Franz Liszt - free ebook by James Huneker

FRANZ LISZT

BY JAMES HUNEKER WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1911 COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 1911 TO HENRY T. FINCK " Génie oblige. "— F. Liszt...

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I

Franz Liszt remarked to a disciple of his: "Once Liszt helped Wagner, but who now will help Liszt?" This was said in 1874, when Liszt was well advanced in years, when his fame as piano virtuoso and his name as composer were wellnigh eclipsed by the growing glory of Wagner—truly a glory he had helped to create. In youth, an Orpheus pursued by the musical Maenads of Europe, in old age Liszt was a Merlin dealing in white magic, still followed by the Viviens. The story of his career is as romantic a

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II

Liszt's Birthplace, Raiding The year 1811 was the year of the great comet. Its wine is said to have been of a richness; some well-known men were born, beginning with Thackeray and John Bright; Napoleon's son, the unhappy Duc de Reichstadt, first saw the light that year, as did Jules Dupré, Théophile Gautier, and Franz Liszt. There will be no disputes concerning the date of his birth, October 22d, as was the case with Chopin. His ancestors, according to a lengthy family register, were originally

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III

"While remaining itself obscure," wrote George Moore of L'Education Sentimentale , by Flaubert, "this novel has given birth to a numerous literature. The Rougon-Macquart series is nothing but L'Education Sentimentale re-written into twenty volumes by a prodigious journalist—twenty huge balloons which bob about the streets, sometimes getting clear of the housetops. Maupassant cut it into numberless walking-sticks; Goncourt took the descriptive passages and turned them into Passy rhapsodies. The b

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I LISZT AND THE LADIES

The feminine friendships of Franz Liszt gained for him as much notoriety as his music making. To the average public he was a compound of Casanova, Byron and Goethe, and to this mixture could have been added the name of Stendhal. Liszt's love affairs, Liszt's children, Liszt's perilous escapes from daggers, pistols and poisons were the subjects of conversation in Europe three-quarters of a century ago, as earlier Byron was both hero and black-sheep in the current gossip of his time. And as Liszt

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II A FAMOUS FRIENDSHIP

The perennial interest of the world in the friendships of famous men and women is proved by the never-ceasing publication of books concerning them. Of George Sand and her lovers how much has been written. George Eliot and Lewes, Madame de Récamier and Chateaubriand, Goethe and his affinities, Chopin and George Sand, Liszt and the Countess d'Agoult, Wagner and Mathilde—a voluminous index might be made of the classic and romantic liaisons that have excited curiosity from the time when the memory o

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III LATER BIOGRAPHERS

The future bibliographer of Liszt literature has a heavy task in store for him, for books about the great Hungarian composer are multiplying apace. Liszt the dazzling virtuoso has long been a theme with variations, and is, we suspect, a theme nearly exhausted; but Liszt as tone poet, Liszt as song writer, as composer for the pianoforte, as littérateur , the man, the wickedest of Don Juans, the ecclesiastic—these and a dozen other studies of the most protean musician of the last century have been

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I

When Franz Liszt nearly three quarters of a century ago made some suggestions to the Erard piano manufacturers on the score of increased sonority in their instruments, he sounded the tocsin of realism. It had been foreshadowed in Clementi's Gradus, and its intellectual resultant, the Beethoven sonata, but the material side had been hardly realised. Chopin, who sang the swan-song of idealism in surpassingly sweet tones, was by nature unfitted to wrestle with the problem. The arpeggio principle ha

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II

"The remembrance of his playing consoles me for being no longer young." This sentence, charmingly phrased, as it is charming in sentiment, could have been written by no other than Camille Saint-Saëns. He refers to Liszt, and he is perhaps better qualified to speak of Liszt than most musicians or critics. His adoration is perfectly comprehensible; to him Liszt is the protagonist of the school that threw off the fetters of the classical form (only to hamper itself with the extravagances of the rom

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III

I possess, and value as a curiosity, a copy of Liszt's Etudes, Opus 1. The edition is rare and the plates have been destroyed. Written when Liszt was fresh from the tutelage of Carl Czerny, they show decided traces of his schooling. They are not difficult for fingers inured to modern methods. When I first bought them I knew not the Etudes d'Execution Transcendentale , and when I encountered the latter I exclaimed at the composer's cleverness. The Hungarian has taken his opus 1 and dressed it up

