In writing of Liszt there is a strong temptation to work the superlative
to its limit. In this instance it is well to overcome temptation by
succumbing to it.
That word "genius" is much bandied, and often used without warrant; but
for those rare beings who leap from the brain of Jove, full-armed, it is
the only appellation. No finespun theory of pedagogics or heredity can
account for the marvelous talent of Franz Liszt--he was one sent from
God.
Yet we find a few fortuitous circumstances that favored his evolution.
Possibly, on the other hand, there are those who might say the boy
attracted to himself the human elements that he required, and thus
worked out his freedom, acquiring that wondrous ability to express his
inmost emotions. Art is the beautiful way of doing things. All art is
the expression of sublime emotions; and there seems a strong necessity
in every soul to impart the joy and the aspiration that it feels. And
further, art is for the artist first, just as work is for the worker--it
is all just a matter of self-development. And how blessed is it to think
that every soul that works out its own freedom gives freedom to others!
Liszt is the inspirer of musicians, just as Shakespeare is the inspirer
of writers. Strong men make it possible for others to be strong. No man
of the century gave the science of music such an impulse for good as
this man. To go no further in way of proof, let the truth be stated yet
once again, that it was Franz Liszt who threw a rope to the drowning
Wagner.
On October Twenty-second, in the year Eighteen Hundred Eleven, when a
man-child was born at the village of Raiding, Hungary, the heavens gave
no sign, and no signal-flags nor couriers proclaimed the event, all as
had been done a week before when a babe was born to the Prince and
Princess Esterhazy at the same place. Now the child born last was the
son of obscure parents, the father being an underling secretary of the
Prince, known as Liszt. The child was very weak and frail, and for some
months it was thought hardly possible it could live; but Destiny decreed
that the boy should not perish.
The first recollections of Liszt take in, in a happy view, four men
playing cards at a square table. One of these men was the boy's father,
another was Mein Herr Joseph Haydn, and the other two players are lost
in the fog of obscurity. Did they ever know what a wonderful game they
played, as little Franz Liszt, sitting on a corner of the table,
listened to their talk and admired the buttons on the coat of the
Kappellmeister? After the card-game Haydn sat at the piano and played,
and the boy, just three years old, thought he could do that, too. Then
there was another Kappellmeister in the employ of Prince Nicholas
Esterhazy at Eisenstadt, and his name was Hummel. He was a pupil of
Mozart, and used to tell of it quite often when he came up to Raiding on
little visits, after the wine had been sampled. Liszt the Elder used to
help Hummel straighten out his accounts, and where went Liszt the Elder,
there, too, went little Franz Liszt, who wasn't very strong and banked
on it, and had to be babied. And so little Franz became acquainted with
Hummel and used to sit on his knee at the piano, and together they
played funny duets that set the company in a roar--two tunes at a time,
harmonious discords and counterpoint, such as no one ever heard before,
or since.
At this time there was no piano at the Liszt cottage, but the boy
learned to play at the neighbors', and practised at the palace of the
Prince. His father and mother once took him there to hear Hummel. On
this occasion Hummel played the Concerto by Reis in C minor. At the
close of the performance, little Franz climbed up on the piano-stool and
very solemnly played the same thing himself, to the immense delight of
the listeners.
The father of Liszt has recorded that at this time the child was but
three years old, but after taking off the proper per cent for the pride
of a fond parent, the probabilities are the boy was five. This is the
better attested when we remember that it was only a few weeks later
that, on the request of Prince Esterhazy, the boy played at a concert in
Oedenburg.
This launched the boy on that public career which was to continue for
just seventy years. There is good evidence that the boy could read music
before he could read writing, and that he threw into his playing such
feeling and expression as Ferdinand Reis, who merely imitated his
master, Beethoven, had never anticipated. That is to say, when he played
"Reis," he improved on him, with variations all his own--attempts often
made with the work of great composers, but which incur risks not
advised.
It will be seen that Liszt, although born in poverty, was from the very
first in a distinctly musical environment. He could not remember a time
when he did not attend the band-concerts--his parents wanted to go, and
took the baby because there were no servants to take charge of him at
home. Music was in the air, and everybody discussed it, just as in Italy
you may hear the beggars in the streets criticizing art.
The delightful insouciance of this child-pianist won the heart of every
hearer, and his success quite turned the head of his father, the worthy
bookkeeper.
To give the child the advantages of an education was now his parents'
one ambition. Having no money of his own, the father importuned his
employer, the Prince, who rather smiled at the thought of spending time
and money on such an elfin-like child. His playing was, of course,
phenomenal, unaccountable, a sort of bursting out of the sun's rays,
and, like the rainbow, a thing not to be seized upon and kept. It was
mere precocity, and precocity is a rareripe fruit, with a worm at the
core. This discouragement of the over-ambitious father was probably
wise, for it gave the boy a chance to play I-Spy and leapfrog in the
streets of the village, and to roam the fields. The lad became strong
and well, and when ten years of age he had grown into a handsome
youngster with already those marks of will and purpose on his beautiful
face that were to be his credentials to place and power.
He had often played at concerts in the towns and villages about, and
when there were visitors at the palace this fine, slim son of the
bookkeeper was sent for to entertain them.
