Chapter 20

In a letter from Berlioz to Liszt, the writer gives us a vivid idea of the great virtuoso's playing and its effects. Berlioz is complaining of the difficulties which hamper the giving of orchestral concerts. After rehearsing his mishaps, he says: "After all, of what use is such information to you? You can say with confidence, changing the mot of Louis XIV, '_L'orchestre, c'est moi; le chour, c'est moi; le chef c'est encore moi_.' My piano-forte sings, dreams, explodes, resounds; it defies the flight of the most skillful forms; it has, like the orchestra, its brazen harmonies; like it, and without the least preparation, it can give to the evening breeze its cloud of fairy chords and vague melodies. I need neither theatre, nor box scene, nor much staging. I have not to tire myself out at long rehearsals. I want neither a hundred, fifty, nor twenty players. I do not even need any music. A grand hall, a grand pianoforte, and I am master of a grand audience. I show myself and am applauded; my memory awakens, dazzling fantasies grow beneath my fingers. Enthusiastic acclamations answer them. I sing Schubert's "Ave Maria," or Beethoven's "Adelaida" on the piano, and all hearts tend toward me, all breasts hold their breath.... Then come luminous bombs, the banquet of this grand firework, and the cries of the public, and the flowers and the crowns that rain around the priest of harmony, shuddering on his tripod; and the young beauties, who, all in tears, in their divine confusion kiss the hem of his cloak; and the sincere homage drawn from serious minds and the feverish applause torn from many; the lofty brows that bow down, and the narrow hearts, marveling to find themselves expanding '.... It is a dream, one of those golden dreams one has when one is called Liszt or Paganini."

That such a man as this, brilliant in wit, extravagant in habit and opinion, courted for his personal fascination by every one greatest in rank and choicest in intellect from his prodigious youth to his ripe manhood, should suddenly cease from display at the moment when his popularity was at its highest, when no rival was in being, is a remarkable trait in Dr. Franz Liszt's remarkable life. But this he did in 1849, by settling in Weimar as conductor of the court theatre, his age then being thirty-eight years.

V.

Liszt closed his career as a virtuoso, and accepted a permanent engagement at Weimar, with the distinct purpose of becoming identified with the new school of music which was beginning to express itself so remarkably through Richard Wagner. His new position enabled him to bring works before the world which would otherwise have had but little chance of seeing the light of day, and he rapidly produced at brief intervals eleven works, either for the first time, or else revived from what had seemed a dead failure. Among these works were "Lohengrin," "Rienzi," and "Tannhâuser" by Wagner, "Benvenuto Cellini" by Berlioz, and Schumann's "Genoveva," and music to Byron's "Manfred." Liszt's new departure and the extraordinary band of artists he drew around him attracted the attention of the world of music, and Weimar became a great musical center, even as in the days of Goethe it had been a visiting shrine for the literary pilgrims of Europe. Thus a nucleus of bold and enthusiastic musicians was formed whose mission it was to preach the gospel of the new musical faith.

Richard Wagner says that, after the revolution of 1849, when he was compelled to fly for his life, he was thoroughly disheartened as an artist, and that all thought of musical creativeness was dead within him. From this stagnation he was rescued by a friend, and that friend was Franz Liszt. Let us tell the story in Wagner's own words:

