BIOGRAPHIES OF MUSICIANS.
I.
LIFE OF MOZART, From the German of Dr. Louis Nohl. With Portrait.
Price $0.75.
II.
LIFE OF BEETHOVEN, From the German of Dr. Louis Nohl. With Portrait.
Price $0.75.
III.
LIFE OF HAYDN, From the German of Dr. Louis Nohl. With Portrait.
Price $0.75.
IV.
LIFE OF WAGNER, From the German of Dr. Louis Nohl. With Portrait.
Price $0.75.
V.
LIFE OF LISZT, From the German of Dr. Louis Nohl. With Portrait.
Price $0.75.
A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS.
[Illustration: FRANZ LISZT.]
_BIOGRAPHIES OF MUSICIANS._
LIFE OF LISZT
BY
LOUIS NOHL
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
BY
GEORGE P. UPTON
“_Sorrowful and great is the destiny of the artist._”
SIXTH EDITION
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & COMPANY
1902
COPYRIGHT, 1880.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
This little work, which is rather an essay upon the personal and
musical characteristics of Liszt than a biography of him, as its title
indicates, hardly needs more than an informal introduction to the
public. It may safely be left to commend itself to readers upon its own
merits. Unlike most of his other biographies, Dr. Nohl seems to have
addressed himself to this with feelings of strong personal admiration
and affection for his hero. It appears to be the universal testimony of
those who have enjoyed Liszt’s acquaintance, not merely his friendship,
that he has inspired in them the strongest and most intimate feelings
of personal attachment to him by his own genial and generous nature.
If at times, therefore, the biographer appears to rhapsodize, it is
probably because his relations to Liszt make it difficult for him to
avoid idealizing him. If this be so, fortunately there is compensation
in the reflection that no other musician of the present day, in every
admirable quality of head and heart, so nearly approaches the ideal.
In reproducing the selections from Miss Amy Fay’s “Music Study in
Germany,” which appear in the closing chapter of this volume, the
translator, so far as has been practicable, for the German version
does not follow the English very closely in its connection, or always
literally, has made use of the original text. He has also prepared an
appendix containing much interesting matter that serves to explain
and sometimes to illustrate the contents of the work. The list of
scholars of the great teacher to which Dr. Nohl also refers in the
closing chapter, and which were furnished to the biographer by Liszt
himself, will be found at the close of this appendix. It is of more
than ordinary interest as it contains indirectly the testimony of Liszt
himself as to the relative prominence of the vast number of pupils who
have studied with him. Surely such a life as his, so rich in success,
so bountiful in reward and triumph, so fruitful in results, its skill
and love attested to by eminent scholars in every country, refutes his
mournful remark to George Sand, in one case at least, “Sorrowful and
great is the destiny of the artist.”
G. P. U.
Chicago, Feb. 1, 1884.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
In contrast with our practice in the previous biographies, let us, this
time, as the master has also done in his greatest oratorio, disclose
the life of the hero in his deeds, which display themselves before us
in regular succession.
First of all appears his early youth with its incomprehensible
virtuosity. It is the actual strangling of the serpents in the cradle,
so utterly does this power defy every obstacle and difficulty in the
revelation of its art. Then appears a new germ of the ever fruitful
life of Nature, as specially manifested in the weird gypsy world. And
now the great man rises resplendent in the great artist, in strong
contrast with a kindred genius, we mean the great violinist, Paganini,
in whom, so different from Liszt himself, the essential principle
which lies at the very root of artistic creation, namely, the genius
of humanity, was not apparent. It proved its power in the recognition
of the one artist of equal rank whom he encountered and whom he
unceasingly helped to realize that grand consummation which we possess
to-day in Baireuth.
Still further, there appears in its wonderful versatility his active
sympathy with all the momentous intellectual questions of the time and
of humanity. We recognize it with astonishment in his imposing series
of “Collected Writings” which rises up before us. Then follows the new
epoch in art-development, the creation of the Symphonic Poem, growing,
as it were, spontaneously out of his association with all that is
comprised in poetry and life. Then comes the crown of all, the latest
and grandest work he has accomplished, the renovation of church music.
We beseech the laymen at least to recognize the importance of this
great accomplishment.
In a sketch of such a richly exuberant life it is essential that we
fail not to recognize the personality of this genius in his creations
as “Master.” How much of loving kindliness it manifests! It is not
like Ludwig Richter’s genial and gentle “Beemaster.” It is like Michel
Angelo’s majestic “Lord” to whom the newly created Eve meekly bows.