This attention kept ambition alive in the hearts of his parents, and
after many misgivings they decided to hazard all and move to Vienna to
give their boy the opportunities they felt he deserved.
The entire household effects being sold, the bookkeeper found he had
nearly six hundred francs--one hundred fifty dollars. To this amount
Prince Esterhazy added fifty dollars, and Hummel gave his mite, and with
tears of regret at breaking up the home-nest, but with high hope,
flavored by chill intervals of fear, the father, mother and boy started
for Vienna.
Arriving in that city the distinguished Carl Czerny, pupil of Beethoven,
was importuned to take the lad. Only the letter from Hummel secured the
boy an audience, for Czerny was already overburdened with pupils. But
when he had listened to the lad's playing, he consented to take him as a
pupil, merely saying that he showed a certain degree of promise. It is
sternly true that Czerny did not fully come into the Liszt faith until
after that concert of April Thirteenth, Eighteen Hundred Twenty-three,
when Beethoven, ripe with years, crowded his way to the front and kissed
the player on both cheeks, calling him "my son." Such a greeting from
the great Master spoke volumes when we consider the lifelong aversion
that Beethoven held toward "prodigies," and his disinclination to attend
all concerts but his own.
And thus did Franz Liszt begin his professional pilgrimage, consecrated
by the kiss of the Master.
Paris was the next step--to Paris, the musical and artistic center of
the world. To win in Paris meant fame and fortune wherever he wished to
exhibit his powers. The way the name of Franz Liszt swept through the
fashionable salons of Paris is too well known to recount. Scarcely
thirteen years of age, he played the most difficult pieces with peculiar
precision and power. And his simple, boyish, unaffected manner--his
total lack of self-consciousness--won him the affection of every
mother-heart. He was fondled, feted, caressed, and took it all as a
matter of course. He had not yet reached the age of indiscretion.
* * * * *
Music is a secondary sexual manifestation, just as are the songs of
birds, their gay and gaudy plumage, the color and perfume of flowers
that so delight us, and the luscious fruits that nourish us--all is sex.
And then, do you not remember that expression of Renan's, "The
unconscious coquetry of the flowers"? Without love there would be no
poetry and no music. All the manifest beauty of earth is only Nature's
nuptial decoration.
James Huneker, not always judicious, but a trifle more judicial than
others that might be named, declares that two women, making a
simultaneous attack upon the great composer, caused him to cut for
sanctuary, and hence we have the Abbe Liszt, thus proving again that
love and religion are twin sisters.
The old-time biographers can easily be placed in two classes: those who
sought to pillory their man, and those who sought to protect him.
Neither one told the truth; but each gave a picture, more or less
blurred, of a being conjured forth from their own inner consciousness.
Franz Liszt was naturalized in the Faubourg Saint Germain. It was here
that he was first hailed as the infant prodigy, and proud ladies, at his
performances, pressed to the front and struggled for the privilege of
imprinting on his fair forehead a chaste and motherly kiss.
* * * * *
Eight years had passed: years of work and travel and constant growing
fame. The youth had grown into a man, and his return to the scene of his
former triumphs was the signal for a regathering of the clans to note
his progress--or decline. The verdict was that from "Le Petit Prodige,"
he had evolved into something far more interesting--"Le Grand Prodige."
Tall, handsome, strong, and with a becoming diffidence and a half-shy
manner, his name went abroad, and he became the rage of the salons. His
marvelous playing told of his hopes, longings, fears and
aspirations--proud, melancholy, imploring, sad, sullen--his tones told
all.
Fair votaries followed him from one performance to another. Leaving out
of the equation such mild incidents as the friendship for George Sand,
which began with a brave avowal of platonics, and speedily drifted into
something more complex; also the equally interesting incident of his
being invited to visit the Chateau of the lovely Adele Laprunarede, and
the Alpine winter catching the couple and holding them willing captives
for three months, blocked there in a castle, with nothing worse than a
conscience and an elderly husband to appease, we reach the one, supreme
love-passion in the life of Liszt. The Countess d'Agoult is worthy of
much more than a passing note.
At twenty years of age she had been married to a man twenty-one years
her senior. It was a "mariage de convenance"--arranged by her parents
and a notary in a powdered wig. It is somewhat curious to find how many
great women have contracted just such marriages. Grim disillusionment
following, true love holding nothing in store for them, they turn to
books, politics or art, and endeavor to stifle their woman's nature with
the husks of philosophy.
Count d'Agoult was a hard-headed man of affairs--stern, sensible and
reasonably amiable--that is to say, he never smashed the furniture, nor
beat his wife. She submitted to his will, and all the fine, girlish,
bubbling qualities of her mind and soul were soon held in check through
that law of self-protection which causes a woman to give herself
unreservedly only to the One who Understands. Yet the Countess was not
miserable--only at rare intervals did there come moods of a sort of
dread longing, homesickness and unrest; but calm philosophy soon put
these moods to rout. She had focused her mind on sociology and had
written a short history of the Revolution, a volume that yet commands
the respect of students. At intervals she read her essays aloud to
invited guests. She studied art, delved a little in music, became
acquainted with the leading thinking men and women of her time, and
opened her salon for their entertainment.
