Farewell to Liszt! German Conservatories and their Methods. Berlin
Again. Liszt and Joachim.
WEIMAR, _September 24, 1873_.
We had our last lesson from Liszt a few days ago, and he leaves Weimar
next week. He was so hurried with engagements the last two times that he
was not able to give us much attention. I played my Rubinstein concerto.
He accompanied me himself on a second piano. We were there about six
o'clock P. M. Liszt was out, but he had left word that if we came we
were to wait. About seven he came in, and the lamps were lit. He was in
an awful humour, and I never saw him so out of spirits. "How is it with
our concerto?" said he to me, for he had told me the time before to send
for the second piano accompaniment, and he would play it with me. I told
him that unfortunately there existed no second piano part. "Then, child,
you've fallen on your head, if you don't know that at least you must
have a second copy of the concerto!" I told him I knew it by heart.
"Oh!" said he, in a mollified tone. So he took my copy and played the
orchestra part which is indicated above the piano part, and I played
without notes. I felt inspired, for the piano I was at was a magnificent
grand that Steinway presented to Liszt only the other day. Liszt was
seated at another grand facing me, and the room was dimly illuminated
by one or two lamps. A few artists were sitting about in the shadow. It
was at the twilight hour, "_l'heure du mystère_," as the poetic Gurickx
used to say, and in short, the occasion was perfect, and couldn't happen
so again. You see we always have our lessons in the afternoon, and it
was a mere chance that it was so late this time. So I felt as if I were
in an electric state. I had studied the piece so much that I felt
perfectly sure of it, and then with Liszt's splendid accompaniment and
his beautiful face to look over to--it was enough to bring out
everything there was in one. If he had only been himself I should have
had nothing more to desire, but he was in one of his bitter, sarcastic
moods. However, I went rushing on to the end--like a torrent plunging
down into darkness, I might say--for it was the end, too, of my lessons
with Liszt!
In answer to your musical questions, I don't know that there is much to
be told about conservatories of which you are not aware. The one in
Stuttgardt is considered the best; and there the pupils are put through
a regular graded method, beginning with learning to hold the hand, and
with the simplest five finger exercises. There are certain things,
studies, etc., which _all_ the scholars have to learn. That was also the
case in Tausig's conservatory. First we had to go through Cramer, then
through the Gradus ad Parnassum, then through Moscheles, then Chopin,
Henselt, Liszt and Rubinstein. I haven't got farther than Chopin,
myself, but when I went to Kullak I studied Czerny's School for
Virtuosen a whole year, which is the book he "swears by." I'm going on
with them this winter. It takes years to pass through them all, but when
you _have_ finished them, you are an artist.
I think myself the "Schule des Virtuosen" is indispensable, much as I
loathe it. First, there is nothing like it for giving you a technique.
It consists of passages, generally about two lines in length, which
Czerny has the face to request you to play from twenty to thirty times
successively. You can imagine at that rate how long it takes you to play
through one page! Tedious to the _last_ degree! But it greatly equalizes
and strengthens the fingers, and makes your execution smooth and
elegant. It teaches you to take your time, or as the Germans call it, it
gives you "_Ruhe_ (repose)," the _grand sine qua non_! You learn to
"play out" your passages ("_aus-spielen_," as Kullak is always saying);
that is, you don't hurry or blur over the last notes, but play clearly
and in strict time to the end of the passage. I saw Lebert, the head of
the Stuttgardt conservatory, here this summer, and had several long
conversations with him, and he told me he considered Bach the best
study, and put the Well-Tempered Clavichord at the foundation of
everything. The Stuttgardters study Bach every day, and I think it a
capital plan myself. I have begun doing it, too. It was a great thing
for me, that quarter of Bach that I took with Mr. Paine in Cambridge,
and was one of your inspirations, when you "builded better than you
knew."--I never _saw_ a person with such an instinct to find out the
right thing as you have! If it hadn't been for that, I should never
have got so familiarized with Bach, or got into the way of studying him
for myself, as I have done a great deal. It is as great for the fingers
as it is "good for the soul." Lenz, in his sketch of Chopin, says that
Chopin told him when he prepared for a concert he never studied his own
compositions at all, but shut himself up and practiced Bach!