It is like Prometheus among his loved creations which his breath will
first inspire with life. And to what extent this reaches, the world
knows by the great number of his master-scholars whose eminent names
enframe the complete picture.
Thus we wander here, as it were amid a new creation, and discover that
in the pure art of music our time is not inferior to any other; nay,
more, that it has added to the great possessions of the past many an
enduring and noble work.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
LES PRELUDES.
Liszt’s Childish Characteristics--The Home at Raiding--The
Father and his musical Abilities--His Ambition for his
Son--Selections from his Diary--Young Liszt’s first
Appearances--Peculiarities of his Playing--The Gypsies--The
Influence of their Life and Music upon him--Paganini and
Bihary--Generosity of Counts Amadee and Szapary--His studies
with Czerny--Old artists’ astonished--Plays before
Beethoven--The great Master kisses the Boy--The Journey to
Paris--Cherubini’s Churlishness--Liszt’s immense
Success--Ovations and Triumphs--A great Favorite among the
Ladies--French and German tributes. 11-35
CHAPTER II.
DIVERTISSEMENTS HONGROIS.
The Power of Music--Its Origin and Influence--Relations to
Nature--Bach, Mozart and Beethoven--Sources of their
Inspiration--Autobiographical Sketch--Liszt as a Lad--His
Voluntary Exile--Revival of the Home Feeling--His Love of
Nature--Religious Feeling--The Gypsies--A Famous Visit to
them--Picturesque Surroundings--Wild Dances--Talks with the
Old Men--The Gypsy Hags--An Impromptu Orchestra and Wonderful
Music--A Weird Night Scene--Salvator Rosa Effects--Grotesque
Cavalcade--The Concert at the Inn--A Demoniac Symphony--Wild
Revel in a Thunder Storm--Liszt’s Hungarian Music. 36-60
CHAPTER III.
CAPRICCIOSO.
Untamable Animals and Men--An Interesting Test--Attempt to
refine a Gypsy--The Boy Josy--Bought from the Gypsies--His
Advent into Liszt’s Salon--Thalberg’s Astonishment--Adopted
by the Master--Attempts to Educate him--A Hopeless Task--Josy
becomes a Fop--His Insolence and Conceit--Liszt
despondent--Josy goes to the Conservatory--Worse
and Worse--Sent to the Black Forest--No Better--Liszt’s
Encounter with a traveling Band--Josy’s Brother intercedes
for his Return--Liszt consents--Great Joy--Josy settles at
Debrezin--Violinist in a Gypsy Band--Letter to Liszt--His
Love and Devotion. 61-75
CHAPTER IV.
IMPROMPTU.
General Characteristics of Liszt--Earnestness of his Art--Its
genial Character--His Interest In Life--His Loving
Nature--Affection for his Parents--Remorse of a
Capellmeister--Richard Wagner’s Testimony--A Helping Hand
in time of Need--His Generosity to Wagner--Secures him a
Hearing--The Letter to Herr B.--Plans to bring out Wagner’s
Works in London--Wagner in Despair--Misunderstanding of
Liszt--A Personal Appeal and prompt Reply--A Success made in
Weimar--Urges Wagner to create a new Work--“The
Nibelungen”--Wagner’s Tribute at Baireuth. 76-90
CHAPTER V.
REFLEXIONS.
Goethe’s Criticism on Winckelmann--The Poetical
Necessity--Winckelmann and the Plastic Art--Has Music a
Language?--Musicians and Musical Writers--Gluck’s
Writings--His War in Paris--A fierce Struggle with the
Theorists--Luther’s Indebtedness to Bach--Heinse and his
Writings--His Italian Visit--Reichardt, Rochlitz and
Schubart--Their literary Characteristics--A Criticism of
Marx--Liszt’s Contributions to Literature--His great
literary Ability--The Place of Artists--List of his
Works--Goethe and Beethoven--Bettina’s Phantasies--Liszt’s
Criticism of the “Swan Song”--Tribute from the “Gazette
Musicale”--Selections from his Writings. 91-112
CHAPTER VI.
HARMONIES POETIQUES.