Three children had been born to her in six years. Maternity is a very
necessary part of every good woman's education--"this woman's flesh
demands its natural pains," says a great writer in a certain play. A
staid, sensible woman was the Countess d'Agoult--tall, handsome,
graceful, and with a flavor of melancholy, reserve and disinterestedness
in her make-up that made her friendship sought by men of maturity. She
talked but little, and won through the fine art of listening.
She was neither happy nor unhappy, and if the gaiety of girlhood had
given way to subdued philosophy, there were still wit, smiles and gentle
irony to take the place of laughter. "Life," she said, "consists in
molting one's illusions."
The Countess was twenty-nine years of age when "Le Grand Prodige," aged
twenty-three, arrived in Paris. She had known him when he was "Le Petit
Prodige"--when she was a girl with dreams and he but a child. She wished
to see how he had changed, and so went to hear him play. He was
insincere, affected and artificial, she said--his mannerisms absurd and
his playing acrobatic. At the next concert where he played she sought
him out and half-laughingly told him her opinion of his work. He gravely
thanked her, with his hand upon his heart, and said that such honesty
and frankness were refreshing. After the concert Liszt remembered this
woman--she was the only one he did remember--she had made her
impression.
He did not like her.
Soon Liszt was invited to the salon of the Countess d'Agoult, and he,
the plebeian, proudly repulsed the fair aristocrat when her attentions
took on the note of patronage. They mildly tiffed--a very good way to
begin a friendship, once said Chateaubriand.
The feminine qualities in the heart of Liszt made a lure of the person
who dared affront him. He needed the flint on which his mind could
strike fire--nothing is so depressing as continual, mushy adulation. He
sought out the Countess, and together they traversed the border-land of
metaphysics, and surveyed, as the days passed, all that intellectual
realm which the dawn of the Twentieth Century thinks it has just
discovered.
She taunted him into a defense of George Sand, who had but recently
returned from her escapade to Venice with Alfred de Musset. Liszt
defended the author of "Leone Leoni," and read to the Countess from her
books to prove his case.
When haughty, proud and religious ladies mix mentalities with sensitive
youths of twenty-four, the danger-line is being approached. The Grand
Passions that live in history, such as that of Abelard and Heloise,
Petrarch and Laura, Dante and Beatrice, swing in their orbit around
world-weariness. Love does not concern itself with this earth alone--it
demands a universe for its free expression. And the only woman who is
capable of the Grand Passion--who stakes all on one throw of the
dice--is the melancholy woman, with this fine, religious reserve. No one
suspected the Countess d'Agoult of indiscretion--she was too cold and
self-contained for that!
And so is the world deceived by the Eternal Paradox of things--that law
of antithesis which makes opposites look alike. Beneath the calm dignity
of matronly demeanor the fires of love were banked. Probably even the
Countess herself did not know of the volcano that was smoldering in her
heart. But there came a day when the flames burst forth, and all the
reserve, poise, quiet dignity, caution and discretion were dissolved
into nothingness in love's alembic.
Poor Franz Liszt!
Poor Countess d'Agoult!
They were powerless in the coils of such a passion. It was a mad tumult
of wild intoxication, of delicious pain, of burning fears, and vain,
tossing unrest. The woman's nature, stifled by its six years of coaxing
marital repression, was asserting itself. Liszt did not know that a
woman could love like this--neither did the woman. Once they parted,
after talking the matter over solemnly and deciding on what was best for
both--they parted coldly--with a mere touching of the lips in a last
good-by.
The next week they were together again.
Then Liszt fled to the Abbe Lamennais, and in tears sought, at the
confessional and in dim retirement, a surcease from the passion that was
devouring him. Here was a pivotal point in the life of Liszt, and the
Church came near then, claiming him for her own. And such would have
been the case, were it not for the fact that one of the children of the
Countess d'Agoult was sick unto death. He knew of the sleepless
vigils--the weary watching of the fond mother.
The child died, and Franz Liszt went to the parent in her bereavement,
to offer the solace of religion and bid her a decent, respectful
farewell, ere he left Paris forever. He thought grief was a cure for
passion, and that in the presence of death, love itself was dumb. How
could he understand that, in most strong natures, tears and pain, and
hope and love are kin, and that each is in turn the manifestation of a
great and welling heart!
Liszt stood by the side of the Countess as the grave closed over the
body of her firstborn child. And as they stood there, under the
darkening sky, her hand went groping blindly for his. She wrote of this,
years and years after, when seventy winters had silvered her hair and
her steps were feeble--she wrote of this, in her book called,
"Souvenirs," and tells how, in that moment of supreme grief, when her
life was whitened and purified by the fires of pain, her hand sought
his. The deep current of her love swept the ashes of grief away, and she
reached blindly for the hands--those wonderful music-making hands of
Liszt--that they might support her. And standing there, side by side, as
the priest intoned the burial service, he whispered to her, "Death shall
not divide us, nor is eternity long enough to separate thee from me!"
* * * * *
It was only a few days after that Liszt left Paris--but not for a
monastery. He journeyed to Switzerland, and stopping at Basle he was
soon joined by the Countess, her two children, and her mother.
