wonderfully impromptu-like “Apparitions” and “Harmonies Poétiques et
Religieuses,” that grand congeries of various differently arranged
and differently put together Études and drawing-room pieces, the
“Années de Pélerinage” (three volumes) with the Tarantelle, the
Paganini Études with the Campanella, further collections of Études
till we reach the Twelve Études d’exécution transcendente, the
“Dream Nocturnes,” the “Mephisto Waltzes and Polkas,” the “Caprice
Valses,” the “Chromatic Galop”--I will only refer to a few pieces
which possess a special historic or artistic interest. In 1834, as
his first romantic production, appeared the “Pensée des Morts,” in
mixed time, _senza tempo_, with mottos from Lamartine, for whom, with
Chateaubriand, he felt the highest literary admiration. In the same
year came out “Lyon,” a realistic piece on the uprising of the Lyons
working-classes, and one of the few piano-compositions relating to
contemporary events. “Sposalizio” and “Il Penseroso” (1838, 1839) are
notable as pieces inspired by the impressions of the representative
arts, as the somewhat feeble “Fantasia quasi Sonata” (1837) arose
from the perusal of Dante. The whole of these are romantic confessions
in which the arts greet each other in friendly wise. In importance,
however, they are far surpassed by the later piano works; above all by
the five best original pieces, the Legends, the Concertos, and the B
minor Sonata.
[Illustration: Music-room in the “Altenburg” at Weimar, with Liszt’s
giant piano by Alexandre, Paris. In the background a clavier of
Mozart’s.]
The Legends of 1866 are in honour of his patron saint, St Francis.
The first shews him in an ecclesiastical theme, sweeping over the
waves, which are represented by the usual variation. In the other he
is preaching to the birds. It is a wonderful free impromptu, in which
a church air is set over against the twitter of the birds, which
is marked by masterly technique. The birds seem to be listening to
the saint; their twittering seems likely to give way to his pious
harmonies; but at the conclusion we see them again in a cheerfulness
which leads on to a ravishing cry of birds. It is the most poetical
piece that Liszt ever wrote for the piano.
The Sonata in B minor (1854) dedicated to Schumann, has one movement
but many themes. Six motives of varied colouring are knitted into one
web, which unfolds itself into a splendid picture. A royal brilliancy
lies over the whole. More free and lively are the two single-movement
Concertos. The one in A major has its characteristic line C sharp B C
B, which is to be followed out into the cadenzas; a main theme with
all kinds of subordinate themes, in a natural threefold quickening
from slower reflective sections. The E flat major is constructed on
the opposite model--its characteristic line is E flat, D, E flat; D E
flat, D, D flat. This work is probably the most frequently heard of
Liszt’s concerted pieces. It is more _giusto_ in essence, with slower
by-themes--especially the beautiful Adagio with the Tristan-like
motive and the Pastorale middle-section--swinging up in Bacchic
style. On the return to the main theme all the motives alter into a
more cheerful strain; the adagio gives way to a martial movement, and
the Pastorale is taken up by the piano with increased ornamentation.
In the place of the old formal scheme a psychological process had
entered; an inward conversation of the piano with the orchestra and
its instruments.
[Illustration: Liszt at Weimar, 1884. From a Photograph.]
From the point of view of number, still greater than the original
pieces are the arrangements, which embrace a whole world, from
variations to complete transformations of themes, from the “Dance
of the Dead” on the Cantus of the Dies Irae to the Rhapsodies,
from his arrangements of Bach to his Paraphrases of Wagner, from
the innumerable songs and waltzes of Schubert to the settings of
Beethoven’s symphonies, and the symphonic poems of Liszt’s own. Here
was a huge mass of material, which was transmitted spiritually and
artistically to the public by means of the piano. And in the hither
and thither of the arrangements we trace the most labyrinthine paths.