Liszt’s Tribute to Wagner--A new Form of Instrumental
Music--Liszt’s new Departure--The Symphonic Poem--Its
Essence and Characteristics--The Union of Poetry and
Music--Programme Music--How Liszt developed his new
Forms--Analysis of Individual Works--Liszt’s Tribute to
Beethoven--His Notice of “Egmont”--Beethoven as a
Pioneer--Fulfillment of Haydn’s Prophecy. 113-120
CHAPTER VII.
CONSOLATION.
Liszt’s Great Resolve--Reply to a Scoffer--Religion and
Music--Religion at the Foundation of Culture--George
Sand’s Testimony--Relations of Religion and Music--Music
in the Catholic and Protestant Churches--Peculiarities of
the Musical Services--Influence of the Catholic Church on
Music--A Gradual Lowering of the Standard--Opera Music in
the Church--Liszt’s Ambition to Reform it--His early
Piety--Views on Church Music--The Religious Element in
his Compositions--The Hungarian Coronation Mass--The
Choral Mass--Departure to Rome--Takes Orders--Why he did
not remain--Germany his Field for Work. 121-135
CHAPTER VIII.
HARMONIES RELIGIEUSES.
The Oratorio of “Christus”--Its Title--The Origin of
Oratorios--Their Relation to Opera--Gradual Changes in
Style--The Dramatic Element in them--Liszt’s Original
Treatment--A Wide Departure from Old Forms--Events
Pictured in Music--Groupings of Materials--What it did
for the Church--General Divisions of the Oratorio--The
Motto of “Christus”--The Christmas Music--Introduction
of the Stabat Mater--The Shepherds at the Manger--The
Kings’ March--The “Seligkeit”--Entrance to Jerusalem--The
Scene at Gethsemane--The Inflammatus--Skillful treatment
of Motifs. 136-148
CHAPTER IX.
PROMETHEUS.
Liszt’s letter to George Sand--Happiness of the
Wanderer--Allusions to Wagner--The Artist as an
Exile--Sorrowful Character of his Lot--His Solitude--His
Creative Moments and Inspirations--No Sympathy between
the Artist and Society--Degradation of Art--Artisans, not
Artists--Letter to Adolph Pictet--Why he devoted himself
to the Piano--His love for it--Estimate of its
Capabilities--Miss Fay’s “Music Study in Germany”--A
Critical Notice--The Author’s first Meeting with
Liszt--Personal Description--Grace of his
Manner--Peculiarities of his Playing--His Home--Pleasant
Gatherings--Personal Incidents--Liszt and Tausig--The
Loss of “Faust”--Happily Recovered--The Final Tribute. 149-177
APPENDIX.
A LETTER FROM LISZT’S FATHER. 179
LISZT’S ONE OPERA. 183
BIHARY. 187
THE HUNGARIAN GYPSY MUSIC. 189
HEINE ON LISZT. 192
A LETTER FROM BERLIOZ TO LISZT. 194
HESSE’S CRITICISM OF LISZT. 196
LIST OF LISZT’S PRINCIPAL SCHOLARS. 198
THE LIFE OF LISZT.
CHAPTER I.
LES PRELUDES.
Liszt’s Childish Characteristics--The Home at Raiding--The Father
and his Musical Abilities--His Ambition for his Son--Selections
from his Diary--Young Liszt’s First Appearances--Peculiarities of
his Playing--The Gypsies--The Influence of their Life and Music
upon him--Paganini and Bihary--Generosity of Counts Amadee and
Szapary--His Studies with Czerny--Old Artists Astonished--Plays
before Beethoven--The great Master kisses the Boy--The Journey to
Paris--Cherubini’s Churlishness--Liszt’s immense Success--Ovations
and Triumphs--A great Favorite among the Ladies--French and German
Tributes.
“Behold a young virtuoso, seemingly dropped from the clouds, who
arouses the greatest astonishment. The performances of this boy
border on the miraculous, and one is tempted to doubt their physical
possibility when he hears the young giant thunder forth Hummel’s
difficult compositions,” says a Vienna account of this boy, scarce
eleven years of age. Only a year afterward, we see Paris wild with
amazement over a phenomenon never beheld before. Like that of young
Mozart at Naples, the piano was turned round so that they could see
what they did not believe to be possible, thereby revealing the genial
and manly characteristics of the young artist, which afterward became
the delight of the world, like his playing. “His eyes gleam with
animation, mischievousness and joy. He is not led to the piano, he
rushes up to it. They applaud and he looks surprised. They applaud
afresh and he rubs his hands,” it is said, and then are pointed out the
national quality, the inspired fury, the unmistakable originality, and
at another time the proud, manly expression, which gained for him the
appellation of the “Hungarian Wonder-Child.” We shall further notice
the indications of these peculiarities, particularly as they are given
in a longer biographical notice, which, in its main features, seems to
have been taken from his own communication that appeared about the year
1830, in one of the first of Parisian musical journals, the “Revue et
Gazette Musicale,” which collapsed a few years ago.
