially remarkable are his spiritual proclivities; he has great taste for speculative ideas, and he takes even more interest in the essays of the various schools which occupy themselves with the solution of the problems of heaven and earth than in his art itself. It is, however, praiseworthy, this indefatigable yearning after light and divinity; it is a proof of his taste for the holy, for the religious....
"Yes, Franz Liszt, the pianist of genius, whose playing often appears to me as the melodious agony of a spectral world, is again here, and giving concerts which exercise a charm which borders on the fabulous. By his side all piano players, with the exception of Chopin, the Raphael of the piano, are as nothing. In fact, with the exception of this last named artist alone, all the other piano players whom we hear in countless concerts are only piano players; their only merit is the dexterity with which they handle the machine of wood and wire. With Liszt, on the contrary, the people think no more about the 'difficulty overcome'; the piano disappears, the music is revealed. In this respect has Liszt, since I last heard him, made the most astonishing progress. With this advantage he combines now a reposed manner, which I failed to perceive in him formerly. If, for example, he played a storm on the piano we saw the lightning flicker about his features; his limbs fluttered as with the blast of a storm, and his long locks of hair dripped as with real showers of rain. Now when he plays the most violent storm he seems exalted above it, like the traveller who stands on the summit of an Alp while the tempest rages in the valley; the clouds lie deep below him, the lightning curls like snakes at his feet, but his head is uplifted smilingly into the pure ether."
The following remarks on Liszt, to be found in Heine's letters to his friends, are also interesting:
"That such a restless head, driven and perplexed by all the needs and doctrines of his time, feeling compelled to trouble himself about all the necessities of humanity, and eagerly sticking his nose into all the pots in which the good God brews the future--that Franz Liszt can be no quiet piano player for tranquil townfolks and good-natured night-caps is self-evident. When he sits down at the piano, and has stroked his hair back over his forehead several times, and begins to improvise, he often storms away right madly over the ivory keys, and there rings out a wilderness of heaven-height thought, amid which here and there the sweetest flowers diffuse their fragrance, so that one is at once troubled and beatified, but troubled most."
To another he writes:
"I confess to you, much as I love Liszt, his music does not operate agreeably upon my mind; the more so that I am a Sunday child, and also see the spectres which others only hear; since, as you know, at every tone which the hand strikes upon the keyboard the corresponding tone figure rises in my mind; in short, since music becomes visible to my inward eye. My brain still reels at the recollection of the concert in which I last heard Liszt play. It was in a concert for the unfortunate Italians, in the hotel of that beautiful, noble, and suffering princess, who so beautifully represents her material and her spiritual fatherland, to wit, Italy and Heaven. (You surely have seen her in Paris, that ideal form, which yet is but the prison in which the holiest angel-soul has been imprisoned; but this prison is so beautiful that every one lingers before it as if enchanted, and gazes at it with astonishment.) It was at a concert for the benefit of the unhappy Italians where I last heard Liszt, during the past winter, play, I know not what, but I could swear he varied upon themes from the Apocalypse. At first I could not quite distinctly see them, the four mystical beasts; I only heard their voices, especially the roaring of the lion and the screaming of the eagle. The ox with the book in his hand I saw clearly enough. Best of all, he played the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There were lists as at a tournament, and for spectators the risen people, pale as the grave and trembling, crowded round the immense space. First galloped Satan into the lists, in black harness, on a milk-white steed. Slowly rode behind him Death on his pale horse. At last Christ appeared, in golden armour, on a black horse, and with His holy lance He first thrust Satan to the ground, and then Death, and the spectators shouted. Tumultuous applause followed the playing of the valiant Liszt, who left his seat exhausted and bowed before the ladies. About the lips of the fairest played that melancholy smile."
Heine also relates:
"On one occasion two Hungarian countesses, to get his snuff-box, threw each other down upon the ground and fought till they were exhausted!"
CAROLINE BAUER
The lady whose revelations in her Mémoires about various royal and princely personages furnished the contributors of "Society" papers with a large amount of "copy" at the time of its publication, writes as follows concerning Liszt's intimacy with Prince Lichnowsky in 1844:
"I had heard a great deal in Ratibor of mad Prince Felix Lichnowsky, who lived at his neighbouring country seat, and who furnished an abundant daily supply for the scandal-mongers of the town. Six years before that time the prince had quitted the Prussian service, owing to his debts and other irregularities, and had gone to Spain to evade his unhappy creditors, and to offer his ward to the Pretender, Don Carlos. Three years afterward he had returned from Spain with the rank of Carlist brigadier-general, and now he lived in his hermitage, near Ratibor, by no means a pious hermit. And then, one evening, shortly before the commencement of the 'Letzter Waffengang,' when I was already dressed in my costume, the prince stood before me behind the scanty wings of the Ratibor stage, to renew his acquaintance with me. He had aged, his checkered life not having passed over him without leaving traces; but he was still the same elegant, arrogant libertine he was at Prague, of whom a journalist wrote: 'Prince Felix Lichnowsky, like Prince Pückler, belongs to those dandies, roués, lions who attract the attention of the multitude at any cost by their contempt of men, their triviality, impudence, liaisons, horses, and duels; a kind of modern Alcibiades, every dog cutting the tail of another dog.' Within the first five minutes I learned from the prince's lips: 'My friend Liszt has lately been living with me at my hermitage for several weeks, and we have led a very agreeable life together.' Yes, indeed, in Ratibor, the people related the wildest stories of this pasha life! The following forenoon the prince invited us to a déjeûner à la fourchette at his 'hermitage,' as he liked to call it. We inspected the park, which contained many fine trees; I tried the glorious 'grand' which Liszt had consecrated. But I was not to rise from the table without having had a new skirmish with my prince from Prague--preux chevalier. The conversation turned about Director Nachtigall, and suddenly Lichnowsky said roughly:
"'Just fancy, this Nachtigall had the impudence to call here and invite my friend Liszt to play upon his miserable Ratibor stage. A Liszt, and my guest, to play in Ratibor, and with a Nachtigall--unheard of! You may imagine that I gave this Nachtigall a becoming answer.'
"The bit stuck in my mouth, and, trembling with indignation, I said sharply:
"'My prince, am I not your guest, too? And do not I play in Ratibor, and with a Nachtigall? If your friend Liszt had done nothing worse here than play the piano in Ratibor he would not have degraded himself in any way.'
"'Ah! the town gossip of Ratibor has your ear, too, I see!' Lichnowsky said, with a scornful smile. 'But of course we are not going to quarrel.'"
Caroline Bauer also relates in her Mémoires the following anecdote about Liszt and the haughty Princess Metternich:
"Liszt had been introduced to the princess and paid her a visit in Vienna. He was received and ushered into the drawing-room, in which the princess was holding a lively conversation with another lady. A condescending nod of the head was responded to the bow of the world-renowned artist; a gracious movement of the head invited him to be seated. In vain the proud and spoiled man waited to be introduced to the visitor, and to have an opportunity of joining in the conversation. The princess quietly continued to converse with the lady as if Franz Liszt were not in existence at all, at least not in her salon. At last she asked him in a cool and off-hand manner:
"'Did you do a good stroke of business at the concert you gave in Italy?'
"'Princess,' he replied coldly, 'I am a musician, and not a man of business.'
"The artist bowed stiffly and instantly left.
"Soon after this Prince Metternich proved himself to be as perfect a gentleman as he was a diplomatist. At Liszt's first concert in Vienna he went to him and, entering the artist's room, cordially pressed his hands before everybody, and, with a gracious smile, said softly:
"'I trust you will pardon my wife for a slip of the tongue the other day; you know what women are!'"
FANNY KEMBLE
Mrs. Kemble, in her chatty book, Records of Later Life, relates a pleasant incident in September, 1842:
"Our temporary fellowship with Liszt procured for us a delightful participation in a tribute of admiration from the citizen workmen of Coblentz, that was what the French call saisissant. We were sitting all in our hotel drawing-room together, the maestro, as usual, smoking his long pipe, when a sudden burst of music made us throw open the window and go out on the balcony, when Liszt was greeted by a magnificent chorus of nearly two hundred men's voices. They sang to perfection, each with his small sheet of music and his sheltered light in his hand; and the performance, which was the only one of the sort I ever heard, gave a wonderful impression of the musical capacity of the only really musical nation in the world."
Mrs. Kemble also gives her impression of Liszt at Munich in 1870:
"I had gone to the theatre at Munich, where I was staying, to hear Wagner's opera of the Rheingold, with my daughter and her husband. We had already taken our places, when S. exclaimed to me, 'There is Liszt.' The increased age, the clerical dress had effected but little change in the striking general appearance, which my daughter (who had never seen him since 1842, when she was quite a child) recognised immediately. I went round to his box, and, recalling myself to his memory, begged him to come to ours, and let me present my daughter to him. He very good-naturedly did so, and the next day called upon us at our hotel and sat with us a long time. His conversation on matters of art (Wagner's music which he and we had listened to the evening before) and literature was curiously cautious and guarded, and every expression of opinion given with extreme reserve, instead of the uncompromising fearlessness of his earlier years; and the Abbé was indeed quite another from the Liszt of our summer on the Rhine of 1842."
LOLA MONTEZ
The once notorious actress, who, after a series of adventures caused some uproar at Munich, met Liszt during his travels in Germany, and her biographer relates how they divided honours at Dresden in 1842.
"Through the management of influential friends an opening was made for her at the Royal Theatre at Dresden, where she met the celebrated pianist, Franz Liszt, who was then creating such a furore that when he dropped his pocket handkerchief it was seized by the ladies and torn into rags, which they divided among themselves--each being but too happy to get so much as a scrap which had belonged to the great artist. The furore created by Lola Montez' appearance at the theatre in Dresden was quite as great among the gentlemen as was Liszt's among the ladies."