All Paris was set in an uproar by the "abduction." The George Sand
school approved and loudly applauded the "eclat"; but it was condemned
and execrated by the majority. As for the injured husband, it is said he
gave a banquet in honor of the event; his feelings, no doubt, being
eased by the fact that the goodly dot his wife had brought him at her
marriage was now his exclusive possession. He had never gauged her
character, anyway, and he inwardly acknowledged that her mind was of a
sort with which he could not parry.
And now she had wronged him; yet in his grief he took much satisfaction,
and in his martyrdom there was sweet solace.
The chief blame fell on Liszt, and the accusation that he had "broken up
a happy home" came to his ears from many sources. "They blame you and
you alone," a friend said to him.
"Good! good!" said Liszt, "I gladly bear it all."
George Sand, plain in feature, quiet in manner, soft and feminine when
she wished to be, yet possessing the mind of a man, went to Switzerland
to visit the runaway Liszt and the "Lady Arabella." At first thought,
one might suppose that such a visit, after the former relationship,
might have been a trifle embarrassing for both. But the fact that in the
interval George Sand had been crunching the soul of Chopin formed an
estoppel on the memory of all the soft sentiment that had gone before.
George Sand brought her two children, Maurice and Solange, and the "Lady
Arabella" had two of her own to keep them company. A little family party
was made up, and with a couple of servants and a guide, a little journey
was taken through the mountain villages, all in genuine gipsy style.
George Sand, who worked up all life, its sensations and emotions, into
good copy, has given us an account of the trip, that throws some very
interesting side-lights on the dramatis personæ.
The recounter and her children were all clothed in peasant
costume--man-style, with blouses and trousers. Gipsy garbs were worn by
the servants, and Liszt was arrayed like a mountaineer, and carried a
reed pipe, upon which he, from time to time, awoke the echoes. When the
dusty, unkempt crew arrived at a village inn, the landlord usually made
hot haste to secrete his silverware. Once when a sudden rainstorm drove
the wayfarers into a church, Liszt took his seat at the organ and
played--played with such power and feeling that the village priest ran
out and called for the neighbors to come quickly, as the Angel Gabriel,
in the guise of a mountaineer, was playing the organ. Anthem, oratorio,
and sweet, subtle, soulful improvisation followed, and the villagers
knelt, and eyes were filled with tears. George Sand records that she
never heard such playing by the Master before; she herself wept, and yet
through her tears she managed to see a few things, and here is one
picture which she gives us: "The Lady Arabella sat on the balustrade,
swinging one foot, and cast her proud and melancholy gaze over the lower
nave, and waited in vain for the celestial voices that were supposed to
vibrate in her bosom.
"Her abundant light hair, disheveled by the wind and rain, fell in
bewildering disorder, and her eyes, reflecting the finest hue of the
firmament, seemed to be wandering over the realm of God's creation after
each sigh of the huge organ, played by the divine Liszt.
"'This is not what I expected,' said she to me languidly.
"'Ah, that is what you said of the mountain peaks and the glacier,
yesterday,' said I."
It will be seen, by those who have read between the lines, that George
Sand did not much like "the fair Lady Arabella of the wondrous length of
limb." In passing, it is well to note, in way of apology for this
allusion as to "length of limb," that George Sand was once spoken of by
Heine as "a dumpy-duodecimo." It is to be regretted that we have no
description of George Sand by the Lady Arabella.
Years passed in study and writing, with occasional concert tours,
wherein the public flocked to hear the greatest pianist of his time. The
power, grasp and insight of the man increased with the years, and
wherever he deigned to play, the public was not slow in giving him that
approbation which his masterly work deserved. Liszt was one of the Elect
Few who train on. On these short concert trips his wife (for such she
must certainly be regarded) seldom accompanied him--this in deference to
his wish, and this, it seems, was the first and last and only cause of
dissension between them.
The Countess was born for a career and her spirit chafed at the forced
retirement in which she lived.
Ten years had gone by and three children had been born to her and Liszt.
One of these, a boy, died in youth, but one of the daughters became, as
we know, the wife of Richard Wagner, and the other daughter married
Oliver Emile Ollivier, the eminent statesman and man of letters--member
of the Cabinet in that memorable year, Eighteen Hundred Seventy, when
France declared war on Germany. Both of these daughters of Liszt were
women of rare mentality and splendid worth, true daughters of their
father.
Position is a pillory; sometimes the populace will pelt you with
rose-leaves--at others, with ancient vegetables. Liszt believed that for
his wife's peace of mind, and his own, she should not crowd herself too
much to the front--he feared what the mob might say or do. We can not
say that she was jealous of his fame, nor he of hers. However, as a
writer she was winning her way. But the fateful day came when the wife
said, "From this day on I must everywhere stand by your side, your wife
and your equal, or we must part."
They parted.
Liszt made princely provision for her welfare, and the support of their
children, as well as those that had come to her before they met.
She went south to Italy, and he began that most wonderful concert tour,
where, in Saint Petersburg, sums equal to ten thousand dollars were
taken at the door for single entertainments.