Franz Liszt was born October 22, 1811, at Raiding, near Oedenburg.
The comet year appeared to his parents a good omen of his future. The
father, belonging to a not very wealthy family of the old nobility,
was, in his prime, accountant at Eisenstadt with that Prince Nicholas
Esterhazy for whom Joseph Haydn was Capellmeister. As he enjoyed the
personal acquaintance of the honored master of the quartet, mostly at
card-playing, which he practiced as a recreation in the midst of his
always severe labor, he was brought into a sphere which was peculiarly
musical in its character, and which furnished his own nature with the
richest food, for father Liszt was on terms of personal friendship
also with that best scholar of Mozart’s, the distinguished pianist,
Hummel, born at Presburg in 1778, who officiated many years as the
Prince’s Capellmeister at Eisenstadt and Esterhaz. No one esteemed him
more highly as a pianist. His playing had made an indelible impression
upon him. He was also musical himself in a high degree, playing nearly
every instrument, particularly the piano and violoncello, and was only
restrained by the displeasure of his family relatives from perfecting
himself as a thorough musician. So much the more his dreams and hopes
of artistic power were transferred to his eldest son, whose rare talent
had manifested itself early. “Thy destiny is fixed. Thou wilt realize
that art ideal which fascinated my youth in vain. In thee will I grow
young again and transmit myself,” he often said to him. He was so
strongly impressed with all the signs of promise in the boy that he
devoted a diary to him in which he entered his notes “with the most
minute and solicitous punctiliousness of a tender father.” Here is a
leaf from the recollections of that childhood:
“After his vaccination, a period commenced in which the boy had to
struggle alternately with nervous pains and fever, which more than once
imperiled his life. On one occasion, in his second or third year, we
thought him dead and ordered his coffin made. This disquieted state
continued until his sixth year. In that year he heard me playing Ries’
concerto in C sharp minor. He leaned upon the piano and was all ears.
Towards evening he returned from the garden and sang the theme. We
made him repeat it but he did not know what he sang. That was the
first indication of his genius. He incessantly begged that he might
commence piano-playing. After three months’ instruction, the fever
returned and compelled us to discontinue it. His delight in instruction
did not take away his pleasure in playing with children of his own
age, although from this time forth he sought to live more for himself
alone. He was not regular in his practice but was always tractable
up to his ninth year. It was at this period that he played in public
for the first time in Oedenburg. He performed a concerto by Ries in E
major and extemporized. The fever attacked him just before he seated
himself at the piano and yet he was strengthened by the playing. He had
long manifested a desire to play in public and exhibited much ease and
courage.”
We interrupt the narrative at this point to inquire what was the active
source of this inner consecration to art as well as of the passionate
impulse to exhibit it in public. Neither Ferdinand Ries, who merely
imitated the ornamentations of his great teacher, Beethoven, nor
Mozart’s pupil, Hummel, who succeeded Haydn at Esterhaz, nor the great
father of instrumental music himself even felt remotely that genius
for execution, the wonderful results of which were already filling the
youthful soul like a creative impulse and with a passionate longing
for expression urging him on to public performance. In a letter from
Paris to Schumann’s musical paper in 1834, it is said: “He often plays
tenderly and with gentle melancholy;” then again: “With overpowering
passion and with such fire and even fury, that it seems as if the piano
must give way beneath his fingers. It often creaks and rattles during
his playing. You see head, eyes, hands, the whole upper part of the
body moving impetuously in every direction.” On one occasion he fell
back from the piano exhausted. Whence this unprecedented devotion to
music? Whence, as one might say, this merging of his very identity in
his playing?
There are a peculiar people, scattered from the Himalayas even to the
Ebro and the Scottish Highlands, possessing nothing, in this wide
world of God, but themselves and nature. Neither house nor hearth,
neither state nor social forms restrain them. They have no fixed
pursuit, no calling which makes a firmly settled existence, based
on duty and inclination. They have no manners, no church, no God.