"I met Liszt for the first time during my earliest stay in Paris, at a period when I had renounced the hope, nay, even a wish of a Paris reputation, and, indeed, was in a state of internal revolt against the artistic life which I found there. At our meeting he struck me as the most perfect contrast to my own being and situation. In this world into which it had been my desire to fly from my narrow circumstances, Liszt had grown up from his earliest age so as to be the object of general love and admiration at a time when I was repulsed by general coldness and want of sympathy. In consequence, I looked upon him with suspicion. I had no opportunity of disclosing my being and working to him, and therefore the reception I met with on his part was of a superficial kind, as was indeed natural in a man to whom every day the most divergent impressions claimed access. But I was not in a mood to look with unprejudiced eyes for the natural cause of this behavior, which, though friendly and obliging in itself, could not but wound me in the then state of my mind. I never repeated my first call on Liszt, and, without knowing or even wishing to know him, I was prone to look on him as strange and adverse to my nature. My repeated expression of this feeling was afterward told to him, just at the time when my "Rienzi" at Dresden was attracting general attention. He was surprised to find himself misunderstood with such violence by a man whom he had scarcely known, and whose acquaintance now seemed not without value to him. I am still moved when I think of the repeated and eager attempts he made to change my opinion of him, even before he knew any of my works. He acted not from any artistic sympathy, but led by the purely human wish of discontinuing a casual disharmony between himself and another being; perhaps he also felt an infinitely tender misgiving of having really hurt me unconsciously. He who knows the selfishness and terrible insensibility of our social life, and especially of the relations of modern artists to each other, can not be struck with wonder, nay, delight, with the treatment I received from this remarkable man.... At Weimar I saw him for the last time, when I was resting for a few days in Thuringia, uncertain whether the threatening persecution would compel me to continue my flight from Germany. The very day when my personal danger became a certainty, I saw Liszt conducting a rehearsal of my 'Tannhouser,' and was astonished at recognizing my second self in his achievement. What I had felt in inventing this music, he felt in performing it; what I had wanted to express in writing it down, he expressed in making it sound. Strange to say, through the love of this rarest friend, I gained, at the very moment of becoming homeless, a real home for my art which I had hitherto longed for and sought for in the wrong place.... At the end of my last stay in Paris, when, ill, miserable, and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on the score of my 'Lohengrin,' which I had totally forgotten. Suddenly I felt something like compassion that this music should never sound from off the death-pale paper. Two words I wrote to Liszt; the answer was that preparation was being made for the performance on the grandest scale which the limited means of Weimar permitted. Everything that man or circumstances could do was done to make the work understood.... Errors and misconceptions impeded the desired success. What was to be done to supply what was wanted, so as to further the true understanding on all sides and, with it, the ultimate success of the work? Liszt saw it at once, and did it. He gave to the public his own impression of the work in a manner the convincing eloquence and overpowering efficacy of which remain unequaled. Success was his reward, and with this success he now approaches me, saying, 'Behold, we have come so far! Now create us a new work, that we may go still farther.'"

Liszt remained at Weimar for ten years, when he resigned his place on account of certain narrow jealousies and opposition offered to his plans. Since 1859 he has lived at Weimar, Pesth, and Rome, always the center of a circle of pupils and admirers, and, though no longer occupying an active place in the world, full of unselfish devotion to the true interests of music and musicians. In 1868 he took minor orders in the Roman priesthood. Since his early youth Liszt had been the subject of strong paroxysms of religious feeling, which more than once had nearly carried him into monastic life, and thus his brilliant career would have been lost to the world and to art. After he had gained every reward that can be lavished on genius, and tasted to the very dregs the wine of human happiness, so far as that can come of a splendid prosperity and the adoration of the musical world for nearly half a century, a sudden revulsion seems to have recalled again to the surface that profound religious passion which the glory and pleasure of his busy life had never entirely suppressed. It was by no means astonishing to those who knew Liszt's life best that he should have taken holy orders.

Abbé Liszt lives a portion of each year with the Prince-Cardinal Hohenlohe, in the well-known Villa d'Esté, near Rome, a château with whose history much romance is interwoven. He is said to be very zealous in his religious devotions, and to spend much time in reading and composing. He rarely touches the piano, unless inspired by the presence of visitors whom he thoroughly likes, and even in such cases less for his own pleasure than for the gratification of his friends. Even his intimate friends would hardly venture to ask Liszt to play. His summer months are divided between Pesth and Weimar, where his advent always makes a glad commotion among the artistic circles of these respective cities. Of the various pupils who have been formed by Liszt, Hans von Bulow, who married his daughter Cosima, is the most distinguished, and shares with Rubenstein the honor of being the first of European pianists, now that Liszt has for so long a time withdrawn himself from the field of competition.

VI.