Schubert’s Marches, for example, were first transcribed for four
hands, then arranged for orchestra, and finally re-transcribed from
the orchestral setting for the pianoforte. Liszt’s arrangements are no
mere transcriptions; they are poetical re-settings, seen through the
medium of the piano. He assimilates the composition before him into
himself, and reproduces it on the piano as if he had conceived it,
with all its special peculiarities, for the piano alone. Such things
seemed often to be the very best expression of his genius. This
great series begins with the transcriptions of Paganini’s Capriccios,
and that of the “Symphonie fantastique” of Berlioz; and it reaches
its height in the two-handed settings of Beethoven’s symphonies. The
pieces have become genuine piano-compositions, in which a full score
is reproduced by specific fulness of chord, and a sweeping chord by
broken harmonies sustained by the pedal. The piano is no longer merely
one pillar of the musical structure; it has become the architect of
an art of its own. This art of its own becomes yet more visible when
it deals, not with the transcription of ready-made works, but with
paraphrases of given sections, which were to be released from their
surroundings. Liszt made many operatic fantasias of this kind, and did
not always utterly oppose the taste of the time, which did not object
to dissolve a characteristic melody into flourishes, or to make a
sad and trembling motive tower into unexpected heights. Of this his
Tannhäuser March and his Don Giovanni Fantasia are proofs. But the
rule, nevertheless, is that he never undertakes anything contrary to
the character of the passage to be paraphrased, and that--as he does
most successfully in the Rienzi Fantasia--he does not overlay the
melody with cadenzas and ornamentations from without, but extracts
them, as it were, from the substance of the piece itself.
[Illustration: Döhler. Lithograph by Mittag, after the picture of
Count Pfeil.]
[Illustration: Sophie Menter in her youth.]
Only those parts of the opera does he bind together in his
paraphrase, which stand in an inward relation to each other. It is
now entirely drawn from a leading idea, and is related to the earlier
externally-connected operatic fantasia as the symphonic poem to the
symphony.
[Illustration: Clotilde Kleeberg, 1888.]
The immense difficulties of Liszt’s compositions retarded their
popularity for many years. Clara Schumann and Sophie Menter were
amongst the first brave performers to introduce them into their
repertoires. To-day they almost overburden the recitals, and include
much of little value, which would hardly survive except as the
_disjecta membra gigantis_. His influence was of a kind never seen
before. He created a type of recital in which his imitators often copy
the Master down to his very hair. His missionaries travelled over
the whole world from the circle which he gathered round himself at
Weimar in the summer months. Their ideal is his creation; the perfect,
memoriter, technically and stylistically adjusted mastery of the great
and many-sided piano literature, without regard for century or nation.
[Illustration: Madame de Belleville, 1808-1880. Pupil of Czerny.
Well-known pianist. After the picture by Agricola.]
[Illustration: Carl Filtsch, infant prodigy. Pupil of Chopin. Died
very young.]
[Illustration: “Anton Rubinstein, pupil of Mr A. Villoing, Moscow.
To Dr. Aloys Fuchs, as a souvenir from the young Anton Rubinstein,
Moscow. Vienna, April 5, 1842.”]
Liszt’s contemporaries in piano-virtuosity are almost forgotten.
Their name vanishes like a dream. Others succeed in their place;
generations press eagerly on each other’s heels. There was the wild
and headstrong Mortier de Fontaine, who was the first to venture on
playing Beethoven’s Op. 106 in public. Döhler, Dreyschock, Rosenhain,
Jaell and his wife, Wilhelmina Clauss-Savardy, Sophie Menter, like her
in objectivity, the more vigorous Annette Essipoff, afterwards the
wife of Leschetizki, who now holds the very centre of piano-teaching
in Vienna. In our time are Madame Carreño, so masculine in her
convincing interpretations, and Clotilde Kleeberg, her opposite, so
sympathetic and delicate, the truly womanly executant of Schumann
and Chopin. Madame Essipoff was a pupil of Anton Rubinstein, from whom
a by-stream ran out alongside of the world-embracing school of Liszt.