And yet these people have lived for centuries, as we know, unchanged
in kind and number, yet nowhere settled. They are the gypsies, who
seemingly possess nothing which the earth offers men or which makes
life valuable. And still more, wherever they appear they are completely
ignored and even looked upon with utter contempt. Truly they have
nothing and are, as it were, a miserable fragment of the human race,
everlastingly forgotten by God. But they have one thing that vies
with our culture and art--their music. As they feel the complete
rapture of an existence in nature which is boundlessly free, free
from everything which hinders the slightest movement or inclination,
so in their habits, but particularly in their improvisations, they
express the God-given freedom of the inner sensibility in all its
emotions, from the proudest human consciousness to the inmost longing
of the soul for sympathetic communion. This music is to them as it
were their world and God, life and happiness, the sun and all that
world-movement with which we feel ourselves closely associated. In a
paper, worthy of notice, Liszt has sought to clear up the mystery of
the vitality remaining in these dissevered fragments of the old Indian
race, and explain the greater mystery how a people so destitute of
any social and intellectual basis of life, possess one art and one of
such originality, depth and power. We must follow him still further to
understand the wonderful effect of his own performances.
“Recollections of the gypsies are associated with memories of my
childhood and some of its most vivid impressions,” the world-renowned
“Magician of the Hungarian Land,” writes in his fiftieth year:
“Afterwards I became a wandering virtuoso, as they are in our
fatherland. They have pitched their tents in all the countries of
Europe, and I have traversed the tangled maze of roads and paths over
which they have wandered in the course of time, my experiences some
years, in a certain sense, being very similar to their historical
destiny. Like them I was a stranger to the people of every country.
Like them I pursued my ideal in the continual revelations of art, if
not of nature.” In recalling these early recollections, he confesses
that few things impressed him so strongly as these gypsies soliciting
alms at the threshold of every palace and cottage for a few words
softly whispered in the ear, a few loudly played dance-melodies, or a
few songs, such as no minstrel sings, that throw lovers into rapture
without their knowing why. How often he himself has sought the solution
of this charm, which held all with unchallenged sway! As the weak pupil
of a strong master, his father, he had as yet had no other insight
into the world of phantasy than the architectural framework of notes
in their artificial arrangement together, and when we think of the
old-fashioned composers, like Hummel and Ries, we imagine that it
must have doubly fascinated him to exercise that charm, which these
calloused gypsy hands practiced before all eyes, when they drew the
bow across the sighing instrument or made the metal ring with powerful
defiance.
We now see how these children of nature, with their most mysterious and
spontaneous power of sensibility, blossoming out in their art, absorbed
him and filled a soul incapable of jealousy with a natural envy of the
incredible effect they produced. His waking dreams had been filled
with these bronzed faces, prematurely old with the vicissitudes of
centuries and dissolute habits of every sort, their defiant smiles,
their dull, red eyes, in which laughs a sardonic unbelief and gleams
flash out which glisten but do not glow. Their dances always floated
through his visions with their languid, elastic, bounding and tempting
movements. By degrees the conviction was borne in upon him that “in
comparison with the continuously dull and sombre days imaged upon the
background of our civilized world, upon which only here and there some
moments beaming with joy or lurid with pain are conspicuous, these
beings had fashioned a defter texture of joy and sorrow, alternating
with love, song, wine and the dance, as they were excited and soothed
by these four elements of passion and voluptuousness.”
Thus early his soul had discovered the supernatural, throned like a
sphynx in the inmost recesses of nature. He had felt that mysterious
creative power which shapes and maintains the world. He felt it
as belonging to his own inner nature and power, and his heart, in
the profound consciousness of this magical possession, must have
bounded more exultantly, since those other lofty human acquirements
of culture and art-work, which first invest the deep outreachings of
life with the nobility and loftiness of thought, were open to him
also. Henceforth his genius illuminated him, but the activity of this
genius, in other words, its creative power, he attributed to his always
profound recognition of the mysterious operations of the creative
power of nature. A Parisian description of his playing, and that of
the similarly “demonish” Paganini, about the year 1834, says: “Music
is to them the art which gives man the presentiment of his higher
existence, and leads him from the occurrences of ordinary life into
the Isis-temple, where nature speaks with him in sacred tones, unheard
before and yet intelligible.”
