There are but few names in music more interesting than that of Franz
Liszt, the spoiled favorite of Europe for more than half a century, and
without question the greatest piano-forte virtuoso that ever lived. His
life has passed through the sunniest regions of fortune and success,
and from his cradle upward the gods have showered on him their richest
gifts. His career as an artist and musician has been most remarkable,
his personal life full of romance, and his connection with some of
the most vital changes in music which have occurred during the century
interesting and significant. From his first appearance in public, at the
age of twelve, his genius was acknowledged with enthusiasm throughout
the whole republic of art, from Beethoven down to the obscurest
_dilletante_, and it may be asserted that the history of music knows
no instance of success approaching that achieved by the performances
of this great player in every capital of Europe, from Madrid to St.
Petersburg. When he wearied of the fame of the virtuoso, and became
a composer, not only for the piano-forte, but for the orchestra, his
invincible energy soon overcame all difficulties in his path, and he has
lived to see himself accepted as one of the greatest of living musical
thinkers and writers.
The life of Liszt is so crowded with important incidents that it is
difficult to condense into the brief limits of a sketch any fairly
adequate statement of his career. He was born October 22, 1811, in the
village of Raiding, in Hungary, and it is said that his father Adam
Liszt, who was in the service of the Prince Esterhazy, was firmly
convinced that the child would become distinguished on account of the
appearance of a remarkable comet during the year. Adam Liszt himself was
a fine pianist, gifted indeed with a talent which might have made him
eminent had he pursued it. All his ambition and hope, however, centered
in his son, in whom musical genius quickly declared itself; and the
father found teaching this gifted child not only a labor of love, but
a task smoothed by the extraordinary aptness of the pupil. He was
accustomed to say to the young Franz: "My son, you are destined to
realize the glorious ideal that has shone in vain before my youth. In
you that is to reach its fulfillment which I have myself but faintly
conceived. In you shall my genius grow up and bear fruit; I shall renew
my youth in you even after I am laid in the grave." Such prophetic words
recall the vision of the Genoese woman, who foresaw the future greatness
of the little Nicolo Paganini, a genius who resembled in many ways the
phenomenal musical force embodied in Franz Liszt. When the lad was very
young, perhaps not more than six, he read the "Kené" of Chateaubriand,
and it made such an indelible impression on his mind that he in after
years spoke of it as having been one of the most potent influences of
his life, since it stimulated the natural melancholy of his character
when his nature was most flexible and impressible.
At the age of nine he made his first appearance in public at Odenburg,
playing Bies's concerto in three flats, and improvising a fantasia so
full of melodic ideas, striking rhythms, and well-arranged harmony as to
strike the audience with surprise and admiration. Among the hearers was
Prince Esterhazy, who was so pleased with the precocious talent shown
that he put a purse of fifty ducats in the young musician's hand. Soon
after this Adam Liszt went to Pres-burg to live, and several noblemen,
among whom were Prince Esterhazy, and the Counts Amadée and Szapary, all
of them enthusiastic patrons of music, determined to bear the burden of
the boy's musical education. To this end they agreed to allow him six
hundred florins a year for six years. Young Liszt was placed at Vienna
under the tutelage of the celebrated pianist and teacher Czerny, and
soon made such progress that he was able to play such works as those
even of Beethoven and Hummel at first sight. When Liszt did this for
one of Hummel's most difficult concertos, at the rooms of the music
publisher one day, it created a great sensation in Vienna, and he
quickly became one of the lions of the drawing-rooms of the capital.
Czerny himself was so much delighted with the genius of his charge
that he refused to accept the three hundred florins stipulated for his
lessons, saying he was but too well repaid by the success of the pupil.
Though toiling with incessant industry in musical study and practice,
for the boy was working at composition with Salieri and Randhartinger,
as well as the piano-forte with Czerny, he found time to indulge in
those strange, mystical, and fantastic dreams which have molded his
whole life, oscillating between pietistic delirium, wherein he saw
celestial visions and felt the call to a holy life, and the most
voluptuous images and aspirations for earthly pleasures. Franz Liszt
at this early age had a sensibility so delicate, and an imagination so
quickly kindled, that he himself tells us no one can guess the extremes
of ecstasy and despair through which he alternately passed. These
spiritual experiences were perhaps fed by the mysticism of Jacob Boehme,
whose works came into his possession, and furnished a most delusive and
dangerous guide for the young enthusiast's fancy. But, dream and suffer
as he might, nothing was allowed to quench the ardor of his musical
studies.
Eighteen months were passed in diligent labor under the guidance of the
masters, who found teaching almost unnecessary, as the wonderful lad
needed but a hint to work out for himself the most difficult problems,
and he toiled so incessantly that he often became conscious of the
change of day into night only by the failure of the light and the coming
of the candles. Finally, by advice of Salieri, after eighteen months of
labor, he determined to appear in concert in Vienna. On this occasion
the audience was composed of the most distinguished people of Vienna,
drawn thither to hear the young musical wonder of whom every one talked.
Among the hearers was Beethoven, who after the concert gave the proud
boy the most cordial praise, and prophesied a great career for him.
The elder Liszt was already in Paris, and it was determined that
Franz should go to that city, to avail himself of the instructions of
Cherubini, at the Conservatoire, who as a teacher of counterpoint had
no equal in Europe. The Prince Metternich sent letters of the warmest
recommendation, but they were of no avail, for Cherubini, who was
singularly whimsical and obstinate in his notions, refused to accept
the new candidate, on account of the rule of the Conservatoire excluding
pupils of foreign birth, a plea which the famous director did not
hesitate to break when he chose. Franz, however, continued his studies
under Reicha and Paer, and, while the gates of the Conservatoire were
closed, all the salons of Paris opened to receive him. Everywhere he was
feted, courted, caressed. This fair-haired, blue-eyed lad, with the seal
of genius burning on his face, had made the social world mad over him.
The young adventurer was sailing in a treacherous channel, full of
dangerous reefs. Would he, in the homage paid to him, an unmatured
youth, by scholars, artists, wealth, beauty, and rank, forgot in mere
self-love and vanity his high obligations to his art and the sincere
devotion which alone could wrest from art its richest guerdon? This
problem seems to have troubled his father, for he determined to take his
young Franz away from the palace of Circe. The boy had already made an
attempt at composition in the shape of an operetta, in one act, "Don
Sanche," which was very well received at the Académie Royale. Adolph
Nourrit, the great singer, had led the young composer on the stage,
where he was received with thunders of applause by the audience, and
was embraced with transport by Rudolph Kreutzer, the director of the
orchestra.
Adam Liszt and his son went to England, and spent about six months in
giving concerts in London and other cities. Franz was less than
fourteen years old, but the pale, fragile, slender boy had, in the deep
melancholy which stamped the noble outline of his face, an appearance
of maturity that belied his years. English audiences everywhere received
him with admiration, but he seemed to have lost all zest for the
intoxicating wine of public favor. A profound gloom stole over him,
and we even hear of hints at an attempt to commit suicide. Adam Liszt
attributed it to the sad English climate, which Hein-rich Heine cursed
with such unlimited bitterness, and took his boy back again to sunnier
France. But the dejection darkened and deepened, threatening even
to pass into epilepsy. It assumed the form of religious enthusiasm,
alternating with fits of remorse as of one who had committed the
unpardonable sin, and sometimes expressed itself in a species of frenzy
for the monastic life. These strange experiences alarmed the father,
and, in obedience to medical advice, he took the ailing, half-hysterical
lad to Boulogne-sur-Mer, for sea-bathing.