However, I suppose it comes to the same thing in the end if one studies
Bach, Czerny, or Gradus, only you must _keep at_ one of them all the
while. The grand thing is to have each of your five fingers go "dum,
dum," an equal number of times, which is the principle of all three!
Tausig was for Gradus, you know, and practiced it himself every day. He
used to transpose the studies in different keys, and play just the same
in the left hand as in the right, and enhance their difficulties in
every way, but _I_ always found them hard enough as they were written!
Bach strengthens the fingers and makes them independent. Czerny
equalizes them and gives an easy and elegant execution, and Gradus is
not only good for finger technique--it trains the arm and wrist also,
and gives a much more powerful execution.
I think that in all conservatories they have at least six lessons a
week, two solo, two in reading at sight, and two in composition. Then
there are often lectures held on musical subjects by some of the
Professors, or by some one who is engaged for that purpose. All large
conservatories have an orchestra, composed generally out of the scholars
themselves, with a few professionals hired to eke out deficiencies. With
this the best piano scholars play their concertos once a month, or once
in six weeks. The number of public representations varies in every
conservatory. In the Hoch Schule in Berlin they have two yearly in the
Sing-Akademie. Kullak _professes_ to have _one_, but he has so little
interest in his scholars that he omits it when it suits his convenience.
In Stuttgardt I believe they have four. I don't know much about the
interior arrangements of Kullak's conservatory, because I only went to
his own class. I lived too far away to attempt the theory and
composition class. Liszt says that Kullak's pupils are always the best
schooled of any, which rather surprised me, because there is a certain
intimacy between him and Stuttgardt, and he always recommends scholars
to the Stuttgardt conservatory.
The Stuttgardters do have immense technique, and I think they are better
taught how to study. It strikes me as if Stuttgardt were the place to
get the machine in working order, but I rather think that Kullak trains
the head more. There is a young American here named Orth, who studied
two years with Kullak, then he spent a year in Stuttgardt, and now he is
going to return to Kullak. He says he thinks that not Lebert, but
Pruckner, is the real backbone of the Stuttgardt conservatory, but that
even with _him_ one year is sufficient. Fräulein Gaul, on the contrary,
with whom Lebert has taken the greatest possible pains, thinks him a
magnificent master, and certainly he has developed her admirably. It is
probably with him as with them all. If they take a fancy to you, they
will do a great deal for you; if not, _nothing_! Liszt is no exception
to this rule. I've seen him snub and entirely neglect young artists of
the most remarkable talent and virtuosity, merely because they did not
please him personally.
* * *
BERLIN, _October 8, 1873_.
_Voilà!_ as Liszt always says. Here I am back again in old Berlin, and
if I ever felt "like a cat in a strange garret," I do now. I left dear
little Weimar two days ago, and parted from our adored Liszt a week ago
to-day. He has gone to Rome. _Never_ did I feel leaving anybody or any
place so much, and Berlin seems to me like a great roaring wilderness.
The distances are so _endless_ here. You either have to kill yourself
walking, or else spend a fortune in droschkies. The houses all seem to
me as if they had grown. There is an immense number of new ones going up
on all sides, and the noise, and the crowd, and the confusion are enough
to set one distracted, after the idyllic life I've been leading. Ah,
well! _Es war eben_ ZU _schön!_ (It was _too_ beautiful!)
Yesterday and to-day I've been looking about for a new boarding-place.
I've had two invitations to dinner since my return, but everybody and
everything seems so dull and stupid, prosaic and tedious to me, that I
declined them both, and haven't given any of my friends my address until
I have had a little time to let myself down gradually from the delights
of Weimar.