Lola Montez, during the last few years of her life, devoted herself to lecturing in various European cities, and the following is extracted from a published one entitled, "The Wits and Women of Paris":
"There was a gifted and fashionable lady (the Countess of Agoult), herself an accomplished authoress, concerning whom and George Sand a curious tale is told. They were great friends, and the celebrated pianist Liszt was the admirer of both. Things went on smoothly for some time, all couleur de rose, when one fine day Liszt and George Sand disappeared suddenly from Paris, having taken it into their heads to make the tour of Switzerland for the summer together. Great was the indignation of the fair countess at this double desertion; and when they returned to Paris Madame d'Agoult went to George Sand and immediately challenged the great writer to a duel, the weapons to be finger-nails, etc. Poor Liszt ran out of the room and locked himself up in a dark closet till the deadly affray was ended, and then made his body over in charge to a friend, to be preserved, as he said, for the remaining assailant. Madame d'Agoult was married to a bookworm, who cared for naught else but his library; he did not know even the number of children he possessed, and so little the old philosopher cared about the matter that when a stranger came to the house he invariably, at the appearance of the family, said: 'Allow me to present to you my wife's children'; all this with the blandest smile and most contented air."
Lola Montez also says in her lecture:
"I once asked George Sand which she thought the greatest pianist, Liszt or Thalberg. She replied, 'Liszt is the greatest, but there is only one Thalberg. If I were to attempt to give an idea of the difference between Liszt and Thalberg, I should say that Thalberg is like the clear, placid flow of a deep, grand river; while Liszt is the same tide foaming and bubbling and dashing on like a cataract.'"
MRS. ELLET
This lady, in an account of an autumn holiday on the Rhine, relates:
"Liszt, with his wonted kindness, had offered to give a concert in Cologne, the proceeds of which were to be appropriated to the completion of the Cathedral; the Rhenish Liedertafel resolved to bring him with due pomp from the island of Nonnenwerth, near Bonn, where he had been for some days. A steamboat was hired expressly for this purpose, and conveyed a numerous company to Nonnenwerth at 11 in the morning. The Liedertafel then greeted the artist, who stood on the shore, by singing a morning salute, accompanied by the firing of cannons and loud hurrahs. They then marched with wind-instruments in advance to the now empty chapel of the cloister of Nonnenwerth, where they sang, and thence to Rolandseck, where an elegant dinner was prepared for the company. All eyes were fixed on Liszt; all hearts were turned to him. He proposed a toast in honour of his entertainers; and at the conclusion of his speech observed with justice that nowhere in the world could any club be found like the Liedertafel in Germany. When the banquet was over they returned to Nonnenwerth, where a crowd of people from the surrounding country was assembled. The universal wish to hear Liszt was so evident that he was induced to send for a piano to be brought into the chapel, and to gratify the assembly--listening and rapt with delight--by a display of his transcendent powers. The desolate halls of the chapel once more resounded with the stir and voices of life. Not even the nuns, we will venture to say, who in former times used here to offer up prayers to heaven, were impressed with a deeper sense of the heavenly than was this somewhat worldly assembly by the magnificent music of Liszt, that seemed indeed to disclose things beyond this earth. At 7 o'clock the Liedertafel, with Liszt at their head, marched on their return, and went on board the steamboat, which was decorated with coloured flags, amid peals of cannon. It was 9, and quite dark, when they approached their landing. Rockets were sent up from the boat, and a continued stream of coloured fireworks, so that as the city rose before them from the bosom of the Rhine the boat seemed enveloped in a circle of brilliant flame which threw its reflection far over the waters. Music and hurrahs greeted our artist on shore; all Cologne was assembled to give him the splendid welcome which in other times only monarchs received. Slowly the procession of the Liedertafel moved through the multitude to the hotel, where again and again shouts and cheers testified the joy of the people at the arrival of their distinguished guest."
MINASI
Minasi, the once popular painter, who sketched a portrait of Thalberg during his first sojourn in London, also wrote an account of an interesting conversation about Liszt:
"The purpose of my requesting an introduction to M. Thalberg was, first, to be acquainted with a man of his genius; and next, to request the favour of his sitting for his portrait, executed in a new style with pen and ink. His total freedom from all ceremony and affectation perfectly charmed me. He appointed the next morning at 9 for his first sitting; and in my eagerness to commence my task, and make one of my best studies, I was in his breakfast room a quarter of an hour before my time. While he was taking his breakfast I addressed him in my own language; and when he answered me with a most beautiful accent I was delighted beyond measure. I felt doubly at home with him. Since then I find that he is a perfect scholar, possessing, with his finished pronunciation, a great propriety of conception.
"While I was putting on paper the outlines of his profile (a striking feature of his face), I inquired whether he was acquainted with my friend Liszt in Paris. He remarked that Liszt had disgraced himself with all impartial persons by writing against him with violent acrimony in the public prints; and which act he himself acknowledged was the result of professional jealousy. I was the more grieved to hear this, because I had entertained the highest respect for Liszt, who, as I told Thalberg, would never have demeaned himself had his father been living; whose last words to his son were: 'My son, you have always conducted yourself well; but I fear, after my death, some designing knave will lay hold of and make a dupe of you. Take care, my dear son, with whom you associate.' In one instance, Liszt met Thalberg, and proposed that they should play a duet in public, and that he (Liszt) should appoint the time. Thalberg's answer was: 'Je n'aime pas d'être accompagné,' which greatly amused the Parisians. Upon another occasion, Liszt made free to tell Thalberg that he did not admire his compositions. Thalberg replied: 'Since you do not like my compositions, Liszt, I do not like yours.'
"To the honour of Liszt, however, it should be stated that, having called upon Thalberg, he acknowledged his errors, making him a solemn promise never to offend in the same manner, adding that the cause of his attack upon him arose from jealousy of his rival's high talents, which made him the idol of the Parisians, and by whom he was received with the greatest enthusiasm. Thalberg dismissed the subject with me, by doing justice to himself as a public performer; at the same time declaring that Liszt is one of the greatest pianists in Europe, and he concluded with the following generous admission: 'Nevertheless, after all that has passed between us, I think Liszt would do anything to oblige me.'"
MACREADY
The once popular novelist, the Countess of Blessington, on May 31, 1840, invited many distinguished personages to her London house to meet Liszt, and among those who came were Lord Normanby, Lord Canterbury, Lord Houghton (then Mr. Monckton Milnes), Chorley, Rubini, Stuart Wortley, Palgrave Simpson, and Macready, the famous tragedian. Liszt played several times during the evening, and created an impression on all those present, especially on Macready, who notes in his diary:
"Liszt, the most marvellous pianist I ever heard; I do not know when I have been so excited."
AN ANONYMOUS GERMAN ADMIRER
The following recollections of Liszt's first visit to Stuttgart were published in a periodical many years ago. Though they appeared without any signature, the author seems to have been on intimate terms with the great musician:
"Liszt played several times at court, for which he received all possible distinctions which the King of Wurtemberg could confer upon an artist. The list of honours was exhausted when the royal princesses wished to hear once more this magician of the piano keys quite privately in their own apartments. Liszt, our truly chivalric artist, accepted with delight such an invitation, expecting less to show himself as an artist than to express his thanks for the many honours received. It must have been rare enjoyment for a royal family which recognised in art only a graceful pastime and a delightful intoxication of the sense, with an agreeable excitement of the sentiments; for no artist in the world understands better than Liszt how to survey at a glance the character and the most hidden recesses in the hearts of his audience. This very fact is the cause of his wonderful effects, and will secure them to him always. He played on that occasion Weber's Invitation à la Valse, with his own effectual, free, final cadenza, his Chromatic Galop (which causes all nerves to vibrate), and a few of his transcriptions of Schubert's songs--those genuine pearls, the richness and colouring of which none can show so well as himself, being a unique and most perfect master of the art of touch. And, finally, in order to show something at least of his immense bravura, he played a little concert piece. The most gracious words of acknowledgment were showered upon him. Liszt, enraptured by the truly heavenly eyes of one of the princesses, which, rendered still more beautiful by a singular moisture, were fixed upon him, declared his happiness in thus being able to express his thanks for the many honours conferred upon him.
"Among all the princes of Europe, however, there is none so little inclined to accept of services without remuneration as the King of Wurtemberg. This is one of the many chivalric traits in the character of that monarch; no other rewards artists in such royal style. On the next morning I was with Liszt, each of us smoking a real Havana comfortably on one end of the sofa. Liszt was telling me of his last visit to court, when one of its servants entered. He placed a roll of 150 ducats in gold upon the table, and presenting Liszt with an open receipt, asked him to sign it. Liszt read: 'Received for playing,' etc. Aloud, and in a tone of astonishment, Liszt repeated the words, 'Received for my playing?' and, rising with that peculiar aristocratic grace, he says in a mild, condescending tone: 'For my playing--am I to sign this document? My friend, I imagine some clerk of the court treasury has written this scrawl.' Upon which the servant, interrupting, said that it had been written by Herr Tagel, Counsellor of Court and Director of the Court Treasury. 'Well,' said Liszt, 'take back the receipt and money, and tell' (raising his voice) 'the counsellor from me, that neither king nor emperor can pay an artist for his playing--only, perchance, for his lost time, and' (with haughty indignation) 'that the counsellor is a blockhead if he does not comprehend that. For your trouble, my friend,' (giving him 5 ducats) 'take this trifle.'"
