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.
Better known personally than most of his contemporaries, not so much
by the principles of his artistic movement as by his own personality,
for fifty years all over Europe, admired and courted on account of the
wonderful miracle of his genius, a hundred-fold more on account of
his manners and individuality studied partly for the laudable purpose
of discovering the secret of his overwhelming mastery, partly to
detect the failings of human weakness, the shadow in so much light,
“the dark ray”--what can be said of such a man as Liszt in a general
characterization?
And yet, however well known he may be, in reality, we, his
contemporaries, can know little of such a man, for the reason that we
are now in a position to define the limits of his artistic power. How
long is it since we shrugged our shoulders at the so-called earnest
manner of Mozart when we spoke of him as a man? That he was a genius
no one doubted, but with it was immediately associated the idea of
a light-minded person who was only too glad to drink champagne, or
of a child who did not know how to deal with life, still less with
money, and consequently differed from ordinary people. And yet how his
letters, already in their second edition, have revealed him to us!
That this divinely inspired artist, even in his youthful years, was so
imbued with the seriousness of his art, will surprise that person who
only recognizes the grace of his melodies apart from any idea of human
toil and does not know that they are results achieved by the hardest
labor. That life was so thoroughly beautiful to him, especially in the
pure and manly features of piety and friendship, was due to a lovely
union of the beauty and purity of feeling which alone can disclose to
us the soulfulness of his music. This could only be predicated of one,
who, like Mozart, had actually taken into his soul the very essence of
art. It is manifest in the great variety of his creations as well as in
his correspondence, and particularly in the latter, as in his various
biographies it is only disclosed piecemeal.
And yet that quality of his music which is showered down upon our
spirits like heavenly peace and blessing is a something which far
transcends the beautiful earnestness of a life measured by duty and
brings us to a close perception of the infinite, of those conditions
of life with which marvelous natural endowments and the highest
perfection of intellectual and artistic skill have little to do, and
in which we are forced to recognize the peculiar essence out of which
genius springs and creates. This deep heavenly joy of the spirit which
only seeks the good, and in such wise only as to maintain and cherish
it, how and when it can, not merely to conform his habit and life to
it--this genuine spirit of love which is the essence of industry, of
power, and of the highest and most productive qualities, this strongest
characteristic of Mozart’s nature is due to that spirit of human love
which was characteristic of his South-German home. It is as good a
product of his own peculiarly moral labor as his boundless knowledge
is the result of his industry as an artist. The loving earnestness of
a spirit which embraces all human things alone produces such creations
as Pamina and Sarastro. Every tone of his tells us this, be it in his
joyous songs, in the serene purpose of his life, or in the gracious
promptings of his heart.
Is not Franz Liszt also a child of this Austria, and particularly so
as he still possessed this natural good-heartedness in all its inner
abundance, and had not yet eaten of the tree of knowledge that would
drive him from the Paradise of unconscious, beautiful harmony without
securing in return for it the peace of the conscious and wished-for
reconciliation? His strong attachment to his parents in his youth is
known to us. It is a marked characteristic of his life. The loss of
his father threatened his mental condition. Friendships! How many
letters have been made public which disclose his personal relations in
every stage of development from pleasant acquaintanceship to the most
self-sacrificing friendship of the heart, mostly with artists, that is,
colleagues, even with rivals, to whom he was almost without exception
superior and whom he made happy with his love. Yes, most happy! We once
heard a Hofcapellmeister, who had been induced by a prominent director
of an art institute, now deceased, to practice an imposition on our
master, which drove him away from Weimar, the scene of his activity,
declare with tears in his eyes: “How could I have acted so toward such
a man? I feel it was a crime against myself rather than against him.”
There was no delay between the expectation and the reception of Liszt’s
benefactions. Who, especially among artists, can say that when they
appealed to him he did not speedily help them? And who has not appealed
to him? It has been truthfully said that no sovereign lives who has
lavished his generosity upon his dominions as widely and continuously
as Liszt. Vienna experienced it as well as the city where he lived. The
Beethoven memorial will bear witness to it for posterity, as well as
the one erected in Bonn, in 1845, and the Schiller-Goethe memorial of
1849, at Weimar, which would not have been completed but for Liszt’s
generosity.
One manifestation shows us the greatness and genuineness of the artist,
and its parallel can only be found in the relations of Goethe and
Schiller. What does Richard Wagner, the incomparable, who stands equal
in rank with Liszt in the world of art, say of the days when he had to
leave his fatherland as a fugitive, the victim of infamous persecution?
It was in May, 1849. “On the day when every indication convinced me,
beyond all question, that my personal situation was endangered, I saw
Liszt directing a performance of my ‘Tannhauser,’ and was astonished
at recognizing my second self in his rendering. What I felt when I
invented this music, he felt when he conducted it. What I wanted to
say when I wrote it down, he said when he clothed it in tones,” writes
Wagner, speaking of his short stay in Weimar. One realizes in this
event the climax of his artistic sympathy. Wagner assures us that
with Liszt it sprang from that deepest fountain of life, his true
manly habit and goodness; from his sympathy with actual life and its
influences. He tells us how strange it was that he had in truth found
his “wonderful friend.”