Let us now observe how the success of his playing, which this boy
had already evidently achieved by his vigorous expression of his own
feelings, influenced his future fortunes. “The tones of his bewitching
violin fell upon my ear like drops of some fiery, volatile essence,” he
says of the gipsy virtuoso, Bihary, whom he heard in Vienna in 1822.
“Had my memory been of soft clay, and every one of his notes a diamond
nail, they could not have clung to it more tenaciously. Had my soul
been the ooze from which a river-god had returned to his bed, and every
tone of the artist a fructifying seed-corn, it could not have taken
deeper root in me.”
His father took him at this time to Prince Esterhazy, in whose family
musical patronage was hereditary. “I believe that female influence
alone succeeds with him,” wrote the great Beethoven two years later,
when he proffered the “Missa Solemnis” to him, as he had to another
prince, for a subscription. He did not anticipate much kindly feeling
on his part towards himself. Of what use, then, for a mere young
beginner in art to expect anything? The Prince made him a gift of a
few hundred francs. That was little for the heir of Haydn’s patron. In
contrast with this, the boy met with a merited reception in the larger
and more cultivated city of Presburg. Six noblemen, among them Counts
Amadee and Szapary, settled upon him for six years an annuity of six
hundred gulden, which satisfied the father’s desire to give the boy a
fitting education.
Soon afterward, in the year 1821, he resolved to give up his position
and settle in Vienna with his wife and child. He was met with the
anxious misgivings of his wife (born in Upper Austria), who could not
bear to see her darling exposed to the vicissitudes of an artistic
career, and who tremblingly asked what would become of them, if, at
the expiration of the time, their hopes were disappointed. “What God
wills,” cried the boy of nine, who had listened to the conversation
with a quiet timidity. The objections and solicitude of the mother were
dispelled, all the more readily, as she was of a deeply and genuinely
religious nature.
It was estimated that six hundred francs was a fair price for their
household effects. On their arrival in Vienna the father selected the
distinguished and unassuming Carl Czerny for the boy’s teacher, for
Czerny had been Beethoven’s pupil a short time and played nearly all
his compositions by heart. It was only the wonderful endowment of the
boy that induced the overburdened teacher to accept him, and when he
had finished playing to him he won his complete affection, as he did
Beethoven’s. How could a boy of such a fiery musical spirit, who had
enjoyed such a free and overflowing life in this art of his youth,
play the dry, pedantic Clementi, which Czerny at first selected as
the pedagogical groundwork? “If he visited a music store he never
found a piece difficult enough to suit him,” says our informant.
Once a publisher showed him the B minor concerto of Hummel. The boy
turned over the leaves and intimated that it was nothing, and that
he could play it at sight, making the assertion in the presence of
the first piano-players of the city. The gentleman, astonished at the
self-confidence of the boy, took him at his word and led him into the
hall where there was a piano. He performed the concerto with equal
skill and ease. It was the same composition which he played before
Beethoven a year afterwards. Nothing could now restrain him from
giving himself entirely to the public. “There is no greater pleasure
for me than to practice and display my art,” Beethoven also wrote in
his earlier years, and should not a genius who had acquired to his own
thorough satisfaction the utmost freedom and highest success by such
characteristic performances in public, seek its own free course, the
open sea of the great public? “I still remember to have seen and heard
this virtuoso whose manly, beautiful _personnel_ displayed all the
characteristics of his race,” writes Liszt at the time he first heard
Bihary in Vienna. “I can still recall the absolute fascination which
he exercised when with an absorbed and at the same time melancholy
listlessness, in striking contrast with the apparent buoyancy of his
temperament and the flashing glances which, as it were, fathomed the
souls of his hearers, he took his violin in his hands and for hours,
forgetful that time was also flying, unloosed cascades of tones
which streamed on in their wild plunges, anon rippling away as over
velvety moss.” On the 18th of December of the same year, 1822, the
“Young Hercules” in that concert when he “thundered out” the Hummel
composition, so united and as it were kneaded into one whole, the
andante of Beethoven’s A major symphony with an aria of Rossini’s, who
was at that time idolized in Vienna, that the relator excitedly cries
out--“_Est deus in nobis._” Verily a god directed the creative and
executive power of this little one, with his open brow, his haughty
nose, and his countenance lit up by his large, deep eyes, which seemed
set in the streaming hair, appearing as it were, like emanations of his
power. All this it was that may have urged our serious Beethoven, who
could so unerringly distinguish between the true and the false, the
great and the little, to go up to the boy at the close of that concert
of April 13, 1823, embrace and kiss him.