The writer goes on to say:
"The servant, in utter astonishment, knew not what to answer, and looked at me. But Liszt's slight figure was erect, his finely cut lips were compressed, his head was boldly thrown back, so that his thick hair fell far down on his shoulders; his nostrils were expanding, the lightning of his keen and brilliant eye was gleaming, his arms were folded, and he showed all his usual indications of inward commotion. Knowing, therefore, that Liszt had by that document been touched in his most sensitive point, and that this was nothing more nor less than a small battle in his great contest for the social position and rights of artists--a contest which, when a boy of fifteen years, he had already taken up--I was well aware of the impossibility of changing his mind for the present, and therefore remained silent, while the discomfited lackey retired with many low bows, taking money and scroll with him. Whether he really delivered the message I know not; but I was still with Liszt when he reappeared and, laying the money upon the table, gave Liszt a large sealed letter, which read as follows: 'The undersigned officer of the Treasury of Court, commanded by His Majesty the King, begs Dr. Liszt to accept, as a small compensation for his lost time with the princesses, the sum of 150 ducats.' Liszt handed me the paper, and with a silent glance I interrogated him in return. It is an old fact that the soul is always most clearly reflected in homely features, and I distinctly read in his face reconciliation and the kindest feeling again. He sat down and wrote on a scrap of paper with pencil: 'Received from the Royal Treasury 150 ducats--Franz Liszt,' and gave it to the servant very politely, accompanied by another rich gift. There was never afterward any further allusion to the affair.
"The price of admission to Liszt's concerts was unusually high, so that they could only be frequented by the wealthier classes. At a party the conversation fell upon the subject, and it was regretted that for such a reason many teachers and scholars, in spite of their great anxiety to hear the great master, were prevented from doing so. I told Liszt this, and he answered: 'Well, arrange a concert for them, only charge as much or as little as you think proper, and let me know when and what I shall play. Immediately a committee was formed, and a concert for teachers and scholars only arranged, to which the price of admission amounted to only 18 kreutzers (about sixpence). Quantities of tickets were sold, and immense galleries had to be erected in the large hall. Liszt viewed with delight the juvenile multitude, whose enthusiasm knew no bounds, and I never heard him play more beautifully. With a delighted heart he stood amid a shower of flowers which thousands of little hands were strewing for him, and when at last six veritable little angels approached in order to thank him, he embraced them with tears in his eyes--not heeding the fact that the grown-up people were appropriating his gloves, handkerchief, and all they could get hold of, tearing them up into a thousand bits to keep in remembrance of him. On the next morning we brought him the proceeds of the concert (nearly 1,000 florins). He declared that he had felt happier at that concert than ever before, and that nothing could induce him to accept the money, with which the committee might do as they pleased, and if, after so much delight, they did not wish really to hurt his feelings he would beg of them never to mention that money to him again. It was appropriated to a Liszt Fund, which will continue to exist forever, and a poor teacher's son, on going to college, is destined to receive the first interest.
"Liszt was once at my house, when a woman was announced to whom I was in the habit of giving quarterly a certain sum for her support. It being a few days before the usual time, she gave as an excuse (it was November) the hard times. While providing for her I told Liszt in an under-tone that she was an honest but very indigent widow of a painter, deceased in his prime, to whom an number of brother artists were giving regular contributions in order to enable her to get along with her two small children. I confess, while telling him this, I hoped that Liszt, whose liberality and willingness to do good had almost become proverbial, would ask me to add something in his name, and was, therefore, surprised to see him apparently indifferent, for he answered nothing and continued looking down in silence. After a few days, however, the widow reappeared, her heart overflowing with thankfulness and her eyes filled with tears of joy, for she and her children had at the expense of a man whose name she was not permitted to know, received beautiful and new winter clothing, while kitchen and cellar had been stored with every necessary for the coming winter. Now all this had been arranged by the landlady of a certain hotel, at which Liszt was then stopping. A piano maker, who had not the means to erect a factory, needed but to convince Liszt of his rare ability, and immediately he had at his command over 80,000 frs. This man is now dead, and Liszt never had received a farthing of that money back."
GEORGE ELIOT
The English novelist visited Liszt at Weimar in 1854 and records some pleasing recollections:
"About the middle of September the theatre opened. We went to hear Ernani. Liszt looked splendid as he conducted the opera. The grand outline of his face and floating hair was seen to advantage, as they were thrown into the dark relief by the stage lamps. Liszt's conversation is charming. I never met a person whose manner of telling a story was so piquant. The last evening but one that he called on us, wishing to express his pleasure in G----'s article about him, he very ingeniously conveyed that expression in a story about Spontini and Berlioz. Spontini visited Paris while Liszt was living there and haunted the opera--a stiff, self-important personage, with high shirt collars--the least attractive individual imaginable. Liszt turned up his own collars and swelled out his person, so as to give us a vivid idea of the man. Every one would have been glad to get out of Spontini's way; indeed, elsewhere 'on feignait de le croire mort'; but at Paris, as he was a member of the Institute, it was necessary to recognise his existence.
"Liszt met him at Erard's more than once. On one of these occasions Liszt observed to him that Berlioz was a great admirer of his (Spontini), whereupon Spontini burst into a terrible invective against Berlioz as a man who, with the like of him, was ruining art, etc. Shortly after the Vestale was performed and forthwith appeared an enthusiastic article by Berlioz on Spontini's music. The next time Liszt met him of the high collars he said: 'You see I was not wrong in what I said about Berlioz's admiration of you.' Spontini swelled in his collars and replied, 'Monsieur, Berlioz a du talent comme critique.' Liszt's replies were always felicitous and characteristic. Talking of Madame d'Agoult he told us that when her novel, Nélida, appeared in which Liszt himself is pilloried as a delinquent, he asked her, 'Mais pourquoi avez-vous tellement maltraité ce pauvre Lehmann?' The first time we were asked to breakfast at his house, the Altenburg, we were shown into the garden, where in a salon formed by the overarching trees déjeûner was sent out. We found Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the lyric poet, Dr. Schade, a Gelehrter, and Cornelius. Presently came a Herr or Doctor Raff, a musician, who had recently published a volume called Wagnerfrage. Soon after we were joined by Liszt and the Princess Marie, an elegant, gentle-looking girl of seventeen, and at last by the Princess Wittgenstein, with her nephew, Prince Eugene, and a young French artist, a pupil of Scheffer.
"The princess was tastefully dressed in a morning robe of some semi-transparent white material, lined with orange colour, which formed the bordering and ornament of the sleeves, a black lace jacket and a piquant cap on the summit of her comb, and trimmed with violet colour. When the cigars came, Hoffmann was requested to read some of his poetry, and he gave us a bacchanalian poem with great spirit. I sat next to Liszt, and my great delight was in watching him and in observing the sweetness of his expression. Genius, benevolence, and tenderness beam from his whole countenance, and his manners are in perfect harmony with it. Then came the thing I had longed for--his playing. I sat near him so that I could see both his hands and face. For the first time in my life I beheld real inspiration--for the first time I heard the true tones of the piano. He played one of his own compositions, one of a series of religious fantasies. There was nothing strange or excessive about his manner. His manipulation of the instrument was quiet and easy, and his face was simply grand--the lips compressed and the head thrown a little backward. When the music expressed quiet rapture or devotion a smile flitted over his features; when it was triumphant the nostrils dilated. There was nothing petty or egotistic to mar the picture. Why did not Scheffer paint him thus, instead of representing him as one of the three Magi? But it just occurs to me that Scheffer's idea was a sublime one. There are the two aged men who have spent their lives in trying to unravel the destinies of the world, and who are looking for the Deliverer--for the light from on high. Their young fellow seeker, having the fresh inspiration of early life, is the first to discern the herald star, and his ecstasy reveals it to his companions. In this young Magi Scheffer has given a portrait of Liszt; but even here, where he might be expected to idealise unrestrainedly, he falls short of the original. It is curious that Liszt's face is the type that one sees in all Scheffer's pictures--at least in all I have seen.
"In a little room which terminates the suite at the Altenburg there is a portrait of Liszt, also by Scheffer--the same of which the engraving is familiar to every one. This little room is filled with memorials of Liszt's triumphs and the worship his divine talent has won. It was arranged for him by the princess, in conjunction with the Arnims, in honour of his birthday. There is a medallion of him by Schwanthaler, a bust by an Italian artist, also a medallion by Rietschl--very fine--and cabinets full of jewels and precious things--the gifts of the great. In the music salon stand Beethoven's and Mozart's pianos. Beethoven's was a present from Broadwood, and has a Latin inscription intimating that it was presented as a tribute to his illustrious genius. One evening Liszt came to dine with us at the Erbprinz, and introduced M. Rubinstein, a young Russian, who is about to have an opera of his performed at Weimar."
AN ANONYMOUS LADY ADMIRER
This lady relates a touching incident about Liszt and a young music mistress:
"Liszt was still at Weimar, and no one could venture to encroach upon his scant leisure by a letter of introduction. I saw him constantly at the mid-day table d'hôte. His strange, impressive figure as he sat at the head of the table was a sight to remember; the brilliant eyes that flashed like diamonds, the long hair, in those days only iron gray, the sensitive mouth, the extraordinary play of expression, once seen, could never fade from memory. Everything, indeed, about him was phenomenal--physiognomy, appearance, mental gifts; last, but not least, amiability of character and an almost morbid terror of inflicting pain. This characteristic, of course, led him into many embarrassments, at the same time into the committal of thousands of kind actions; often at the sacrifice of time, peace of mind, and, without doubt, intellectual achievements.
"As I proposed to spend some months at Weimar, I engaged a music mistress, one of Liszt's former pupils, whom I will call Fräulein Marie. 'I will myself introduce you to the Herr Doctor,' she said. 'To his pupils he refuses nothing.' I must add that Fräulein Marie was in better circumstances than most German teachers of music. She had, I believe, some small means of her own, and belonged to a very well-to-do family. The poor girl, who was, as I soon found out, desperately in love with her master, got up a charming little fête champêtre in his honour and my own. A carriage was ordered, picnic baskets packed, and one brilliant summer afternoon hostess and guests started for Tieffurt. The party consisted of Liszt, Fräulein Marie, a violinist of the other sex, a young lady pianist from a neighbouring town, and myself. Liszt's geniality and readiness to enter into the spirit of the occasion were delightful to witness. The places of honour were assigned to the English stranger and the violinist, Liszt insisting on seating a pupil on each side, on the opposite seat of the carriage, not in the least disconcerted by such narrow accommodation. Thus, chatting and laughing, all of us in holiday mood, we reached the pretty park and chateau of Tieffurt.