Liszt has been a very industrious and prolific writer, his works numbering thirty-one compositions for the orchestra; seven for the piano-forte and orchestra; two for piano and violin; nine for the organ; thirteen masses, psalms, and other sacred music; two oratorios; fifteen cantatas and chorals; sixty-three songs; and one hundred and seventy-nine works for the piano-forte proper. The bulk of these compositions, the most important of them at least, were produced in the first forty years of his life, and testify to enormous energy and capacity for work, as they came into being during his active period as a virtuoso. In addition to his musical works, Liszt has shown distinguished talent in letters, and his articles and pamphlets, notably the monographs on Robert Franz, Chopin, and the Music of the Gypsies, indicate that, had he not chosen to devote himself to music, he might have made himself an enviable name in literature.

Perhaps no better characterization of Liszt could be made than to call him the musical Victor Hugo of his age. In both these great men we find the same restless and burning imagination, a quickness of sensibility easily aroused to vehemence, a continual reaching forward toward the new and untried and impatience of the old, the same great versatility, the same unequaled command of all the resources of their respective crafts, and, until within the last twenty years, the same ceaseless fecundity. Of Liszt as a player it is not necessary to speak further. Suffice it that he is acknowledged to have been, while pursuing the path of the virtuoso, not only great, but the greatest in the records of art, with the possible exception of Paganini. To the possession of a technique which united all the best qualities of other players, carrying each a step further, he added a powerful and passionate imagination which illuminated the work before him. Wagner wrote of him: "He who has had frequent opportunities, particularly in a friendly circle, of hearing Liszt play, for instance, Beethoven, must have understood that this was not mere reproduction, but production. The actual point of division between these two things is not so easily determined as most people believe, but so much I have ascertained without a doubt, that, in order to reproduce Beethoven, one must produce with him." It was this quality which made Liszt such a vital interpreter of other composers, as well as such a brilliant performer of his own works. As a composer for the piano Franz Liszt has been accused of sacrificing substantial charm of motive for the creation of the most gigantic technical difficulties, designed for the display of his own skill. This charge is best answered by a study of his transcriptions of songs and symphonies, which, difficult in an extreme degree, are yet rich in no less excess with musical thought and fullness of musical color. He transcribed the "Etudes" of Pa-ganini, it is true, as a sort of "tour deforce", and no one has dared to attempt them in the concert room but himself; but for the most part Liszt's piano-forte writings are full of substance in their being as well as splendid elaboration in their form. This holds good no less of the purely original compositions, like the concertos and "Rhapsodies Hongroises," than of the transcriptions and paraphrases of the _Lied_, the opera, and symphony.

As a composer for the orchestra Liszt has spent the ripest period of his life, and attained a deservedly high rank. His symphonies belong to what has been called, for want of a better name, "programme music," or music which needs the key of the story or legend to explain and justify the composition. This classification may yet be very misleading. Liszt does not, like Berlioz, refer every feature of the music to a distinct event, emotion, or dramatic situation, but concerns himself chiefly with the pictorial and symbolic bearings of his subject. For example, the "Mazeppa" symphony, based on Victor Hugo's poem, gets its significance, not in view of its description of Mazeppa's peril and rescue, but because this famous ride becomes the symbol of man: "_Lie vivant sur la croupe fatale, Genie, ardent Coursier_." The spiritual life of this thought burns with subtile suggestions throughout the whole symphony.

Liszt has not been merely a devoted adherent of the "Music of the Future" as expressed in operatic form, but he has embodied his belief in the close alliance of poetry and music in his symphonies and transcriptions of songs. Anything more pictorial, vivid, descriptive, and passionate can not easily be fancied. It is proper also to say in passing that the composer shows a command over the resources of the orchestra similar to his mastery of the piano, though at times a tendency to violent and strident effects offends the ear. Franz Liszt, take him for all in all, must be regarded as one of the most remarkable men of the last half century, a personality so stalwart, picturesque, and massive as to be not only a landmark in music, but an imposing figure to those not specially characterized by their musical sympathies. His influence on his art has been deep and widespread; his connection with some of the most important movements of the last two generations well marked; and his individuality a fact of commanding force in the art circles of nearly every country of Europe, where art bears any vital connection with social and public life.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's Great Violinists And Pianists, by George T. Ferris