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I ROME

The Roman candle has attracted many spiritual moths. Goethe, Humboldt, Platen, Winckelmann, Thorwaldsen, Gregorovius and Liszt—to mention only the first at hand—fluttered to Rome and ascribe to it much of their finer productivity. For Franz Liszt it was a loadstone of double power—the ideality of the place attracted him and its religion anchored his spiritual restlessness. Liszt liked a broad soul-margin to his life. Heine touched on this side of Liszt's character when he wrote of him: "Speculat

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II

Immediately after Liszt's separation from the Countess d'Agoult began a period of restless activity for him. The eight nomadic years during which he wandered up and down Europe, playing constantly in public, are the ones in which his virtuosity flourished. To-day we are inclined to mock at the mere mention of Liszt the virtuoso—we have heard far too much of his achievements, achievements behind which the real Liszt has become a warped and unrecognizable personality. But it was a remarkable tour

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THE BERG SYMPHONY

" Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne "—or, as it is more familiarly known, " Die Bergsymphonie "—is ranked among the earliest of Liszt's symphonic works. The first sketches of this symphonic poem were made as early as 1833-35, but they were not orchestrated until 1849, and the composition had its first hearing in Weimar in 1853. A German enthusiast says this work is the first towering peak of a mountain chain, and that here already—in the first of the list of Symphonic Poems—the mastery of the comp

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TASSO

For the Weimar centennial anniversary of Goethe's birth, August 28, 1849, Liszt composed his Tasso: Lamento e Trionfo . And this stands second in order of his symphonic poems. At the Weimar festival the work preceded Goethe's Tasso, being played as an overture. When the first part of this Tasso symphonic poem was written—there are two parts, as you will see later—Liszt was not yet bold as a symphonic poet, for he thought it necessary to define the meaning of his work in words and thus explain hi

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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

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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 slend

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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

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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 1

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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 rejoicin

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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

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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 dre

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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

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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 Bo

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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 inf

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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. The dedications remain the same

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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, th

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PIANO AND ORCHESTRA

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 them

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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: "Lis

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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 ineffecti

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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,

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THE ETUDES

The late Edward Dannreuther, who changed his opinion of Liszt, wrote a short introduction to his edition of the Transcendental Studies (Augener &amp; 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 wr

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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 hi

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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 amn

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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. Kalk

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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 live

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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

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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

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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 t

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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. Lisz

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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

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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 a

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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 impre

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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,

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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 Ph

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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 pr

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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 greet

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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 t

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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 th

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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 a

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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 mar

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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 priva

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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,

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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, co

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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-hear

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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

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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 e

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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 o

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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

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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-Genera

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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 Pianist

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EDVARD GRIEG

Grieg himself played his piano concerto at a Leipsic Gewandhaus concert in 1879, but it had already been heard in the same hall as early as February 22, 1872, when Miss Erika Lie played it, and the work was announced as new and "in manuscript." Before this time Grieg had shown the concerto to Liszt. The story is told in a letter of Grieg quoted in Henry T. Finck's biography of the composer: "I had fortunately just received the manuscript of my pianoforte concerto from Leipsic, and took it with m

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RICHARD HOFFMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS

"I think it was in 1840 or 1841, in Manchester, that I first heard Liszt, then a young man of twenty-eight," wrote the late Richard Hoffman in Scribner's Magazine . "At that time he played only bravura piano compositions, such as the Hexameron and Hungarian March of Schubert, in C minor, arranged by himself. I recollect his curious appearance, his tall, lank figure, buttoned up in a frock coat, very much embroidered with braid, and his long, light hair brushed straight down below his collar. He

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HENRY REEVES

In Henry Reeves's biography I found this about Liszt: "Liszt had already played a great fantasia of his own, and Beethoven's Twenty-seventh Sonata in the former part of the concert. After this latter piece he gasped with emotion as I took his hand and thanked him for the divine energy he had shed forth. At last I managed to pierce the crowd, and I sat in the orchestra before the Duchesse de Rauzan's box, talking to her Grace and Madame de Circourt, who was there. My chair was on the same board a

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LISZT'S CONVERSION

"Have you read the story of Liszt's conversion as told by Emile Bergerat in Le Livre de Caliban ?" asks Philip Hale. "I do not remember to have seen it in English, and in the dearth of musical news the story may amuse. I shall not attempt to translate it literally, or even English it with a watchful eye on Bergerat's individuality. This is a paraphrase, not even a pale, literal translation of a brilliant original. The Conversion of The Abbé Liszt "And so he will not play any more. "Well, a piani

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I WEIMAR

After rambling over Weimar and burrowing in the Liszt museum, one feels tempted to pronounce Liszt the happiest of composers, as Yeats calls William Morris the happiest poet. A career without parallel, a victorious general at the head of his ivory army; a lodestone for men and women; a poet, diplomat, ecclesiastic, man of the world, with the sunny nature of a child, loved by all, envious of no one—surely the fates forgot to spin evil threads at the cradle of Franz Liszt. And he was not a happy m