"As the evening was cool, we supped inside the little restaurant, and here a grievous disappointment awaited our hostess. Tieffurt is celebrated for its trout; indeed this delicacy is as much an attraction to many visitors as its literary and artistic associations. But although trout had been ordered by letter beforehand none was forthcoming wherewith to fête the Maestro. Fräulein Marie was in tears. Liszt's gaiety and affection, however, put everything right. He cut brown bread and butter for the two girls, and made them little sandwiches with the excellent cold wurst. 'Ah, das schmeckt so gut,' they cried, as they thanked him adoringly. He told stories; he made the rest do the same. 'Erzählen von Erfurt' (tell us Erfurt news), he said to the young lady guest. The moments passed all too rapidly. Then in the clear delicious twilight we drove back to Weimar, his pupils kissing his hands reverentially as he quitted us. So far all had been bright, joyous, transparent; but I soon discovered that this charming girl, who possessed the vivacity of a French woman, combined with the schwärmerei or sentimentality of a Teutonic maiden, was rendered deeply unhappy by her love for Liszt.
"He was at that time enmeshed in the toils of another and far less guileless passion. Whilst to his gentle and innocent pupil he could accord only the affection of a loving and sympathetic friend and master, there were other women about him. Fräulein Marie's hapless sentiment could never discredit either herself or its object, but it occasioned a good deal of embarrassment and wretchedness, as we shall see. A few days after this gay al fresco tea she came to me in great distress, begging me forthwith to deliver a little note into the master's hand. I was reluctantly obliged to delegate the delicate mission to a hired messenger. Ill would it have become a stranger to interfere in these imbroglios. Moreover, at that very time Liszt had, as I have hinted, a love affair on his hands--had, in fact, momentarily succumbed to the influence of one of those women who were his evil genius. Just ten years later I revisited Weimar, and my first inquiry of common friends was after my sweet young music mistress. 'Fräulein Marie! Alas!' replied my informant, 'the poor girl has long been in a maison de santé.' Her love for Liszt ended in loss of reason."
LADY BLANCHE MURPHY
Lady Blanche gives an interesting account of Liszt's sojourn at the Monastery on Monte Mario in 1862, shortly after he became an abbé of the Roman Catholic Church. After describing the scenery of the place she says: "Here Liszt had taken up his abode, renting two bare white-walled rooms for the summer, where he looked far more at home than among the splendours of the prelate's reception room or the feminine elegancies of the princess' boudoir. He seemed happier, too--more cheerful, and light-hearted. He said he meant to be a hermit this summer, and the good Dominican lay brother attended to all his creature comforts, while he could solace himself by hearing the daily mass said in the early morning in the little chapel, into which he could step at any moment. His piano stood in one corner of his little cell, his writing table was piled with books and music, and besides these there was nothing of interest in the room. The window looked out upon one of the most glorious views of the world. Here Liszt seemed quite another being. He talked gaily, and suddenly started up, volunteering to play for us--a thing, many of his best friends said, they had not known him do for years.
"It was all his own, yet, though peculiar, the sound did not resemble the sobbing music, the weird chords, his fingers had drawn forth from the keys as he played among conventional people in conventional evening gatherings. There was a freshness, a springiness, in to-day's performance which suited the place and hour, and that visit to the hermit-artist was indeed a fitting leave-taking for us who were so entranced with his pure, strong genius. Still, the artist had not forgotten to initiate us into one of the secrets of his simple retreat. The Dominicans of some remote mountain convent had kindly sent him a present of some wonderful liqueur--one of those impossible beverages associated in one's mind with Hebe's golden cups of flowing nectar, rather than with any commonplace drink. Liszt insisted upon our tasting this: green Chartreuse was nothing to it and we scarcely did more than taste. And this was the last time we saw him, this king-artist. It was a great privilege, and perhaps he, of all living artists we had come across, is the only one who could not disappoint one's ideal of him."
KARL KIRKENBUHL
This author, in his Federzeichnungen aus Rom, describes a visit to Liszt in 1867:
"The building in which Liszt resides in Rome is of unpretending appearance; it is, and fancy may have pictured such a place as Liszt's 'Sans Souci,' a melancholy, plain little monastery. But by its position this quiet abode is so favoured that probably few homes in the wide world can be compared to it. Situated upon the old Via Sacra, it is the nearest neighbour of the Forum Romanum, while its windows look toward the Capitol, the ruins of the Palatine Palace and the Colosseum. In such a situation a life of contemplation is forced upon one. I mounted a few steps leading to the open door of the monastery, and all at once grew uncertain what to do, for I saw before me a handsome staircase adorned with pillars, such as I should not have expected from the poor exterior of the building. Had not a notice in the form of a visiting-card over the large door at the top of the stairs met my eye, I should have considered it necessary to make further inquiries. As it was, however, I was able to gain from the card itself the information I needed. I approached and read: 'L'Abbé Franz Liszt.' So, really an Abbé! A visiting-card half supplies the place of an autopsy. After I arranged my necktie and pulled on my gloves more tightly, I courageously grasped the green cord that summoned the porter. Two servants, not in tail coat, it is true, but clad in irreproachable black, received me; one hastened to carry in my card, while the other helped me off with my topcoat.
"My ideas of a genuine monkish life suffered a rude shock. Wherefore two servants before the cell of a monk; or if attendant spirits, why were they not, according to monastic rules, simply lay brothers?
"But I had not long to puzzle my brains with these obtrusive questions, for I was presently plunged into still greater mental confusion. The messenger who had gone to announce me returned and ushered me in with a notification that Signor Abbate requested me to await a moment in--the drawing-room! Yes, actually a drawing-room, in the most elegant acceptation of the word. It wanted nothing either of the requisites for northern comfort or of the contrivances demanded by the climate of Rome, though glaring luxury appeared scrupulously avoided.
"I stood then in the saloon of the Commendatore Liszt! Abbé and Commander! The correct employment of the domestic titles rendered the first interview much more easy than it otherwise would have been. I was by no means so inquisitorial in my survey as to be able to give a Walter Scott-like description of Liszt's salon. Darkness, moreover, prevailed in the large apartment, as, according to Italian usage and necessity, the window shutters were closed against the rays of the morning sun. I was attracted by the album table in the middle of the apartment more than aught else. Upon it lay chiefly Italian works of a religious nature in votive bindings. That Liszt here, too, as Abbate, lives in the midst of creative spirits is proved by these dedicatory offerings.
"The door was opened and the well-known artistic figure advanced in a friendly manner toward me. That the skilful fingers of the great pianist pressed the hand of me, a simple writer, is a fact, which, for the completeness of my narrative, must not remain unmentioned. The first and most immediate impression produced on me by Liszt's appearance was that of surprising youthfulness. Even the unmistakably grizzling, though still thick, long, flowing hair, which the scissors of the tonsure have not dared to touch, detracts but little from the heart entrancing charm of his unusual individuality. Of fretfulness, satiety, monkish abnegation, and so on, there is not a trace to be detected in the feature of Liszt's interesting and characteristic head. And just as little as we find Liszt in a monk's cell do we find him in a monk's cowl. The black soutane sits no less elegantly on him than, in its time, the dress coat. Those who look upon Liszt as a riddle will most decidedly not find the solution of it in his outward appearance.
"After interchanging a few words of greeting, we proceeded to the workroom. After compelling me to take an arm-chair, Liszt seated himself at the large writing-table, apologising to me by stating that he had a letter to despatch in a hurry. Upon this, too, lay a great many things, nearly all pertaining more to the Abbé than the artist. But neatly written sheets of music showed that musical production formed part of the master's daily occupations. The comfortable room bore generally the unmistakable stamp of a room for study, of an artist's workshop. The letter and the address were quickly finished, and handed to the attendant to seal and transmit. I mentioned the report connecting his approaching journey with the grand festival of joy and peace, the Coronation in Hungary. The popular maestro took this opportunity of giving me a detailed history of his Coronation Mass. He said that in the Prince-Primate Scitovsky he had possessed a most kind patron. In course of a joyous repast, as on many other occasions, the Prelate had given lively and hopeful utterance to the wish of his heart that he might yet be able to place the crown upon the head of his beloved king, and at the same time he called upon Liszt, in an unusually flattering and cordial manner, to compose the Coronation Mass, but it must be short, very short, as the entire ceremony would take about six hours.
"Liszt was unable to resist this amiable request, he said, and, drinking a glass of fiery Tokay, gave a promise that he would endeavour to produce some 'Essence of Tokay.' After his return to Rome he immediately set about the sketch. But the prospect of the desired agreement between the Emperor and the Hungarians had, meanwhile, become overcast, and his work remained a mere sketch. Some months ago, however, he was pressed by his Hungarian friends to proceed, and so he finished the mass. It was a question whether it would be performed on the day of the Coronation, since there was a condition that the monarch should bring his own orchestra with him. Liszt said he was perfectly neutral, and in no way wished to run counter to the just ambition of others; for, however the Abbé might be decried as ambitious, he added, with a smile, he was not so after all."
* * * * *
In course of this open-hearted statement Liszt touched upon his relations to the present Prince-Primate of Hungary, and let fall a remark which is the more interesting because it throws a light upon his position in and toward Rome. The Abbé-Maestro said then that he had entered on a correspondence regarding his retirement from the diocese of the Prince of the Church, who had in the interim been raised to the dignity of Primate, and had every reason to believe that he enjoyed the Prelate's favour. He needed, however, a special letter of dismissal in order to be received into the personal lists of the Roman clergy; to this Liszt remarked, parenthetically, were limited all his clerical qualities.