Countess d'Agoult was the respected friend of King Emmanuel, and her
salon at Turin was the meeting-place of such men as Renan, Meyerbeer,
Chopin, Berlioz and Rossini. She carried on a correspondence with
Heinrich Heine, was the trusted friend of Prince Jerome Bonaparte,
Lamartine and Lamennais, and was on a footing of equality with the
greatest and best minds of her age. She wrote several plays, one of
which, "Jeanne d'Arc," was presented at the Court Theater of Turin, with
the Royal Family present, and was a marked success. Her criticism on the
work of Ingres made that artist's reputation, just as surely as Ruskin
made the fame of Turner. But one special reason why Americans should
remember this woman is because she first translated Emerson's "Essays"
and caused them to be published in Italian and French.
I am not sure that Liszt ever quite forgave her for not dying of broken
heart, when they parted there at Lake Maggiore. He thought she would
take to opium or strong drink, or both. She did neither, but proved, by
her after-life, that she was sufficient unto herself. She was worthy of
the love of Liszt, because she was able to do without it. She was no
parasitic, clinging vine that strangles the sturdy oak.
The Abbe Lamennais, the close friend of Liszt, once said, "Liszt is a
great musician, the greatest the world has ever seen, but his wife can
easily take a mental octave which he can not quite span."
The Countess d'Agoult died March Fifth, in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six,
at the age of seventy years. When tidings of her passing reached the
Abbe Liszt, he caused all of his immediate engagements to be canceled
and went into monastic retirement, wearing the robe of horsehair and a
rope girdle at his waist. He filled the hours for the space of a month
with silent reverie and prayer.
And even in that cloister-cell, with its stone floor and cold, bare
walls, the leaden hours brought the soundless presence of a tall and
stately woman. Through the desolate bastions of his brain she glided in
sweet disarray, looked into his tear-dimmed eyes, smoothing softly the
coarse pillow where rested that head with its lion's mane which we know
so well--a head now whitened by the frost of years. No sound came to him
there, save a soft voice which Fate refused to silence, and this voice
whispered and whispered yet again to him: "Death shall not divide us,
nor is eternity long enough to separate thee from me!"
* * * * *
Religion is not the cure of love. Perhaps religion is love and love is
religion--anyway, we know that they are often fused. For a time after
Liszt had parted from the Countess, fortune smiled. Then came various
loans to friends, managerial experiments, the backing of an ill-starred
opera, and a season of overwrought nerves.
Luck had turned against the supposed invincible Liszt. Then it was that
the Princess Wittgenstein appears on the scene. This fine woman,
earnest, strong in character, intellectual, had tried ten years of
marital hard times and quit the partnership with a daughter and a goodly
dot.
The Princess had secretly loved Liszt from afar, and had followed him
from town to town, glorying in his triumphs, feeding on his personality.
When trouble came she managed to have a message conveyed to him that an
unknown woman would advance, without interest or security, enough money
for him to pay all his debts and secure him two years of leisure in
which he might regain his health and do such work as his taste might
dictate.
Of course Liszt declined the offer, begging his unknown friend to
divulge her identity that he might thank her for her disinterested faith
in the cause of Art.
A meeting was brought about and the result was as usual. The Grand
Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, in the face of scandal, took the Abbe and
Princess under protection, giving them the Chateau of Altenburg, near
Weimar, for a retreat. There Liszt, guarded from all intrusion, composed
the symphonies of "Dante" and "Faust," sonatas, masses and parts of
"Saint Elizabeth." For thirteen years they lived an idyllic existence.
Then, having married her daughter by her first husband to Prince
Hohenlohe, the Princess set out for Rome to obtain a dispensation from
the Pope, so she and the Abbe could be married. Her husband, who was a
Protestant, had long before secured a divorce and married again. Pope
Pius the Ninth granted her wish, and she hastened home and prepared for
the wedding. It was said that flowers were already placed on the altar,
the marriage feast was prepared, the guests invited, when news came that
the Pope had changed his mind on the argument of one of the lady's
kinsmen. We now have every reason to believe, though, that the Pope
changed his mind on the earnest request of Liszt.
On the death of the Princess Wittgenstein, the Pope dispensed Liszt from
his priestly ties, but he was called the Abbe until his death.
Whenever I find any one who can write better on a subject than I can, I
refuse to go on.
There is a book called, "Music Study in Germany," written by my friend
Amy Fay, and published by The Macmillan Company, from which I quote.
If Amy Fay had not chosen to be the superb pianist that she is, she
might have struck thirteen in literature.
There are a dozen biographies of Liszt, but none of them has ever given
us such a vivid picture of the man as has this American girl. The
simple, unpretentious little touches that she introduces are art so
subtile and true that it is the art which conceals art. The topmost
turret of my ambition would be to have Amy Fay Boswellize my memory.
Says Amy Fay:
Liszt is the most interesting and striking-looking man imaginable,
tall and slight, with deep-set eyes, long iron-gray hair, and
shaggy eyebrows. His mouth turns up at the corners, which gives him
a most crafty and Mephistophelian expression when he smiles, and
his whole appearance and manner have a sort of Jesuitical elegance
and ease. His hands are very narrow, with long and slender fingers
that look as if they had twice as many joints as other people's.
They are so flexible and supple that it makes you nervous to look
at them. Anything like the polish of his manner I never saw. When
he got up to leave the box, for instance, after his adieux to the
ladies, he laid his hand on his heart and made his final bow--not
with affectation, or in mere gallantry, but with a quiet
courtliness which made you feel that no other way of bowing to a
lady was right or proper.