It was a difficult matter to get the old master out to such a concert.
His ill health, deafness and many other troubles had kept him from
the public many years. He was moreover restrained by his aversion
to prodigies, who were all the rage at that time, and by his fixed
displeasure with Czerny, some of whose works were certainly noble, and
yet they had not kept him from the faults of a frivolous virtuosity.
At last the persuasion of his friends, his own good-heartedness and
interest in art prevailed, as they wrote to him the boy and himself
were in the same situation which he and Mozart had occupied in their
youth. “The presence of the renowned composer, far from intimidating
the boy, increased his imaginative power,” says the account. It also
expressly mentions that Beethoven encouraged him, but in that reserved
manner which was characteristic of him in his last years, and which was
ascribed either to his personal circumstances or to his great sorrow
about his deafness. Beethoven’s life is to-day fully revealed to us
in the firm assurance of his spiritual condition in these last years,
when the Ninth Symphony begins with its “Ode to Joy.” It may be found
set forth in its historical connection in the book: “Beethoven, Liszt,
Wagner.” Thus the young Liszt started upon his way in the great world,
consecrated by the kiss of the freest poetical spirit in his art.
The next move was to Paris, which at that time, indeed, was the most
important place in the world for artistic, and above all musical
productivity. Besides, as the opportunity for full musical development
was wanting in Vienna, since Beethoven himself was no longer active
in such matters, it seemed best to apply to the Paris Conservatory,
at that time under the world-renowned Cherubini. “The boy was pleased
with the excellent receipts,” says our last concert report, and their
means for the journey were soon increased in Munich, where he succeeded
in rivaling the very eminent Moscheles, and heard himself called “the
second Mozart.” It was the same also at Stuttgart. Then they went to
Paris.
“The two strangers made application to Cherubini, with letters of
recommendation from Prince Metternich,” says a Parisian sketch. He met
them with the reply: “A foreigner can not enter the Conservatory!” The
Director forgot that he himself was an Italian. The disappointed father
fell into despair. Had he then risked his very existence on the hope of
the complete artistic development of his son?
Meanwhile his hope for the success and artistic perfection of the boy
was at last gratified. The public and the friends of the noble art
itself supplied the place of a narrow-minded and envious clique and
became father and godfather alike to this true “wonder-child” of the
nineteenth century, of whom one account aptly says: “We believe that no
other contemporary has created so profusely or reflected so faithfully
his varied acquirements as he.” They were next summoned to the Palais
Royal. It was on New Year’s, 1824. The boy charmed every one. The Duke
of Orleans, afterwards King Louis Philippe, in his delight bade him ask
for any gift he liked. “This harlequin,” cried the boy, and pointed to
a beautiful automaton hanging on the wall.
This incident, as in the case of Mozart, illustrates the utter
unselfishness of the real artist, who continually gave and desired
nothing for himself. These frank, manly traits, like the incomparable
genius of the boy, who was no longer a boy, powerfully affected
every one within his circle. The biography of his youth tells us his
sensibility was as perceptible as it was attractive to every one.
A year passed, and the young Liszt became in the mean time, so to
speak, the plaything of all the ladies of Paris. Everywhere he was
caressed and fondled. His roguish tricks and pranks, his whims and
caprices were all observed and told over and over. Every one was
delighted. Scarcely thirteen years of age, he had awakened love,
aroused envy, kindled enmity. All were attracted to him and were
completely infatuated with him.
This sudden conquest of the leading society of the Europe of that
day, which was noted in the public prints, may be found more amply
detailed in the volume, “Beethoven, Liszt, Wagner.” Heaven must have
remarkably endowed that extraordinary child, who at the age of twelve
was without a rival, and that too in an art in which he accomplished
and understood what no mortal could boast to have produced of himself.
The “genius for performance,” whose sources we have sought to locate,
without, however, the skill to disclose their lowest depths, since they
lie in that combination of the freest and most individual power, as
applied to universal individuality and to the artistic, which we call
“genius”--this unsurpassed skill of performance was so irresistibly
overwhelming at that time, for example upon an actor like Talma, that
one evening in the Italian theatre, while they rushed around the boy
from all the boxes, he threw his arms about him and embraced him so
closely, that the poor little fellow had great difficulty in releasing
himself so that he could see his enthusiastic friends. It was developed
to its ultimate perfection by the continuous and hearty recognition
of his gifts by a great and sympathetic public in France and England.