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II BUDAPEST

My first evening in Budapest was a cascade of surprises. The ride down from Vienna is not cheery until the cathedral and palace of the primate is reached, at Gran, a superb edifice, challenging the valley of the Danube. Interminable prairies, recalling the traits of our Western country, swam around the busy little train until this residence of the spiritual lord of Hungary was passed. After that the scenery as far as Orsova, Belgrade, and the Iron Gates is legendary in its beauty. To hear the re

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III ROME

The pianoforte virtuoso, Richard Burmeister, and one of Liszt's genuine "pet" pupils, advised me to look at Liszt's hotel in the Vicolo Alibert, Rome. It is still there, an old-fashioned place, Hotel Alibert, up an alley-like street off the Via Babuino, near the Piazza del Popolo. But it is shorn of its interest for melomaniacs, as the view commanding the Pincio no longer exists. One night sufficed me, though the manager smilingly assured me that he could show the room wherein Liszt slept and st

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TAUSIG

Over a quarter of a century has passed since the death of Karl Tausig, a time long enough to dim the glory of the mere virtuoso. Many are still living who have heard him play, and can recall the deep impressions which his performances made on his hearers. Whoever not only knew Karl Tausig at the piano, but had studied his genuinely artistic nature, still retains a living image of him. He stands before us in all his youth, for he died early, before he had reached the middle point of life; he coun

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ROSENTHAL

"You, I presume, do not wish for biographical details—of my appearances as a boy in Vienna and later in St. Petersburg, of my early studies with Joseffy and later with Liszt," asked the great virtuoso. "You would like to hear something about Liszt? As a man or as an artist? You know I was with him ten years, and can flatter myself that I have known him intimately. As a man, I can well say I have never met any one so good and noble as he. Every one knows of his ever-ready helpfulness toward strug

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ARTHUR FRIEDHEIM

Arthur Friedheim was born of German parentage in St. Petersburg, October 26, 1859. He lost his father in early youth, but was carefully reared by an excellent mother. His musical studies were begun in his eighth year, and his progress was so rapid that he was enabled to make his artistic début before the St. Petersburg public in the following year by playing Field's A-flat major concerto. He created a still greater sensation, however, after another twelve months had elapsed, with his performance

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JOSEFFY

Descent counts for much in matters artistic as well as in the breeding of racehorses. "Tell me who the master is and I will describe for you the pupil," cry some theorists who might be called extremists. How many to-day know the name of Anton Rubinstein's master? Yet the pedagogue Villoing laid the foundation of the great Russian pianist's musical education, an education completed by the genial Franz Liszt. In the case, however, of Rafael Joseffy he was a famous pupil of a famous master. There a

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OSCAR BERINGER

"To Franz Liszt, who towers high above all his predecessors, must be given pride of place. "In 1870 I had the good fortune to go with Tausig to the Beethoven Festival held at Weimar by the Allgemeiner Musik Verein , and there I met Liszt for the first time. I had the opportunity of learning to know him from every point of view, as pianist, conductor, composer, and, in his private capacity, as a man—and every aspect seemed to me equally magnificent. "His remarkable personality had an indescribabl

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CLARA NOVELLO

There are interesting anecdotes of great musicians. Rossini was her intimate friend and adviser for years. In Paris she knew Chopin, who came to the house often and would only play for them if " la petite Clara would recite Peter Piper Picked." She remembered waltzing to his and Thalberg's playing. Later, when she was studying in Milan and knew Liszt, she sang at one of his concerts when no one else would do so, because he had offended the Milanese by a pungent newspaper article. He gave her cou

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BIZET

We are not accustomed to thinking of the composer of Carmen as a pianist, but the following anecdote from the London Musical Standard throws new light upon the subject: "It may not be generally known that the French composer, Bizet, possessed to a very high degree two artistic qualities: a brilliant technique and an extraordinary skill in score reading. On various occasions he gave proof of this great ability. One of the most interesting is the following: "Bizet's fellow-countryman, the composer

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SGAMBATI

"One of the pioneers of classical music in Italy, and one of its most talented composers of chamber music and in symphonic forms, is Giovanni Sgambati, born in Rome, May 18, 1843," writes Edward Burlingame Hill, in the Etude . "His father was a lawyer; his mother, an Englishwoman, was the daughter of Joseph Gott, the English sculptor. There had been some idea of making a lawyer of young Sgambati, but the intensity of his interest in music and his obvious talent precluded the idea of any other ca