* * * * *
"I do not know more exactly what rights and duties are connected with the insertion of his name in the catalogue of the Roman clergy, though it appears that the nexus into which Liszt has entered toward the clerical world is rather an outward than a deep and inward one.
"The cigar, which did not look, between the lips of the great musician, as if it had been treated with particular gentleness or care, had gone out. Liszt got up to reach the matches. While he was again lighting the narcotic weed he directed my attention to the pretty statuette of St. Elisabeth, which had attracted my gaze when I entered the room. It represents the kind-hearted Landgravine at the moment the miracle of roses is taking place. It required no great power of combination to connect this graceful form, as an ovational gift, with Liszt's oratorio of St. Elisabeth. The popular master named the German hand which had fashioned the marble and offered it to him. He was thus led to speak of his oratorio, and of the Wartburg Festival, for which it was originally intended, and at which it was given, but not until after Hungary had enjoyed the first performance. He spoke also of what he had done at the Grand Ducal Court. I was peculiarly touched by his reminiscences, how he had entered the service of a German prince, how he had 'knocked about' for several years at Weimar, 'without doing anything worth naming.' how his Prince had respected and distinguished him, and had probably never suspected that a permanent sojourn could result from Liszt's trip to Rome.
"Here, where he moved in only a small circle--said Liszt, with marked emphasis, and again referring to the importance Rome possessed for him--here he found the long desired leisure for work. His Elisabeth, he said, had here sprung into existence, and also his oratorio of Petrus. He had, moreover, he remarked, notions which it would take him three years of thorough hard work to carry out.
"He certainly knew, the Abbé-Maestro continued, referring to his art-gospel, that here and there things which in other places had met with some response had been hissed, but he had no more hope for applause than he feared censure. He followed, he said, the path he considered the right one, and could say that he had consistently pursued the direction he had once taken. The only rule he adopted in the production of his works, as far as he had full power, was that of not compromising his friends or of exposing them to the disfavour of the public. Solely for this reason he had thought it incumbent on him, for instance, to refuse to send a highly esteemed colleague the score of his Elisabeth, in spite of two applications.
"I expressed to my friendly host my delight at his good health and vigour, prognosticating a long continuance of fruitful activity. 'Oh! yes, I am quite satisfied with my state of health,' answered the master, 'though my legs will no longer render me their old service.' At the same time, in an access of boisterous merriment, he gave the upper part of his right thigh so hard a slap that I could not consider his regret particularly sincere.
"Another of my remarks was directed to the incomparable site of his abode, which alone might make a middling poet produce great epic or elegiac poetry. 'I live quietly and agreeably,' was the reply, 'both here and at Monte Mario, where there are a few rooms at my service, with a splendid view over the city, the Tiber and the hills.' And not to remain my debtor for the ocular proof of what he said, at least as far as regarded his town residence, he opened a window and gazed silently with me on the overpowering seriousness of the ruined site.
"The amiable maestro then conducted me rapidly through two smaller rooms, one of which was his simple bed-chamber, to a wooden outhouse with a small window, through which were to be seen the Colosseum, in all its gigantic proportions, and the triumphal arch of Constantine close by, overtowered by Mount Coelius, now silent.
"'A splendid balcony might be erected here,' observed Liszt, 'but the poor Franciscan monk has no money for such a purpose!'
"Having returned to his study, I thought the time had arrived for bringing my first visit to a termination. The thanks conveyed in my words on taking leave were warm and sincere. I carried with me out of that quiet dwelling the conviction that in Liszt the true artist far outweighs the virtuoso and the monk, and that only such persons as formerly snobbishly shook their heads because Winkelmann took service and found an asylum with a cardinal, can scoff and make small jokes on Liszt's cell and monkish cowl."
B. W. H.
An American lady who signs herself "B. W. H.," and wrote some reminiscences of the great musician at Weimar in 1877, calls her contribution An Hour Passed with Liszt:
"How much more some of us get than we deserve! A pleasure has come to us unsought. It came knocking at our door seeking entrance and we simply did not turn it away. It happened in this fashion: A friend had been visiting Liszt in Weimar and happened to mention us to the great master, who promised us a gracious reception should we ever appear there. To Weimar then we came, and the gracious reception we certainly had, to our satisfaction and lasting remembrance.
"After sending our cards, and receiving permission to present ourselves at an appointed and early hour, we drove to the small, cosy house occupied by Liszt when here, on the outskirts of the garden of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and were ushered by his Italian valet into a comfortable, cosy, home-like apartment, where we sat awaiting the great man's appearance. Wide casements opened upon a stretch of lawn and noble old trees; easy-chairs and writing-tables; MS. music, with the pen lying carelessly beside it; masses of music piled up on the floor, a row of books there, too; a grand piano and an upright one; a low dish of roses on the table; a carpet, which is not taken for granted here as with us--altogether the easy, friendly look of a cottage drawing-room at home, where people have a happy use of pleasant things.
"He entered the room after a few minutes and greeted us with a charming amiability, for which we inwardly blessed the absent friend. Of course everybody knows how he looks--tall, thin, with long white hair; a long, black, robe-like coat, being an abbé; long, slight, sensitive hands; a manner used to courts, and a smile and grace rare in a man approaching seventy. He spoke of Anna Mehlig, and of several young artists just beginning their career, whom we personally know. Very graciously he mentioned Miss Cecilia Gaul, of Baltimore; spoke kindly of Miss Anna Bock, one of the youngest and most diligent of artists, and most forcibly perhaps of Carl Hermann, like Anna Mehlig, a pupil in the Stuttgart Conservatory, 'There is something in the young man,' he said with emphasis. So he chatted in the most genial way of things great and small, as if he were not one of the world's geniuses, and we two little insignificant nobodies sitting before him, overcome with a consciousness of his greatness and our nothingness, yet quite happy and at ease, as every one must be who comes within the sphere of his gracious kindliness.
"Suddenly he rose and went to his writing-table, and, with one of his long, sweet smiles, so attractive in a man of his age--but why shouldn't a man know how to smile long, sweet smiles who has had innumerable thrilling romantic experiences with the sex that has always adored him?--he took a bunch of roses from a glass on his table and brought it to us. Whether to kiss his hand or fall on our knees we did not quite know; but, America being less given than many lands to emotional demonstration, we smiled back with composure, and appeared, no doubt, as if we were accustomed from earliest youth to distinguished marks of favour from the world's great ones.
"But the truth is we were not. And these roses which stood on Liszt's writing-table by his MS. music, presented by the hand that has made him famous, are already pressing and will be kept among our penates, except one, perhaps, that will be distributed leaf by leaf to hero-worshipping friends, with date and appropriate inscriptions on the sheet where it rests. How amiable he was, indeed! The roses were much, but something was to come. The Meister played to us. For this we had not even dared to hope during our first visit. No one, of course, ever asks him to play, and whether he does or not depends wholly on his mood. It was beautiful to sit there close by him, the soft lawns and trees, framed by the open casement, making a background for the tall figure, the long, peculiar hands wandering over the keys, the face full of intellect and power. And how he smiles as he plays! We fancied at first in our own simplicity that he was smiling at us, but later it seemed merely the music in his soul illuminating his countenance. His whole face changes and gleams, and grows majestic, revealing the master-spirit as his hands caress while they master the keys. With harrowing experiences of the difficulty of Liszt's compositions, we anticipated, as he began, something that would thunder and crash and teach us what pigmies we were; but as an exquisitely soft melody filled the room, and tones came like whispers to our hearts, and a theme drawn with a tender, magical touch brought pictures and dreams of the past before us, we actually forgot where we were, forgot that the white-haired man was the famous Liszt, forgot to speak as the last faint chord died away, and sat in utter silence, quite lost to our surroundings, with unseeing eyes gazing out through the casement.
"At last he rose, took our hands kindly, and said, 'That is how I play when I am suffering from a cold as at present.' We asked if he had been improvising, or if what he played was already printed. 'It was only a little nocturne,' he said. 'It sounded like a sweet remembrance.' 'And was that,' he replied cordially. Then fearing to disturb him too long, and feeling we had been crowned with favours, we made our adieux, receiving a kind invitation to come the following day and hear the young artists who cluster around him here, some of whom he informed us played 'famos.' And after we had left him he followed us out to the stairway to repeat his invitation and say another gracious word or two. And we went off to drive through Weimar, and only half observed its pleasant homely streets, its flat, uninteresting, yet friendly aspect, its really charming park--so Lisztified we were, as a friend calls our state of mind. The place has, indeed, little to charm the stranger now, except the memories of Goethe and Schiller and all the famous literary stars who once made it glorious, and the presence of Liszt."
The lives of musicians are, in general, so devoid of extraordinary incident, that the relation of them is calculated more to instruct than amuse.
That of Liszt, however, was an exception to the rule. His adventures seemed to have been so many and so various as almost to encourage a belief that in describing them his literary admirers often used the pen of romance.
The last letter that Liszt indited with his own pen is addressed to Frau Sofie Menter, and is dated Bayreuth, July 3, 1886. What proved to be almost a death-bed epistle runs as follows:
"To-morrow, after the religious marriage of my granddaughter Daniela von Bülow to Professor Henry Thode (art-historian), I betake myself to my excellent friends the Munkacsys, Château Colpach, Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. On the 20th July I shall be back here again for the first 7-8 performances of the Festspiel; then alas! I must put myself under the, to me, very disagreeable cure at Kissingen, and in September an operation for the eyes is impending for me with Gräfe at Halle. For a month past I have been quite unable to read, and almost unable to write, with much labour, a couple of lines. Two secretaries kindly help me by reading to me and writing letters at my dictation. How delightful it would be to me, dear friend, to visit you at your fairy castle at Itter! But I do not see any opportunity of doing so at present. Perhaps you will come to Bayreuth, where, from July 20th to the 7th August, will be staying your sincere friend F. Liszt."