Rubinstein’s and Bülow’s playing represented the difference which was
bound to arise between the classical and the spiritual interpretation
of piano-works. Rubinstein was the great subjective artist, who gave
way entirely to the mood of the moment, and could rush on in an
instant in such a way as to leave no room for the cool criticism of
a later hour. But Bülow was the great objective artist, the teacher
and unfolder of all mysteries, the unraveller of the knottiest points
in Beethoven’s latest works, which he understood to their innermost
details. In his playing the intellect had the gratification of
clear-cut sharpness, while the heart retained the emotion long after
the artist left the platform. Both artists were in their kind finished
and complete, and both were of incalculable influence on whole
generations. The impressionist Rubinstein and the draughtsman Bülow
had each the technique which suited him. The one rushed and raved, and
a slight want of polish was the natural result of his impressionist
temperament; the other drew carefully the threads from the keys,
occasionally showing them with a smile to his audience, while every
tone and every tempo stood in ironbound firmness, and every line was
there before it was drawn.
[Illustration: Hans von Bülow. Taken in the year 1879.]
[Illustration: Last Portrait of Rubinstein.]
[Illustration: Bülow on his deathbed. Cairo, 1894.]
Rubinstein and Bülow were both interpretative natures. Rubinstein
composed much, Bülow little; and Rubinstein’s compositions are hollow
while Bülow’s are fragmentary. In their compositions the two men are
at their worst; the pathos of Rubinstein became maudlin, and the
severity of Bülow became simple harshness. The best that Bülow ever
wrote for the piano was the piano-arrangement of Tristan, which is
unparalleled in its expression of pain; but his best work of all was
his annotations to Beethoven’s Sonatas and Variations. Rubinstein’s
innumerable Dances and National Airs are played indeed, but they are
practically forgotten; his Tarantelles, Serenades, Sonatas, Concertos,
get nearer to sinking every year. Rubinstein’s experiences, his
activity in St Petersburg, his final stay in a pension at Dresden,
were rather external than internal changes. Later in his life he
was able to spend more money on his gigantic plans. In a cycle of
seven piano-recitals he undertook to give a complete picture of
the historical development of his art. It is well known with what
self-sacrifice he gave these recitals, and how nobly he followed the
unique principle which great virtuosos should set before themselves,
namely that those who have should pay for the art, in order that those
who have not should receive it gratuitously. Bülow’s experiences,
on the other hand, were internal. His change from Wagner to Brahms
will be regarded by every student of great souls, not as a desertion
of his colours, but as a mental phenomenon. In Bülow’s nature there
was at bottom nothing in common with Wagner; and it may well be that
he never saw Wagner except through the glasses of the concert, of
execution, of display, not of the stage, or of sensuous perception.
Bülow was not stage-bitten, nor was he even a man with a head full of
the philosophy of the stage; he was a downright worker, a teacher, to
whom indeed teaching came so natural that he for a considerable time
gave lessons with Raff in Frankfort and Klindworth in Berlin. When he
gave public recitals he did not, like Rubinstein, crowd a history of
the piano into a few evenings. He took by preference a single author,
like Beethoven, and played only the five last Sonatas, or he unfolded
the whole of Beethoven historically in four evenings. He would have
preferred to play every piece twice. Great draughtsman as he was, he
hated all half-lights and colourations; he pointed his pencil very
finely, and his paper was very white. If he laid his pencil down, it
was only for a short time; and if he played any work, the composer
was a made man. Over the variations of Tschaïkowski could be read,
“Joué par M. Bülow dans ses concerts.”
[Illustration: Reinecke in his youth. Most famous of modern Mozart
players, afterwards Director of the Leipsic Conservatorium. After the
picture by Seel.]
[Illustration: Portrait by H. Katsch.]
[Illustration]
Teacher and virtuoso--these mark great pianists into two groups, or
at least into two temperaments; and it was this marked difference
which was signalised by the appearance of Bülow and of Rubinstein.
In all, the severance is perfected according to the natural aptitude
and inner development. Of course over every virtuoso at a certain
time there comes the wish to busy himself with teaching, but only in
a small circle; but on the other hand we observe that the decision
to follow the teaching profession is instantly taken by those
artists who have no turn for publicity, or do not like to face the
competition which to-day is more keen than ever. The extreme of the
virtuoso type is seen in certain international geniuses, who continued
rather the tradition of Thalberg than that of Liszt. Thalberg, in
the fifties, like Henri Herz in the forties, toured in America and
Brazil. Rubinstein also, in the sixties, visited America. The most
travelled of all was the Irish pianist and composer Wallace, who, for
the sake of his health, toured and gave concerts through Australia,
New Zealand, India, South America, the United States and Mexico--long
before Thalberg’s Brazilian journey. To-day a tour in America is
almost a matter of course in the life of every virtuoso. Countries
like France and Italy are shut off from a great international
intercourse of this kind, since their concert-life, and especially
their cultivation of the piano, has never duly unfolded itself. The
opera is there all powerful. But England, as a hundred years ago,
invites to her shores the great men of the Continent, and sends
them back loaded with treasures. As London pianists Hartvigson,
the pupil of Bülow, Borwick, and Dawson, stand in the front rank.