But the most extraordinary thing about Liszt is his wonderful
variety of expression and play of feature. One moment his face will
look dreamy, shadowy, tragic; the next he will be insinuating,
amiable, ironical, sardonic; but always the same captivating grace
of manner. He is a perfect study. He is all spirit, but half the
time, at least, a mocking spirit, I should say. All Weimar adores
him, and people say that women still go perfectly crazy over him.
When he walks out, he bows to everybody just like a king! The Grand
Duke has presented him with a beautiful house situated on the Park,
and here he lives elegantly, free of expense.
Liszt gives no paid lessons whatever, as he is much too grand for
that, but if one has talent enough, or pleases him, he lets one
come to him and play to him. I go to him every other day, but I
don't play more than twice a week, as I can not prepare so much,
but I listen to others. Up to this point there have been only four
in the class beside myself, and I am the only new one. From four to
six o'clock in the afternoon is the time when he receives his
scholars. The first time I went I did not play to him, but listened
to the rest. Urspruch and Leitert, two young men whom I met the
other night, have studied with Liszt a long time, and both play
superbly.
As I entered the salon, Urspruch was performing Schumann's
"Symphonic Studies"--an immense composition, and one that it took
at least half an hour to get through. He played so splendidly that
my heart sank down into the very depths. I thought I should never
get on there! Liszt came forward and greeted me in a very friendly
manner as I entered. He was in a very good humor that day, and made
some little witticisms. Urspruch asked him what title he should
give to a piece he was composing. "Per aspera ad astra," said
Liszt. This was such a good hit that I began to laugh, and he
seemed to enjoy my appreciation of his little sarcasm. I did not
play that time as my piano had only just come, and I was not
prepared to do so, but I went home and practised tremendously for
several days on Chopin's "B minor sonata." It is a great
composition and one of his last works. When I thought I could play
it, I went to Liszt, though with a trembling heart. I can not tell
you what it has cost me every time I have ascended his stairs. I
can scarcely summon up courage to go there, and generally stand on
the steps a few moments before I can make up my mind to open the
door and go in.
Well, on this day the artists Leitert and Urspruch, and the young
composer Metzdorf, were in the room when I came. They had probably
been playing. At first Liszt took no notice of me beyond a
greeting, till Metzdorf said to him, "Herr Doctor, Miss Fay has
brought a sonata." "Ah, well, let us hear it," said Liszt. Just
then he left the room for a minute, and I told the three gentlemen
they ought to go away and let me play to Liszt alone, for I felt
nervous about playing before them. They all laughed at me and said
they would not budge an inch. When Liszt came back they said to
him, "Only think, Herr Doctor, Miss Fay proposes to send us all
home." I said I could not play before such artists. "Oh, that is
healthy for you," said Liszt with a smile, and added, "you have a
very choice audience now." I don't know whether he appreciated how
nervous I was, but instead of walking up and down the room, as he
often does, he sat down by me like any other teacher, and heard me
play the first movement. It was frightfully hard, but I had studied
it so much that I managed to get through with it pretty
successfully. Nothing could exceed Liszt's amiability, or the
trouble he gave himself, and instead of frightening me, he inspired
me. Never was there such a delightful teacher! and he is the most
sympathetic one I've had. You feel so free with him, and he
develops the very spirit of music in you. He doesn't keep nagging
at you all the time, but he leaves you your own conception. Now and
then he will make a criticism or play a passage, and with a few
words give you enough to think of all the rest of your life. There
is a delicate point to everything he says as subtle as he is
himself. He doesn't tell you anything about the technique; that you
must work out for yourself. When I had finished the first movement
of the sonata, Liszt, as he always does, said "Bravo!" Taking my
seat he made some little criticisms, and then he told me to go on
and play the rest of it.
Now, I only half-knew the other movements, for the first one was so
extremely difficult that it cost me all the labor I could give to
prepare that. But playing to Liszt reminds me of trying to feed the
elephant in the Zoological Garden with lumps of sugar. He disposes
of whole movements as if they were nothing, and stretches out
gravely for more! One of my fingers fortunately began to bleed, for
I had practised the skin off, and that gave me a good excuse for
stopping. Whether he was pleased at this proof of industry, I know
not; but after looking at my finger and saying, "Oh!" very
compassionately, he sat down and played the whole three last
movements himself. That was a great deal and showed off his powers.
It was the first time I had heard him, and I don't know which was
the most extraordinary--the Scherzo, with its wonderful lightness
and swiftness, the Adagio with its depth and pathos, or the last
movement, where the whole keyboard seemed to "donnern und blitzen."
There is such a vividness about everything he plays that it does
not seem as if it were mere music you are listening to, but it is
as if he had called up a real, living form, and you saw it
breathing before your face and eyes. It gives me almost a ghostly
feeling to hear him, and it seems as if the air were peopled with
spirits. Oh, he is a perfect wizard! It is as interesting to see
him as it is to hear him, for his face changes with every
modulation of the piece, and he looks exactly as he is playing. He
has one element that is most captivating, and that is a sort of
delicate and fitful mirth that keeps peering out at you here and
there. It is most peculiar, and when he plays that way, the most
bewitching expression comes over his face. It seems as if a little
spirit of joy were playing hide-and-go-seek with you.