The master was spared the infliction of the cure he dreaded at Kissingen, and Frau Menter did not meet him at Bayreuth, for on July 31st Liszt died, what to him must have been a pleasant death, after witnessing the greatest work of the poet-composer whom he had done so much to befriend--Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.
ERNEST LEGOUVÉ
"I am about to make a very bold profession of faith--I adore the piano! All the jests at its expense, all the anathemas that are heaped upon it, are as revolting to me as so many acts of ingratitude, I might say as so many absurdities.
"To me the piano is one of the domestic lares, one of our household gods. It is, thanks to it, and it alone, that we have for ourselves and in our homes the most poetic and the most personal of all the arts--music. What is it that brings into our dwellings an echo of the Conservatory concerts? What is it that gives us the opera at our own firesides? What is it that unites four, five or six harmonious voices in the interpretation of a masterpiece of vocal music, as the trio of Don Juan, the quartet of Moses, or the finale of the Barber of Seville? The piano, and the piano alone. Were the piano to be abolished how could you have the exquisite joy of hearing Faure in your own chamber? I say Faure, but I might say Taffanel, Gillet, all the instrumentalists, for all instruments are its tributaries. They all have need of it; it alone needs none.
"Auber said to me one day: 'What I admire, perhaps, most in Beethoven are some of his sonatas, because in them his thought shows clearly in all its pure beauty, unencumbered by the ornaments of orchestral riches.' But for what instrument were the sonatas of Beethoven composed? For the piano. I cannot forget that the entire work of Chopin was written for the piano. Besides, it is the confidant of the man of genius, of all that he does not write. Ah! if the piano of Weber might repeat what the author of Der Freischütz has spoken to it alone! And, greatest superiority of all, the piano is of all the instruments the only one that is progressive.
"A Stradivarius and an Amati remain superior to all the violins of to-day, and it is not certain that the horn, the flute and the hautbois have not lost as much as they have gained with all the present superabundance of keys and pistons. The piano only has always gained in its transformations, and every one of its enlargements, adding something to its power of expression, has enabled it to improve even the interpretation of the old masters.
"One day when Thalberg was playing at my home a sonata of Mozart on a Pleyel piano, Berlioz said to me: 'Ah! if Mozart were with us, he would hear his admirable andante as he sung it to himself in his breast!'
"One of my most precious musical memories is, then, to have not only known but to have associated with and to have enjoyed in intimacy the three great triumvirs of the piano--Liszt, Thalberg, and Chopin. The arrival of Thalberg in Paris was a revelation, I could willingly say a revolution. I know only Paganini, whose appearance produced the same mélange of enthusiasm and astonishment. Both excited the same feeling that one experiences in the presence of the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable. I attended Paganini's first concert (it was at the Opera) in company with De Beriot. De Beriot held in his hand a copy of the piece that Paganini was to play. 'This man is a charlatan,' he said to me, 'he cannot execute what is printed here, because it is not executable.' Paganini began. I listened to the music and watched De Beriot attentively. All at once he exclaimed to himself, 'Ah! the rascal, I understand! He has modified the tuning of his instrument.'
"There was a like surprise at Thalberg's first concert. It was at the Théâtre des Italiens, in the daytime, in the public foyer. I attended in company with Julius Benedict, who was, it was said, Weber's only piano pupil. I shall never forget his stupefaction, his amazement. Leaning feverishly toward the instrument, to which we were very near, his eyes fastened upon those fingers that seemed to him like so many magicians, he could hardly believe his eyes or his ears. For him, as De Beriot, there had been in the printed works of Thalberg something which he could not explain. Only the secret this time was not in the instrument, but in the performer. It was not this time the strings that were changed, it was the fingers.
"A new method of fingering enabled Thalberg to cause the piano to express what it had never expressed before. Benedict's emotion was all the more intense that the poor fellow chanced to be in a very unique frame of mind and heart. His young wife, whom he worshipped, had departed that morning to join her parents at Naples. The separation was to last only for less than six months, but he was profoundly sad, and it was to distract his mind that I had taken him to the concert. But once there, there took place in him the strangest amalgamation of the husband and the pianist. At once despairing and enchanted, he reminded me of the man in Rabelais who, hearing the church bells ring out, at almost the same moment, the baptism of his son and the funeral service of his wife, wept with one eye and laughed with the other. Benedict would break forth into exclamations both comical and touching. He went from his wife to Thalberg and from Thalberg to his wife. 'Ah! dear Adele, this is frightful!' he would exclaim in one breath, and with the next, 'Ah! dear Thalberg, that is delightful!' I have still ringing in my ears the original duo that he sang that day to himself.
"Thalberg's triumph irritated Liszt profoundly. It was not envy. He was incapable of any low sentiment. His was the rage of a dethroned king. He called Thalberg's school disdainfully the Thumb school. But he was not a man to yield his place without defending himself, and there ensued between them a strife that was all the more striking that the antithesis between the two men was as great as the difference in their talents.
"Liszt's attitude at the piano, like that of a pythoness, has been remarked again and again. Constantly tossing back his long hair, his lips quivering, his nostrils palpitating, he swept the auditorium with the glance of a smiling master. He had some little trick of the comedian in his manner, but he was not that. He was a Hungarian; a Hungarian in two aspects, at once Magyar and Tzigane. True son of the race that dances to the clanking of its spurs. His countrymen understood him well when they sent him as a testimonial of honour an enormous sabre.
"There was nothing of the kind about Thalberg. He was the gentleman artist, a perfect union of talent and propriety. He seemed to have taken it for his rule to be the exact opposite of his rival. He entered noiselessly; I might almost say without displacing the air. After a dignified greeting that seemed a trifle cold in manner, he seated himself at the piano as though upon an ordinary chair. The piece began, not a gesture, not a change of countenance! not a glance toward the audience! If the applause was enthusiastic, a respectful inclination of the head was his only response. His emotion, which was very profound, as I have had more than one proof, betrayed itself only by a violent rush of blood to the head, colouring his ears, his face and his neck. Liszt seemed seized with inspiration from the beginning; with the first note he gave himself up to his talent without reserve, as prodigals throw their money from the window without counting it, and however long was the piece his inspired fervour never flagged.
"Thalberg began slowly, quietly, calmly, but with a calm that thrilled. Under those notes so seemingly tranquil one felt the coming storm. Little by little the movement quickened, the expression became more accentuated, and by a series of gradual crescendos he held one breathless until a final explosion swept the audience with an emotion indescribable.
"I had the rare good fortune to hear these two great artists on the same day, in the same salon, at an interval of a quarter of an hour, at a concert given by the Princess Belgiojoso for the Poles. There was then revealed to me palpably, clearly, the characteristic difference in their talent. Liszt was incontestably the more artistic, the more vibrant, the more electric. He had tones of a delicacy that made one think of the almost inaudible tinkling of tiny spangles or the faint explosion of sparks of fire. Never have fingers bounded so lightly over the piano. But at the same time his nervosity caused him to produce sometimes effects a trifle hard, a trifle harsh. I shall never forget that, after a piece in which Liszt, carried away by his fury, had come down very hard upon the keys, the sweet and charming Pleyel approached the instrument and gazed with an expression of pity upon the strings. 'What are you doing, my dear friend?' I asked, laughing. 'I am looking at the field of battle,' he responded in a melancholy tone; 'I am counting the wounded and the dead.'
"Thalberg never pounded. What constituted his superiority, what made the pleasure of hearing him play a luxury to the ear, was pure _tone_. I have never heard such another, so full, so round, so soft, so velvety, so sweet, and still so strong! How shall I say it? The voice of Alboni.
"At this concert in hearing Liszt I felt myself in an atmosphere charged with electricity and quivering with lightning. In hearing Thalberg I seemed to be floating in a sea of purest light. The contrast between their characters was not less than between their talent. I had a striking proof of it with regard to Chopin.
"It is not possible to compare any one with Chopin, because he resembled no one. Everything about him pertained only to himself. He had his own tone, his own touch. All the great artists have executed and still execute the works of Chopin with great ability, but in reality only Chopin has played Chopin. But he never appeared in public concerts nor in large halls. He liked only select audiences and limited gatherings, just as he would use no other piano than a Pleyel, nor have any other tuner than Frederic. We, fanatics that we were, were indignant at his reserve; we demanded that the public should hear him; and one day in one of those fine flights of enthusiasm that have caused me to make more than one blunder I wrote in Schlesinger's _Gazette Musicale_: 'Let Chopin plunge boldly into the stream, let him announce a grand soirée musicale and the next day when the eternal question shall arise, "Who is the greater pianist to-day, Liszt or Thalberg?" the public will answer with us, "It is Chopin."'
"To be frank, I had done better not to have written that article. I should have recalled my friendly relations with the two others. Liszt would have nothing to do with me for more than two months. But the day after the one on which my article appeared Thalberg was at my door at ten in the morning. He stretched out his hand as he entered, saying, 'Bravo! your article is only just.'
"At last their rivalry, which in reality had never been more than emulation, assumed a more accentuated, a more striking form. Until then no pianist had ventured to play in the hall of a large theatre with an auditorium of 1,200 or 1,500. Thalberg, impelled by his successes, announced a concert in the Théâtre des Italiens, not in the foyer, but in the main auditorium. He played for the first time his Moses, and his success was a triumph.