Russia, formerly a colony of foreign emigrants, has now, by Anton
Rubinstein’s foundations in St Petersburg, and by the like activity
of his highly-esteemed brother Nicholas in Moscow, awaked to a noble
concert-life, in which the rivalry of the two capitals is remarkably
balanced. It was inevitable that in nearer and further states ever
more numerous pupils of German or Parisian masters should settle and
labour as teachers. In America, so early as the sixties and seventies,
a great number of naturalised teachers was known, among whom Wolfsohn
is perhaps most distinguished. His eighteen evenings of historically
arranged piano-music, which he gave so early as 1877 in Chicago, are
deservedly famous.
[Illustration]
Tausig, the pupil of Liszt, who by his brilliant technique and his
extraordinary sense for style was the wonder of his contemporaries,
left behind him various good arrangements and compositions perhaps
too obvious in their virtuosity. He was born in Warsaw and died at
thirty. He would have meant to our time a teaching power of the
first magnitude. The crown of piano-playing in our time has been won
by Eugene d’Albert, born in 1864, a small man with giant power, a
loveable person of astonishing artistic seriousness. He was a pupil of
Liszt, and on him the mantle of Liszt has fallen in our generation.
His greatest virtue is his classic temperament. In his memory rest
safely stored the greatest works from Bach to Tausig. If he takes one
out, he takes with it the sphere in which it stayed unspoilt--the
style of its execution. The piece stands fast in its construction; not
a phrase appears inorganic, not a rhythm accidental. The seriousness
of Brahms’s Concertos, the murmuring of Chopin’s Berceuse, the Titanic
power of his A minor Étude, the grace of Liszt’s Soirées de Vienne,
the solemnity of Bach, move under his hand in the concert, without
one taking the least from another. It is objectivity, but we do not
cry out for subjectivity; it is personality, but we do not miss the
_rapport_ with eternity.
[Illustration]
Liszt’s pupils Reisenauer and Stavenhagen endeavoured on a similar
ground to play a part as more general interpreters. But chance and
change played them many tricks. Others, again, had and have their
special excellencies. Paderewski, idolised in England and America,
is the delicate, emotional, drawing-room player; Sauer, the bravura
pianist; Siloti, the interpreter of Russian piano-music; Friedheim,
the Liszt-player; Karl Heymann, the graceful. Barth, the pupil of
Bülow, is severe; Rosenthal, an amazing technician; Ansorge, one
of the most intellectual; Gabrilowitsch, who drives the horses of
Rubinstein; Vladimir von Pachmann, with all his extravagancy, at least
plays Chopin’s Mazurkas with absolute faithfulness to their national
character; Busoni shows great passion; Lütschg has an extraordinarily
strong wrist; the miraculous child Paula Szalit transposes fugues
on the spot; Josef Hofmann, once an “infant prodigy,” is now an
astonishingly individualistic artist; and Eduard Risler has an
inimitable soft touch. Since the triumphs of Planté, indeed, Risler
is the first French pianist to achieve a universal renown. He is a
pupil of the eminent Parisian master Diémer. He has discovered those
last delicate _nuances_ which lie precisely between tone and silence.
His tones seem not to begin and not to cease; they are woven out of
ethereal gossamer. While d’Albert plays with the whole upper body,
seeks the keys and rivets them fast, breaks the sforzatos, and soothes
the pianissimos; Risler is a statue at the piano, externally a Stoic;
but his gliding and crossing fingers, so soon as they have struck the
first chord, become the most sensitive agents of an emotional soul.