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BACHE

Walter Bache died April, 1888, and the London Figaro gives the following sketch of this artist: "The awfully sudden death of poor Walter Bache on Monday night sent a shock through the whole of the London world of music. Some of his most intimate friends were present at the final popular concert on that evening, but none of them knew anything at all of the death. We have it on the authority of a member of his family that not even those whom he held most dear were in the slightest degree aware tha

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RUBINSTEIN

"Antoine Rubinstein, of whom no one in Paris had ever heard before, for this great artist had the coquettish temerity to disdain the assistance of the press, and no advance notice, none at all, you understand, had announced his apparition," has written Saint-Saëns, "made his appearance in his concerto in G major, with orchestra, in the lovely Herz concert room, so novel in construction and so elegant in aspect, of which one can no more avail himself to-day. Useless to say, there was not a single

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VIARDOT-GARCIA

With the exception of the Bachs, who were noted musicians for six generations, and the Viennese branch of the Strauss dynasty, there is perhaps no musical family that affords a more interesting illustration of heredity in a special talent than the Garcias. The elder Garcia, who was born in 1775, was not only a great tenor and teacher, but a prolific composer of operas. His two famous daughters also became composers, as well as singers. Madame Viardot (who died in 1910) was so lucky as to be able

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LISZT AS A FREEMASON

Memorial tablets have been placed on each of the two houses at Weimar in which Liszt used to reside. He first lived at the Altenburg and later on at the Hofgärtnerei . The act of piety was undertaken by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein , of which organisation Liszt was the president up to the time of his death. It has been asserted that Liszt was a Freemason after his consecration as a priest. This has been contradicted, but the following from the Freemason's Journal appears to settle the q

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A LISZT SON?

A letter from Paris to the Vienna Monday Review says that in the salon of the Champ de Mars a picture is on exhibition, called Italian Bagpiper. While its artistic points are hardly worthy of special mention the striking resemblance of this work by Michael Vallet to the facial traits of Franz Liszt puzzled the jury not a little, and will doubtless create much interest among the visitors of the gallery. The model for the subject was a boat-hand of Genoa named Angelo Giocati-Buonaventi, fifty-six

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LISZT ON VIRTUOSITY

In these days of virtuosity let us hear what Liszt, the master of all virtuosi, says: "What, then, makes the virtuoso on an instrument?" asks the master, and we gain on this occasion the most comprehensive and the most decisive information on the point ourselves. Is he really a mere spiritless machine? Do his hands only attend to the office of a double winch on a street organ? Has he to dispense with his brain and with his feelings in his mechanical execution of the prescribed performance? Has h

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LISZT'S FAVOURITE PIANO

LETTER FROM DR. FRANZ LISZT " Weimar , November, 1883 . " Mr. Steinway : " Most Esteemed Sir : Again I owe you many and special thanks. The new Steinway Grand is a glorious masterpiece in power, sonority, singing quality, and perfect harmonic effects, affording delight even to my old piano-weary fingers. Ever continuing success remains a beautiful attribute of the world-renowned firm of Steinway &amp; Sons. In your letter, highly esteemed sir, you mention some new features in the Grand Piano

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LISZT AS TEACHER

"While Liszt has been immensely written about as pianist and composer, sufficient stress has not been laid upon what the world owes him as a teacher of pianoforte playing," writes Amy Fay. "During his life-time Liszt despised the name of 'piano-teacher,' and never suffered himself to be regarded as such. 'I am no Professeur du Piano ,' he scornfully remarked one day in the class at Weimar, and if any one approached him as a 'teacher' he instantly put the unfortunate offender outside of his door.

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VON BÜLOW CRITICISES

"I look forward eagerly," Bülow wrote to a friend, "to your Chopin, that immortal romanticist par excellence, whose mazurkas alone are a monument more enduring than metal. Never will this great, deep, sincere, and at the same time tender and passionate poet become antiquated. On the contrary, as musical culture increases, he will appear in a much brighter light than to-day, when only the popular Chopin is in vogue, whereas the more aristocratic, manly Chopin, the poet of the last two scherzi, th

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WEINGARTNER AND LISZT

Weingartner's reminiscences of Liszt throw many interesting lights on the personality of that great composer and greatest of teachers. The gathering of famous artists at his house are well described, and his own mannerisms excellently portrayed. His playing was always marked by the ripest perfection of touch. He did not incline to the impetuous power of his youthful days, but sat almost without motion before the keyboard. His hands glided quietly over the keys, and produced the warm, magnetic st