Liszt was kindness itself when the time came to say good-bye, but I
could scarcely get out a word, nor could I even thank him for all he had
done for me. I did not wish to break down and make a scene, as I felt I
should if I tried to say anything. So I fear he thought me rather
ungrateful and matter-of-course, for he couldn't know that I was feeling
an excess of emotion which kept me silent. I miss going to him
inexpressibly, and although I heard my favourite Joachim last night,
even _he_ paled before Liszt. He is on the violin what Liszt is on the
piano, and is the only artist worthy to be mentioned in the same breath
with him.
Like Liszt, he so vitalizes everything that I have to take him in all
over again every time I hear him. I am always astonished, amazed and
delighted afresh, and even as I listen I can hardly believe that the man
_can_ play so! But Liszt, in addition to his marvellous playing, has
this unique and imposing personality, whereas at first Joachim is not
specially striking. Liszt's face is all a play of feature, a glow of
fancy, a blaze of imagination, whereas Joachim is absorbed in his
violin, and his face has only an expression of fine discrimination and
of intense solicitude to produce his artistic effects. Liszt never looks
at his instrument; Joachim never looks at anything else. Liszt is a
complete actor who intends to carry away the public, who never forgets
that he is before it, and who behaves accordingly. Joachim is totally
oblivious of it. Liszt subdues the people to him by the very way he
walks on to the stage. He gives his proud head a toss, throws an
electric look out of his eagle eye, and seats himself with an air as
much as to say, "Now I am going to do just what I please with you, and
you are nothing but puppets subject to my will." He said to us in the
class one day, "When you come out on the stage, look as if you didn't
care a rap for the audience, and as if you knew more than any of them.
That's the way I used to do.--Didn't that provoke the critics though!"
he added, with an ineffable look of malicious mischief. So you see his
principle, and that was precisely the way he did at the rehearsal in the
theatre at Weimar that I wrote to you about. Joachim, on the contrary,
is the quiet gentleman-artist. He advances in the most unpretentious
way, but as he adjusts his violin he looks his audience over with the
calm air of a musical monarch, as much as to say, "I repose wholly on my
art, and I've no need of any 'ways or manners.'" In reality I admire
Joachim's principle the most, but there is something indescribably
fascinating and subduing about Liszt's willfulness. You feel at once
that he is a great genius, and that you _are_ nothing but his puppet,
and somehow you take a base delight in the humiliation! The two men are
intensely interesting, each in his own way, but they are extremes.
[Beside his playing and his compositions, what Liszt has done for music
and for musicians, and why, therefore, he stands so pre-eminently the
greatest and the best beloved master in the musical world, may appear to
the general reader in the following extract taken from a translation in
_Dwight's Journal_, Oct. 23, 1880, of "Franz Liszt, a Musical Character
Portrait" by La Mara, in the _Gartenlaube_: "We must count it among the
exceptional merits of Liszt, that he has paved the way to recognition
for innumerable aspirants, as he always shows an open heart and open
hands to all artistic strivings. He was the first and most active
furtherer of the immense Bayreuth enterprise, and the chief founder of
the Musical Societies or Unions that flourish throughout Germany. And
for how many noble and philanthropic objects has he not exerted his
artistic resources! If, during his earlier virtuoso career, he made his
genius serve the advantage of others far more than his own--saving out
of the millions that he earned only a modest sum for himself, while he
alone contributed many thousands for the completion of Cologne
Cathedral, for the Beethoven monument at Bonn, and for the victims of
the Hamburg conflagration--so since the close of his career as a pianist
his public artistic activity has been exclusively consecrated to the
benefit of others, to artistic undertakings, or to charitable objects.
Since the end of 1847, not a penny has come into his own pocket either
through piano-playing and conducting, or through teaching. All this,
which has yielded such rich capital and interest to others, has cost
only sacrifice of time and money to himself."]--ED.