At home Liszt doesn't wear his long Abbe's coat, but a short one,
in which he looks much more artistic. His figure is remarkably
slight, but his head is most imposing. It is so delicious in that
room of his! It was all furnished and put in order for him by the
Grand Duchess herself. The walls are pale gray, with a gilded
border running round the room, or rather two rooms, which are
divided, but not separated, by crimson curtains. The furniture is
crimson, and everything is so comfortable--such a contrast to
German bareness and stiffness generally. A splendid grand piano (he
receives a new one every year,) stands in one window. The other
window is always open and looks out on the park. There is a
dovecote just opposite the window, and doves promenade up and down
upon the roof of it, and fly about, and sometimes whirr down on the
sill itself. That pleases Liszt. His writing-table is beautifully
fitted up with things that match. Everything is in
bronze--inkstand, paper-weight, match-box, etc.--and there is
always a lighted candle standing on it by which he and the
gentlemen can light their cigars. There is a carpet on the floor, a
rarity in Germany, and Liszt generally walks about and smokes and
mutters, and calls upon one or the other of us to play. From time
to time he will sit down and himself play where a passage does not
suit him, and when he is in good spirits he makes little jests all
the time. His playing was a complete revelation to me, and has
given me an entirely new insight into music. You can not conceive,
without hearing him, how poetic he is, or the thousand nuances that
he can throw into the simplest thing, and he is equally great on
all sides. From the zephyr to the tempest, the whole scale is
equally at his command.
Liszt is not at all like a master, and can not be treated as one.
He is a monarch, and when he extends his royal scepter you can sit
down and play to him. You never can ask him to play anything for
you, no matter how much you're dying to hear it. If he is in the
mood he will play; if not, you must content yourself with a few
remarks. You can not even offer to play yourself.
You lay your notes on the table, so he can see that you want to
play, and sit down. He takes a turn up and down the room, looks at
the music, and if the piece interests him he will call upon you. We
bring the same piece to him but once, and but once play it through.
Yesterday I had prepared for him his "Au Bord d'une Source." I was
nervous and played badly. He was not to be put out, however, but
acted as if he thought I had played charmingly, and then he sat
down and played the whole thing himself, oh, so exquisitely! It
made me feel like a wood-chopper. The notes just seemed to ripple
off his fingers' ends with scarce any perceptible motion. As he
neared the close I noticed that funny little expression come over
his face, which he always has when he means to surprise you, and he
then suddenly took an unexpected chord and extemporized a poetical
little end, quite different from the written one. Do you wonder
that people go distracted over him?
One day this week, when we were with Liszt, he was in such high
spirits that it was as if he had suddenly become twenty years
younger. A student from the Stuttgart conservatory played a Liszt
concerto. His name is V., and he is dreadfully nervous. Liszt kept
up a running fire of satire all the time he was playing, but in a
good-natured way. I shouldn't have minded it if it had been I. In
fact, I think it would have inspired me; but poor V. hardly knew
whether he was on his head or on his feet. It was too funny.
Everything that Liszt says is so striking. For instance, in one
place where V. was playing the melody rather feebly, Liszt suddenly
took his seat at the piano and said, "When I play, I always play
for the people in the gallery, so that those people who pay only
five groschens for their seats also hear something." Then he began,
and I wish you could have heard him! The sound didn't seem to be
very loud, but it was penetrating and far-reaching. When he had
finished, he raised one hand in the air, and you seemed to see all
the people in the gallery drinking in the sound. That is the way
Liszt teaches you. He presents an idea to you, and it takes fast
hold of your mind and sticks there. Music is such a real, visible
thing to him that he always has a symbol, instantly, in the
material world to express his idea. One day, when I was playing, I
made too much movement with my hand in a rotary sort of a passage
where it was difficult to avoid it. "Keep your hand still,
Fraulein," said Liszt; "don't make omelet." I couldn't help
laughing--it hit me on the head so nicely. He is far too sparing of
his playing, unfortunately, and like Tausig, sits down and plays
only a few bars at a time generally. It is dreadful when he stops,
just as you are at the height of your enjoyment, but he is so
thoroughly blase that he doesn't care to show off before people and
doesn't like to have any one pay him a compliment about his
playing. In Liszt I can at least say that my ideal in something has
been realized. He goes far beyond all that I expected. Anything so
perfectly beautiful as he looks when he sits at the piano I never
saw, and yet he is almost an old man now. I enjoy him as I would an
exquisite work of art. His personal magnetism is immense, and I can
scarcely bear it when he plays. He can make me cry all he chooses,
and that is saying a good deal, because I've heard so much music,
and never have been affected by it. Even Joachim, whom I think
divine, never moved me. When Liszt plays anything pathetic, it
sounds as if he had been through everything, and opens all one's
wounds afresh. All that one has ever suffered comes before one
again. Who was it that I heard say once, that years ago he saw
Clara Schumann sitting in tears near the platform during one of
Liszt's performances? Liszt knows well the influence he has on
people, for he always fixes his eyes on some one of us when he
plays, and I believe he tries to wring our hearts. When he plays a
passage and goes pearling down the keyboard, he often looks over
at me and smiles, to see whether I am appreciating it.