Under Risler’s treatment the commonplace becomes a novelty. Out of
Liszt’s sermon of St Francis to the birds he draws the last poetical
breath; Beethoven he bathes in a warm brilliancy of his own; and,
not to be charged with too much sweetness, he flings himself loose
with the overture to the Meistersinger, so that we fancy the whole
orchestra to be playing, and we have an assurance that it is not
weakness, but an active artistic restraint which gives to his touch
its never-to-be-forgotten delicate profundity.
[Illustration]
Piano-playing, in such an unparalleled advance, became of necessity a
profession, which at one time enticed to deceive, at another rewarded
abundantly. It is a profession which on one side leads to royal
wealth, on the other to that extreme of misery which is the half
of all art. The collision, which in our age is inevitable between
industry and art, revealed the terrible abysses which yawn between the
claims of a profession and those of art. While in a Frankfort paper we
can read advertisements in which a young lady teacher offers two piano
lessons a week in return for the daily four o’clock coffee with the
family, young Hofmann, at nine years of age, gave, in New York alone,
within three months, thirty-five recitals, from which his impresario,
out of a gross receipt of over twenty-five thousand pounds, took at
least ten thousand for himself.
[Illustration: Madame Carreño.]
The piano has become an essential part of life. Those who cannot play
it stand outside a great company which cultivates it as an engine of
social and home intercourse. In households where there is no piano
we seem to breathe a foreign atmosphere. To-day we need no longer
explain the piano from the church or the theatre, from the ballet or
the volkslied, from the artistic song or the violin; it has on the
contrary become an active centre, which has given its form to our
whole musical culture; nay, more, which has even given the stamp to
our whole conception of music, not only in the minds of all amateurs,
but in the minds of many professionals. Whether the young girl spends
her time with Chopin’s E flat major Nocturne, or whether a false
sentiment attaches itself to the “Maiden’s Prayer” or the “Cloister
Bell”; whether the waltzes of Lanner delight a quiet mind or Strauss
calls to the dance; whether the eager pupil plies her healthy sport
in Cramer’s, Schmitt’s, or Czerny’s Studies, or the rising virtuoso
exercises himself mechanically in scales after d’Albert’s fashion,
while he simultaneously reads new notes, or as Henselt plays Bach
while he reads his Bible; whether amateurs enjoy themselves with
the piano-abstracts of operatic fragments; or whether artists like
the Kapellmeisters Fischer and Sucher, offer those Fantasias from
Wagner over which they have spent their lives; whether the professor
allows himself the enjoyment of private piano-literature, or performs
standard works before thousands in the concert hall;--all these are
accidents of culture, they are phenomena which offer a picture of that
intimate interdependence of music and actual life which has developed
so fruitfully since the art ceased to be the private possession of a
clique, and which has established it on an absolutely new foundation.
Of course, the more general piano culture has become, the more has it
been in turn used up as a profession, and the more easily were its
wings fettered. Our chief men also have ceased to improvise during
a recital. Only our “comic artists” do so at the present day. And
of a power of magical improvisation, exercised in private such as
Beethoven and Liszt so often displayed, we now hear less and less. The
recitals, in great part, deal with the interpretation of known works,
which often--like Beethoven’s E flat major concerto--are repeated _ad
nauseam_. We have learning, we have playing, but we never see the
enthusiasm which can be evoked by the stress of immediate creation.
Piano-playing is a universal business even to the extremest limits
of an amateurism which cannot strike a single chord instantaneously,
nor dot a single note correctly. It is a long line from the little
yawning schoolgirl, through the teacher running up and down stairs,
to the virtuosos who play in the winter and give instruction in the
summer. With excess of zeal comes sin. Nowhere in an art is a sin
so often committed as in the choice of masters popular to-day. From
false economy, musical culture, which is so profound and so difficult,
is intrusted to the most incompetent, and fortunes are squandered
in ruining the music in a child. In a paper once was to be read a
somewhat humorous satire, entitled, “Directions for use,” in which the
teachers were thus handled: “For beginners the choice of a master is
recommended--there are masters at all prices--very good lessons can be
had for sixpence; but masters with long hair charge three shillings
and upwards--for male adults the choice of a mistress is recommended,
because pleasure and love are thus excited together.”