"Liszt, somewhat piqued, saw in Thalberg's triumph a defiance, and he announced a concert at the Opera. For his battle horse he took Weber's Concertstück. I was at the concert. He placed a box at my disposal, requesting that I should give an account of the evening in the _Gazette Musicale_. I arrived full of hope and joy. A first glance over the hall checked my ardour a trifle. There were many, very many, present, but here and there were empty spaces that disquieted me. My fears were not without reason. It was a half success. Between numbers I encountered Berlioz, with whom I exchanged my painful impressions, and I returned home quite tormented over the article I was to write. The next day I had hardly seated myself at my table when I received a letter from Liszt. I am happy to reproduce here the principal part of that letter, for it discloses an unknown Liszt, a modest Liszt. Yes, modest! It only half astonished me, for a certain circumstance had revealed this Liszt to me once before. It was at Scheffer's, who was painting his portrait. When posing Liszt assumed an air of inspiration. Scheffer, with his surpassing brusqueness, said to him: 'The devil, Liszt! Don't put on the airs of a man of genius with me. You know well enough that I am not fooled by it.'
"What response did Liszt make to these rude words? He was silent a moment, then going up to Scheffer he said: 'You are right, my dear friend. But pardon me; you do not know how it spoils one to have been an infant prodigy.' This response seemed to me absolutely delicious in its sweet simplicity--I might say in its humility. The letter that I give below has the same character:
"'You have shown me of late an affection so comprehensive that I ask your permission to speak as a friend to a friend. Yes, my dear Legouvé, it is as to a friend that I am about to confess to you a weakness. I am very glad that it is you who are to write of my concert yesterday, and I venture to ask you to remain silent for this time, and for this time only, concerning the defective side of my talent.'
"Is it possible, I ask, to make a more difficult avowal with more delicacy or greater frankness? Do we know many of the great artists capable of writing 'the defective side of my talent'?
"I sent him immediately the following response:
"'No, my dear friend, I will not do what you ask! No, I will not maintain silence concerning the defective side of your talent, for the very simple reason that you never displayed greater talent than yesterday. Heaven defend me from denying the coldness of the public, or from proclaiming your triumph when you have not triumphed! That would be unworthy of you, and, permit me to add, of me. But what was it that happened? and why this half failure? Ah! blunderer that you were, what a strategic error you committed! Instead of placing the orchestra back of you, as at the Conservatory, so as to bring you directly in contact with your audience, and to establish between you and them an electric current, you cut the wire; you left this terrible orchestra in its usual place. You played across I know not how many violins, violoncellos, horns, and trombones, and the voice of your instrument, to reach us, had to pass through all that warring orchestra! And you are astonished at the result! But, my dear friend, how was it two months ago at the Conservatory that with the same piece you produced such a wonderful effect? It was because that, in front alone, with the orchestra behind you, you appeared like a cavalry colonel at the head of his regiment, his horse in full gallop, his sabre in hand, leading on his soldiers, whose enthusiasm was only the accompaniment of his own. At the Opera the colonel abandoned his place at the head of his regiment, and placed himself at its rear. Fine cause for surprise that your tones did not reach us resounding and vibrant! This is what happened, my dear friend, and this is what I shall say, and I shall add that there was no one but Liszt in the world who could have produced under such conditions the effect that you produced. For in reality your failure would have been a great success for any other than you.
"'With this, wretched strategist, I send you a cordial pressure of the hand, and begin my article.'
"The following Sunday my article appeared, and I had the great pleasure to have satisfied him."
ROBERT SCHUMANN ON LISZT'S PLAYING
"Liszt is now [1840] probably about thirty years old. Every one knows well that he was a child phenomenon; how he was early transplanted to foreign lands; that his name afterward appeared here and there among the most distinguished; that then the rumour of it occasionally died away, until Paganini appeared, inciting the youth to new endeavours; and that he suddenly appeared in Vienna two years ago, rousing the imperial city to enthusiasm. Thus he appeared among us of late, already honoured, with the highest honours that can be bestowed on an artist, and his fame already established.
"The first concert, on the 17th, was a remarkable one. The multitudinous audience was so crowded together that even the hall looked altered. The orchestra was also filled with listeners, and among them--Liszt.
"He began with the Scherzo and Finale of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. The selection was capricious enough, and on many accounts not happy. At home, in a _tête-à-tête_, a highly careful transcription may lead one almost to forget the orchestra; but in a large hall, in the same place where we have been accustomed to hear the symphony played frequently and perfectly by the orchestra, the weakness of the pianoforte is striking, and the more so the more an attempt is made to represent masses in their strength. Let it be understood, with all this, we had heard the master of the instrument; people were satisfied; they at least, had seen him shake his mane. To hold to the same illustration, the lion presently began to show himself more powerful. This was in a fantasia on themes by Pacini, which he played in a most remarkable manner. But I would sacrifice all the astonishing, the audacious bravura that he displayed here for the sake of the magical tenderness that he expressed in the following étude. With the sole exception of Chopin, as I have already said, I know not one who equals him in this quality. He closed with the well-known Chromatic Gallop; and as the applause this elicited was endless, he also played his equally well-known bravura waltz.
"Fatigue and indisposition prevented the artist from giving the concert promised for the next day. In the meantime a musical festival was prepared for him, that will never be forgotten by Liszt himself or the others present. The giver of the festival (Felix Mendelssohn) had selected for performance some compositions unknown to his guest: Franz Schubert's symphony (in C); his own psalm, As the Hart Pants; the overture, A Calm Sea and a Prosperous Voyage; three choruses from St. Paul; and, to close with, the D-minor concerto for three pianos by Sebastian Bach. This was played by Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Hiller. It seemed as though nothing had been prepared, but all improvised instantaneously. Those were three such happy musical hours as years do not always bring. At the end Liszt played alone, and wonderfully.
"Liszt's most genial performance was yet to come--Weber's Concertstück, which he played at his second concert. Virtuoso and public seemed to be in the freshest mood possible on that evening, and the enthusiasm before and after his playing exceeded anything hitherto known here. Although Liszt grasped the piece, from the beginning, with such force and grandeur of expression that an attack on a battle-field would seem to be in question, yet he carried this on with continually increasing power, until the passage where the player seemed to stand at the summit of the orchestra, leading it forward in triumph. Here, indeed, he resembled that great commander to whom he has been compared, and the tempestuous applause that greeted him was not unlike an adoring "Vive l'Empereur!" He then played a fantasia on themes from the Huguenots, the Ave Maria and Serenade, and, at the request of the public, the Erl-King of Schubert. But the Concertstück was the crown of his performances on this evening."
LISZT IN RUSSIA
"Liszt visited Russia for the first time in 1842," writes Rose Newmarch. "I do not know whether this journey was part of the original scheme of his great two years' tour on the continent (1840-1842), or if he only yielded to the pressing invitations of several influential Russian friends. Early in 1839, among the many concerts which he gave in Rome, none was more brilliant than the recital organised by the famous Russian amateur, Count Bielgorsky, at the house of Prince Galitsin, Governor-General of Moscow, who was wintering in the Italian capital. During the following year, Liszt spent three days at Ems, where he was presented to the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, to whom he played every evening during his brief visit. The Empress was fascinated by his genius, and enjoined him to visit Russia without delay.
"The phenomenal success of the twenty-two concerts which Liszt gave in Berlin during the winter of 1841-1842, soon became a subject of gossip in Petersburg, and his arrival was awaited with unprecedented excitement. He reached the capital early in April, and was almost immediately presented to Nicholas I. On entering the audience chamber, the Emperor, ignoring the presence of numerous generals and high officials who were awaiting an audience, went straight to Liszt saying, "Monsieur Liszt, I am delighted to see you in Petersburg," and immediately engaged him in conversation. A day or two later, on the 8th of April, Liszt gave his first concert in the Salle de la Noblesse, before an audience of three thousand people. This concert was both a novel and an important event in Russia. Not only was it the first recital ever heard there--for before Liszt's day, no single artist had attempted to hold the public attention by the spell of his own unaided gifts--but it was also the first tie in a close and lasting bond between the great virtuoso and the Russian people. In after years, no one was quicker to discern the attractive qualities of Russian music, nor more assiduous in its propagation than Franz Liszt.
"In the memoirs of contemporary Russian writers there are many interesting references to Liszt's first appearance in Petersburg. Not only do these reminiscences show the extraordinary glamour and interest which invested the personality of the master; they throw some light upon social life in Russia during the first half of the century.
"The brilliant audience which flocked to the Salle de la Noblesse to hear Liszt, numbered no greater enthusiasts than the two young students of the School of Jurisprudence, Stassov and Serov. Both were destined to attain celebrity in after-life; the former as a great critic, and the chief upholder of national art; the latter, as the composer of at least one popular opera, and the leading exponent of the Wagnerian doctrines in Russia. Stassov's reminiscences are highly picturesque. We seem actually to see the familiar figure of the pianist as he entered the magnificent Hall of the Nobility, leaning on the arm of Count Bielgorsky, an "elderly Adonis" and typical dandy of the forties. Bielgorsky was somewhat inclined to obesity, moved slowly, and stared at the elegant assemblage with prominent, short-sighted eyes. His hair was brushed back and curled, after the model of the Apollo Belvedere, while he wore an enormous white cravat. Liszt also wore a white cravat, and over it the Order of the Golden Spur, bestowed upon him a short time previously by the Pope. He was further adorned with various other orders suspended by chains from the lapels of his dress coat. But that which struck the Russians most was the great mane of fair hair reaching almost to his shoulders. Outside the priesthood, no Russian would have ventured on such a style of hair-dressing. Such dishevelment had been sternly discountenanced since the time of Peter the Great. Stassov, afterward one of the warmest admirers of Liszt, both as man and musician, was not altogether favourably impressed by this first sight of the virtuoso. "He was very thin, stooped a great deal, and though I had read much about his famous 'Florentine profile' and his likeness to Dante, I did not find his face beautiful. I was not pleased with his mania for decking himself with orders, and afterwards I was as little prepossessed by his somewhat affected demeanour to those who came in contact with him."