But I doubt if he feels any particular emotion himself when he is
piercing you through with his rendering. He is simply hearing every
tone, knowing exactly what effect he wishes to produce and just how
to do it. In fact, he is practically two persons in one--the
listener and the performer. But what immense self-command that
implies! No matter how fast he plays you always feel that there is
"plenty of time"--no need to be anxious! You might as well try to
move one of the pyramids as fluster him. Tausig possessed this
repose in a technical way, and his touch was marvelous; but he
never drew the tears to your eyes. He could not wind himself
through all the subtle labyrinths of the heart as Liszt does. Liszt
does such bewitching little things! The other day, for instance,
Fraulein Gaul was playing something to him, and in it were two
runs, and after each run two staccato chords. She did them most
beautifully and struck the chords immediately after. "No, no," said
Liszt; "after you make a run you must wait a minute before you
strike the chords, as if in admiration of your own performance. You
must pause, as if to say, 'How nicely I did that!'" Then he sat
down and made a run himself, waited a second, and then struck the
two chords in the treble, saying as he did so, "Bravo!" and then he
played again, struck the other chord and said again, "Bravo!" and
positively, it was as if the piano had softly applauded.
Liszt hasn't the nervous irritability common to artists, but on the
contrary his disposition is the most exquisite and tranquil in the
world. We have been there incessantly and I've never seen him
ruffled except two or three times, and then he was tired and not
himself, and it was a most transient thing. When I think what a
little savage Tausig often was, and how cuttingly sarcastic Kullak
could be at times, I am astonished that Liszt so rarely lost his
temper. He has the power of turning the best side of every one
outward, also the most marvelous and instant appreciation of what
that side is. If there is anything in you, you may be sure that
Liszt will know it. On Monday I had a most delightful tete-a-tete
with Liszt, quite by chance. I had occasion to call upon him for
something, and strange to say, he was alone, sitting by his table
writing. Generally all sorts of people are up there. He insisted
upon my staying for a while, and we had the most amusing and
entertaining conversation imaginable. It was the first time I ever
heard Liszt really talk, for he contents himself mostly with making
little jests. He is full of esprit. Another evening I was there
about twilight and Liszt sat at the piano looking through a new
oratorio which had just come out in Paris, upon "Christus." He
asked me to turn for him, and evidently was not interested, for he
would skip whole pages and begin again, here and there. There was
only a single lamp, and that a rather dim one, so that the room was
all in shadow, and Liszt wore his Merlin-like aspect. I asked him
to tell me how he produced a certain effect he makes in his
arrangement of the ballad in Wagner's "Flying Dutchman." He looked
very "fin" as the French say, but did not reply. He never gives a
direct answer to a direct question. "Ah," said I, "you won't tell."
He smiled and then immediately played the passage. It was a long
arpeggio, and the effect he made was, as I had supposed, a pedal
effect. He kept the pedal down throughout, and played the beginning
of the passage in a grand sort of manner, and then all the rest of
it with a very pianissimo touch, and so lightly, that the
continuity of the arpeggios was destroyed, and the notes seemed to
be just strewn in, as if you broke a wreath of flowers and
scattered them according to your fancy. It is a most striking and
beautiful effect, and I told him I didn't see how he ever thought
of it. "Oh, I've invented a great many things," said he,
indifferently--"this, for instance"--and he began playing a double
roll of octaves in chromatics in the bass of the piano. It was very
grand and made the room reverberate.
"Magnificent," said I.
"Did you ever hear me do a storm?" said he.
"No."
"Ah, you ought to hear me do a storm! Storms are my forte!"
Then to himself between his teeth, while a weird look came into his
eyes as if he could indeed rule the blast, "Then crash the trees!"
How ardently I wished that he would "play a storm," but of course
he didn't, and he presently began to trifle over the keys in a
blase style. I suppose he couldn't quite work himself up to the
effort, but that look and tone told how Liszt would do it. Alas,
that we poor mortals here below should share so often the fate of
Moses, and have only a glimpse of the Promised Land, and that
without the consolation of being Moses! But perhaps, after all, the
vision is better than the reality. We see the whole land, even if
but from afar, instead of being limited merely to the spot where
our foot treads.
Once again I saw Liszt in a similar mood, though his expression was
this time comfortably rather than wildly destructive. It was when
Fraulein Remmertz was playing his "E flat concerto" to him. There
were two grand pianos in the room; she was sitting at one, and he
at the other, accompanying and interpolating as he felt disposed.
Finally they came to a place where there was a series of passages
beginning with both hands in the middle of the piano, and going in
opposite directions to the ends of the keyboard, ending each time
with a short, sharp chord. "Pitch everything out of the window!"
cried he, and began playing these passages and giving every chord a
whack as if he were splitting everything up and flinging it out,
and that with such enjoyment that you felt as if you'd like to bear
a hand, too, in the work of demolition! But I never shall forget
Liszt's look as he so lazily proposed to "pitch everything out of
the window." It reminded me of the expression of a big tabby-cat as
it sits by the fire and purrs away, blinking its eyes and seemingly
half-asleep, when suddenly--!--! out it strikes with both its
claws, and woe to whatever is within its reach!
[Illustration: BEETHOVEN]