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AS ORGAN COMPOSER

Liszt's importance in this field is not overlooked. "In Germany, the land of seriousness, organ music had acquired a character so heavy and so uniformly contrapuntal that, by the middle of last century, almost any decently trained Capellmeister could produce a sonata dull enough to be considered first-rate. There were, doubtless, many protests in the shape of unorthodox works which left no mark; but two great influences, which are the earliest we need notice, came in the shape of Liszt's Fantasi

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LISZT'S TECHNIC

Rudolf Breithaupt thus wrote of the technical elements in Liszt's playing in Die Musik : "What we hear of Liszt's technic in his best years, from 1825 to 1850, resembles a fairy tale. As artists, Liszt and Paganini have almost become legendary personages. In analysing Liszt's command of the piano we find that it consists first and foremost in the revelation of a mighty personality rather than in the achievement of unheard of technical feats. Though his admirers will not believe it, technic has a

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BUSONI

Busoni is preparing a complete edition of Liszt's compositions, to be published by Breitkopf &amp; Härtel. Concerning the studies, which are to appear in three volumes, he says: "These études, a work which occupied Franz Liszt from childhood on up to manhood, we believe should be put at the head of his piano compositions. There are three reasons for this: the first is the fact that the études were the first of his works to be published; the second is that in Liszt's own catalogue of his work

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LISZT AS A PIANOFORTE WRITER

"Nothing is easier than to estimate Liszt the pianist, nothing more difficult than to estimate Liszt the composer. As to Liszt the pianist, old and young, conservatives and progressives, not excepting the keyboard specialists, are perfectly agreed that he was unique, unsurpassed, and unsurpassable," says Professor Niecks. "As to Liszt the composer, on the other hand, opinions differ widely and multifariously—from the attribution of superlative genius to the denial of the least talent. This diver

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SMETANA

Frederick Smetana, the greatest of Bohemian composers, founded in the year 1848 the institute which he conducted for the teaching of the piano in Prague. In this year it was that the composition for piano named Morceaux Caractéristiques , he dedicated to Liszt (which dedication Liszt accepted with the greatest cordiality, writing him a most complimentary letter), was the means of his becoming personally acquainted with Liszt, whom he until this time only knew by report. He obtained for the young

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RIMSKY-KORSAKOFF

"Of all the Slav composers Rimsky-Korsakoff is perhaps the most charming, and as a musician the most remarkable," writes the music-critic of the Mercure de France . "He has not been equalled by any of his compatriots in the art of handling timbres, and in this art the Russian school has been long distinguished. In this respect he is descended directly from Liszt, whose orchestra he adopted and from whom he borrowed many an old effect. His inspiration is sometimes exquisite; the inexhaustible tra

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HIS PORTRAITS

Last Picture of Liszt, 1886, Aged Seventy-five Years Many artists have immortalised "that profile of ivory." They are, Ingres who was a friend of Liszt, and of whom he always had a tender recollection; in his best days it was Kaulbach and Lenbach. William Kaulbach's portrait is celebrated for the grand look; the chivalrous and fine-gentleman character of the artist is expressed in it in a masterly way. Not less remarkable is a marble bust by the famous Bartolini, souvenir of the master's visit t

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IX MODERN PIANOFORTE VIRTUOSI

Artistic pianoforte playing is no longer rare. The once jealously guarded secrets of the masters have become the property of conservatories. Self-playing instruments perform technical miracles, and are valuable inasmuch as they interest a number of persons who would otherwise avoid music as an ineluctable mystery. Furthermore, the unerring ease with which these machines despatch the most appalling difficulties has turned the current toward what is significant in a musical performance: touch, phr

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INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

This book, projected in 1902, was at that time announced as a biography of Liszt. However, a few tentative attacks upon the vast amount of raw material soon convinced me that to write the ideal life of the Hungarian a man must be plentifully endowed with time and patience. I preferred, therefore, to study certain aspects of Liszt's art and character; and as I never heard him play I have summoned here many competent witnesses to my aid. Hence the numerous contradictions and repetitions, arguments

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BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER

Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS PROMENADES of an IMPRESSIONIST $1.50 net Contents : Paul Cézanne—Rops the Etcher—Monticelli—Rodin—Eugene Carrière—Degas—Botticelli—Six Spaniards—Chardin—Black and White—Impressionism—A New Study of Watteau—Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec—Literature and Art—Museum Promenades. "The vivacity of Mr. Huneker's style sometimes tends to conceal the judiciousness of his matter. His justly great reputation as a journalist critic most people would attribute to his salient

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