"After the first hush of intense curiosity, the entire assembly began to discuss Liszt in a subdued murmur. Stassov, who sat close to Glinka and a well-known pianist--Madame Palibin--caught the following conversation. Madame Palibin inquired if Glinka had already heard Liszt. He replied that he had met him the night before at Count Bielgorsky's reception. 'Well, what did you think of him?' Glinka answered, without a moment's hesitation, that sometimes Liszt played divinely--like no one else in the world; at other times atrociously, with exaggerated emphasis, dragging the 'tempi,' and adding--even to the music of Chopin, Beethoven, and Bach--tasteless embellishments of his own. 'I was horribly scandalised,' says Stassov. 'What! Did our "mediocre" Russian musician' (this was Stassov's first sight of Glinka, and a short time before the appearance of Russlane and Lioudmilla) 'venture thus to criticise the great genius Liszt, who had turned the heads of all Europe!' Madame Palibin, too, seemed to disapprove of Glinka's criticism, and said laughingly, 'Allons donc, tout cela, ce n'est que rivalité de métier!' Glinka smiled urbanely, shrugged his shoulders, and replied, 'As you please.'
"At this moment Liszt mounted the platform, and, pulling his dog-skin gloves from his shapely white hands, tossed them carelessly on the floor. Then, after acknowledging the thunderous applause--such as had not been heard in Russia for over a century--he seated himself at the piano. There was a silence as though the whole audience had been turned to stone, and Liszt, without any prelude, began the opening bars of the overture to William Tell. Criticism, curiosity, speculation, all were forgotten in the wonderful enchantment of the performance. Among other things, he played his fantasia on Don Juan, his arrangements of Adelaïde, and The Erl King, and wound up the recital with his showy Galop Chromatique.
"'After the concert,' says Stassov, 'Serov and I were like madmen. We scarcely exchanged a word, but hurried home, each to write down his impressions, dreams, and raptures. But we both vowed to keep the anniversary of this day sacred for ever, and never, while life lasted, to forget a single incident of it. We were like men in love, or bewitched. What wonder? Never before had we come face to face with such a gifted, impassioned, almost demoniacal personality as that of Liszt, who seemed alternately to let loose the forces of the whirlwind, or to carry us away on a flood of tenderness, grace, and beauty.'
"Serov felt even more strongly the fascination of Liszt's genius. The same evening he sent to Stassov the following record of his impressions: 'First, let me congratulate you on your initiation into the great mysteries of art, and then--let me think a little. It is two hours since I left the Hall, and I am still beside myself. Where am I? Am I dreaming, or under a spell? Have I indeed heard Liszt? I expected great things from all the accounts I had heard, and still more from a kind of inward conviction--but how far the reality surpassed my expectations! Happy, indeed, are we to be living in 1842, at the same time as such an artist! Fortunate, indeed, that we have been privileged to hear him! I am gushing a great deal--too much for me, but I cannot contain myself. Bear with me in this lyrical crisis until I can express myself calmly.... What a festival it has been! How different everything looks in God's world to-day! And all this is the work of one man and his playing! What a power is music! I cannot collect my thoughts--my whole being seems in a state of abnormal tension, of confused rapture!'
"Do we experience this exaltation nowadays? I think not. Rarely do we partake of the insane root. Are there no more enchanters like Liszt? Or has the capacity of such enthusiasm and expansion passed away for ever with the white stocks, the 'coiffure à l'Apollon Belvédère' and the frank emotionalism of the early Victorian period?"
LISZT IN ENGLAND
"The visits of great musicians to our shores have furnished much interesting material to the musical historian," wrote the _Musical Times_. "Those of Mozart and Haydn, for instance, have been fully and ably treated by the late Carl Ferdinand Pohl, in two volumes which have never been translated, as they deserve to be, into the English language. No less interesting are the sojournings in London and the provinces of Spohr, Weber, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Berlioz, Verdi, and Wagner. 'The King of Pianists' has not hitherto received the attention due to him in this respect, and the following chit-chat upon his English experiences is offered as a small contribution to the existing biographical information concerning a great man.
"Franz was a boy of twelve years of age, when he made his first appearance in London in the year 1824. At that time Rossini shone as the bright particular star in the London musical firmament. The composer of Il Barbiere actually gave concerts. 'Persons desirous of obtaining tickets are requested to send their names to Signor Rossini, 90, Quadrant [Regent Street], 'so the advertisements stated. It was therefore thought desirable to postpone the appearance of the little Hungarian pianist until after Rossini had finished his music-makings.
"The first appearance of Liszt in England was of a semi-private nature. On June 5, 1824, the Annual Festival of the Royal Society of Musicians took place. The account of the dinner given in the _Morning Post_ contains the following information:
"'Master Liszt (a youth from Hungary) performed on a Grand Pianoforte with an improved action, invented by Sebastian Erard, the celebrated Harp-maker, of very great power and brilliancy of tone.
"'To do justice to the performance of Master Liszt is totally out of our power; his execution, taste, expression, genius, and wonderful extemporary playing, defy any written description. He must be heard to be duly appreciated.'
"Among those who heard Master Liszt was a certain Master Wesley (Samuel Sebastian of that ilk), who, as a Chapel Royal Chorister, took part in the glees sung at that festive board. The _Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review_ of 1824 (p. 241) thus referred to the young pianist's performance:
"'We heard this youth first at the dinner of the Royal Society of Musicians, where he extemporised for about twenty minutes before that judgmatical audience of professors and their friends.'
"The announcement of Liszt's concert appeared in the _Morning Post_ in these terms:
"'NEW ARGYLL ROOMS
"'Master Liszt, aged twelve years, a native of Hungary ... respectfully informs the Nobility, Gentry, and the Public in general, that his Benefit Concert will take place this evening, June 21, 1824, to commence at half-past 8 precisely, when he will perform on Sebastian Erard's new patent Grand Pianoforte, a Concerto by Hummel, New variations by Winkhler, and play extempore on a written Thema, which Master Liszt will request any person of the company to give him....
"'Leader, Mr. Mori. Conductor, Sir George Smart. Tickets, half-a-guinea each, to be had of Master Liszt, 18, Great Marlborough Street.'
"In an account of the concert the _Morning Post_ said: 'Notwithstanding the _contrary motions_ which occurred on Monday night of Pasta's benefit and a Grand Rout given by Prince Leopold, there was a numerous attendance.' The musicians present included Clementi, J. B. Cramer, Ries, Neate, Kalkbrenner, and Cipriani Potter, all of whom 'rewarded Master Liszt with repeated _bravos_.' The programme included an air with variations by Czerny, played by Liszt, who also took part in Di Tanti Palpiti, performed 'as a concertante with Signor Vimercati on his little mandolin with uncommon spirit.' The remainder of the _Morning Post_ notice may be quoted in full:
"'Sir G. Smart (who conducted the Concert) invited any person in the company to oblige Master Liszt with a Thema, on which he would work (as the phrase is) extemporaneously. Here an interesting pause took place; at length a lady named Zitti, Zitti. The little fellow, though not very well acquainted with the air, sat down and roved about the instrument, occasionally touching a few bars of the melody, then taking it as a subject for a transient fugue; but the best part of this performance was that wherein he introduced the air with his right hand, while the left swept the keys chromatically; then he crossed over his right hand, played the subject with the left, while the right hand descended by semi-tones to the bottom of the instrument! It is needless to add, that his efforts were crowned with the most brilliant success.'
"Liszt took part in two grand miscellaneous concerts given at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, on the 2d and 4th of August, the other chief attraction being The Infant Lyra, a prodigy harpist '_not_ four years old,' and nine years younger than the juvenile Hungarian pianist. The programme included 'an extempore fantasia on Erard's new patent grand pianoforte of seven octaves by Master Liszt, who will respectfully request a written thema from any person present.' The advertisement of the second concert included the following:
"'Master Liszt being about to return to the Continent where he is eagerly expected in consequence of his astonishing talents, and the Infant Lyra being on his way to London, the only opportunity which can occur for the inhabitants of Manchester to hear them has been seized by Mr. Ward; and to afford every possible advantage to the Voices and Instruments, he has so constructed the Orchestra, that the Harp, and Piano-Forte will be satisfactorily heard in every part of the house.'
"The young gentleman was honoured with a 'command' to perform before King George the Fourth at Windsor Castle. In the words of the _Windsor Express_ of July 31, 1824:
"'On Thursday evening, young Lizt (_sic_), the celebrated juvenile performer on the pianoforte, was introduced to the King at Windsor by Prince Esterhazy. In the course of the evening he played several pieces of Handel's and Mozart's upon the piano, which he executed in a style to draw forth the plaudits of His Majesty and the company present.'
"In the following year (1825), Master Liszt paid his second visit to England and again appeared in Manchester.
"At his third visit (in 1827), he made the acquaintance of the late Charles Salaman, two years his senior, who heard Liszt play Hummel's Concerto. In his pleasantly-written recollections of pianists of the past (_Blackwood's Magazine_, September, 1901), Mr. Salaman says:
"'Very shortly afterwards--just before Liszt's morning concert, for which my father had purchased tickets from his father--we became acquainted. I visited him and his father at their lodgings in Frith Street, Soho, and young Liszt came to early family dinner at my home. He was a very charmingly natural and unaffected boy, and I have never forgotten his joyful exclamation, 'Oh, gooseberry pie!' when his favourite dish was put upon the table. We had a good deal of music together on that memorable afternoon, reading several duets. Liszt played some of his recently published Etudes, Op. 6, a copy of which he gave me, and in which he wrote specially for me an amended version of the sixth study, Molto agitato.'
"Here is the programme of the morning concert above referred to:
NEW ARGYLL ROOMS
MASTER LISZT
Has the honour to inform the Nobility, Gentry, and his Friends, that his MORNING CONCERT will take place at the above rooms on SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1827