His face more and more assumed the likeness of an Apollo, with the
types of the two royal animals, the lion and the eagle, as we observe
in an excellent picture of him in his youth. In his playing he also
resembled that Pythian deity, who in the glowing embrace of the proud
Muse disclosed her hidden secret and threw the world into rapturous
amazement.
It was Paganini who had the first and most decisive influence upon the
unapproachable playing of the young artist. It was the language of
unfathomable nature, the same which he had heard among the gypsies,
but translated into the higher language of genius, without which the
superhuman, which is so mysteriously throned in our deeper natures,
would remain unexpressed. It was in the year 1831 that this hero of
violinists appeared in Paris, and carried everything before him with
his concerts. The most inconceivable difficulties were overcome in
his consummate achievements and seemed to be the essential methods of
expressing particular emotions, like those of the deepest sorrow or the
most extravagant humor. Liszt, at that time in his nineteenth year,
was touched to his inmost soul by this playing. “He became convinced,”
says a contemporary musical writer, “it was only through new and
unusual means that a large audience could be roused into unexampled
enthusiasm, and that the same methods could be applied to the piano,
which had been used with the violin. He determined to become the
Paganini of the piano. That he became even greater, we now know. We
close these preludes of his life with some little known accounts of
these first reproductive periods.”
In that excellent Parisian musical journal, to which Liszt himself
contributed many years, the following appeared in 1834, when he was in
his twenty-second year: “His playing is his language, his soul. It is
the very poetical essence of all the impressions he has felt, of all
that have captivated him. These impressions, which in all likelihood he
could not render in language, and express in clear and precise ideas,
he reproduced in their full meaning, with an accurate skill, a natural
power, an energy of feeling and a charming grace, which have never been
equaled. At one time his art is passive, an instrument, an echo; it
expresses and interprets. At another it is active again; it speaks. It
is the organ which he uses for the development of his ideas. Hence it
is that Liszt’s playing is not a mechanical, material exercise, but
much more than this, in the genuine sense a composition, a successful
creation of art.”
The details of his performances are then noted, as for instance, that
in the Weber “Concert-Stueck” he drowned a tutti of the orchestra
with his piano and its thunder overpowered the hundred voices of its
instruments and the thousand-fold bravas which rang through the hall
at that instant. “How is it that we feel a sudden and irresistible
pressure in the breast and a stoppage of the breath as soon as Liszt
sits down to the piano to play the simplest thing, a capriccio, a
waltz, an etude of Cramer, Chopin or Moscheles,” wonderingly asks
this admirer. Then he refers to his playing of Beethoven’s music.
“Beethoven is a divinity to Liszt, before whom he bows his head.
He regards him as a savior whose advent in the world through the
freedom of poetical thought has been signalized by his annihilation of
superannuated practices. You must hear him while he plays one of those
melodious poems which are distinguished by the commonly accepted name
of sonata. You must see his eyes when he raises them as if to receive
an inspiration from above, and when again he lowers them sadly to the
earth. You must see him, hear him, and--be silent. For here you feel
only too well how feeble is any expression of admiration.”
About the same time appeared a very considerate German account in
Robert Schumann’s musical paper. “In Paris they did not have much
faith in the young artist’s talent for composing or originating ideas,
but on the other hand credited him with divining the thoughts of the
great masters by his perceptions and study. So far as his playing was
concerned, they could only use the expression, ‘marvelous.’ He plays
with unrivaled facility and purity, elegantly, tenderly and with fire.
He carries the listener along with him and often makes him fear that he
will not hold out. It is related that at the close of one day, after
a too continuous and lavish display of his vigor and power, he was
exhausted by weariness. He triumphs over all, only he can not conquer
his nerves, which I fear, will conquer him,” says our countryman in
conclusion. “In a word, you behold an immensely nervous man who plays
the piano immensely.”
The world knows to-day, by hundreds and hundreds of his victorious
achievements, that by the “ideality of his personal presence” as well
as by the fascinating and magical beauty of his playing, he has marched
through the world like another Alexander the Great, and that it yielded
not merely to the purest enjoyment of human nature but to the highest
possible proofs of truth and beauty--brother and sister to each other
as it were, yet in our inmost being they are one.