He had made Liszt’s acquaintance in Paris, about the year 1840, at
the very time when, after repeated disappointments, “disheartened and
disgusted,” he had renounced all hope of success and was in a constant
state of internal revolt against the artistic conditions which he found
there and which led him to a completely new career. “When we met, he
struck me as an utter contrast to my own being and circumstances,”
says he. “In this world, in which I had longed to appear and shine,
wherein the midst of my insignificant surroundings I had yearned for
the great, Liszt had grown up from his younger years to become the
general delight and wonder, at a time when I had become so disgusted
with it and with the coldness and lack of sympathy with which it
regarded me, that I could only realize its hollowness and emptiness
with all the bitterness of one repeatedly deceived.” Thus Liszt was
to him at that time “scarcely more than a suspicious phenomenon,” and
he had as yet no opportunity of acquainting the inspired virtuoso with
his own being and working. Thus the first contact of the two artists
was superficial, as might have been expected of a man like Liszt,
to whom every day brought its changeable impressions, while on his
own part, in his half desperate circumstances and condition, Wagner
had not sufficient calmness and fairness to seek for the natural and
simple causes of Liszt’s behavior toward him. He did not go to see him
again, and manifested his aversion by declining to make any closer
acquaintance with him. Liszt was to him as he says, “one of those
beings who are strange and hostile to one’s nature.” Unprecedented and
particularly impossible in a man like Liszt, it was only possible in
the case of a nature like Wagner’s, which had become hard and almost
repulsive through the force of circumstances. But we discover that the
situation cleared itself, and it reveals to us the actual nature of
Liszt himself, in all its greatness.
Wagner, in his openly vehement style, made no concealment of his
feelings toward Liszt, and so it could not fail to happen that
one day he heard what Wagner thought about him. It was at the time
when “Rienzi” was attracting general attention at Dresden and Liszt
had already settled down at Weimar as Hofcapellmeister. Liszt was
astonished to find that he was so violently misunderstood by a man
with whom he was scarcely acquainted, and in 1851, Wagner writes in
his “Communications to my Friends” that when he looks back he is still
greatly moved at the solicitude and actual persistence which Liszt
displayed, and the trouble which he took to change the opinions which
he entertained toward him. He had not even known anything of his works.
He was urged on by the simple wish to remove this accidental want of
harmony between himself and another person, and perhaps also he felt
a delicate misgiving whether he himself might not have unconsciously
injured him. “He who knows,” continues Wagner, “all the disputatious
hardness of human life and the boundless selfishness in all our social
relations, and particularly in the relations of artists to each other,
must be more than astonished when he realizes how I was treated by
that extraordinary man.”
But, he continues, notwithstanding all that had been done, he was yet
to experience the peculiar beauty of Liszt’s gracious and loving nature
in a stronger manifestation. He at last observed these approaches with
actual wonder, and had been inclined to give them still less credit,
now that Liszt’s circumstances had changed and he had come to be a
famous man and the Royal Saxon Hofcapellmeister. Now the actual basis,
the essence, so to speak, of Liszt’s manner of action and demeanor
shows itself for the first time. He had seen “Rienzi,” “and,” says
Wagner, “from every corner of the world, where, in the course of his
artistic career he had communicated with others, I received, now
through this person and now through that, evidences of the restless
ardor of Liszt and of the satisfaction he had experienced in hearing
my music.” This happened at the time when Wagner himself was more
and more losing ground with his dramatic creations. As Liszt had now
settled down quite permanently in Weimar, he made it a matter of prime
importance to establish a new and fixed abode for the creations of
this mistaken and proscribed artist. “Everywhere and always caring for
me, always quickly and decisively helping, when help was necessary,
with an open heart for my every wish, with a self-sacrificing love
for my very self, Liszt was something to me which I had never found
before and in a measure the fullness of which we only comprehend when
it actually embraces us to its full extent.” With this most beautiful
tribute, Wagner describes the circumstance which was so decisive for
him--and who can recall one more beautiful?
In the following year, 1841, in contrast with his own and Wagner’s
self-sacrificing natures, Liszt had publicly accused Paganini, his
greatest rival, of being a “narrow egotist,” and referred to the
“artistic royalty” and even to “the divine service of devotion,” which
elevates genius to a priestly power--that reveals the very souls of men
to their God. He closes with the significant words: “May the artist of
the future with joyful heart renounce a frivolous, egotistical role,
which we hope has found its last brilliant representative in Paganini!
May he fix his goal in and not outside of himself and virtuosity be to
him a means, not an end! May he never forget that, although it is a
customary saying, ‘Noblesse oblige,’ it is a far more honorable saying,
‘Genie oblige.’”
“It must be frankly conceded that Liszt has devoted himself with the
greatest enthusiasm to the laudable task of securing the appreciation
of new works which are unknown or misunderstood and old works which
have been forgotten, as well as of the latest works belonging to the
opposition school,” says a notice of him, written in 1876. “Thus we owe
to Liszt our nearer acquaintance with Berlioz, the introduction of many
unknown works of Franz Schubert, Richard Wagner, Robert Schumann, Raff,
Baerwald, Frank in Paris, and other masters, which secured their first
public performance through him.”
There is still further evidence of this in the following letter which
has only recently come to light. It was written in the year 1849,
when Wagner had been compelled to be a fugitive, and was bargaining
for “Lohengrin,” and is addressed to one Herr B., in Paris, but
not Berlioz. “Dear B.,” it says, “Richard Wagner, Capellmeister of
Dresden, has been here since yesterday. He is a man of astonishing
genius, of a _genie si trepantique_, as befits this country, a new and
brilliant appearance in art. Recent events in Dresden have forced him
to a plan in the execution of which I am determined to help him with
all my power. Meanwhile I have had a long interview with him. Listen
to what we have planned and what must be realized from it. First, we
will create a success for some grand, heroic and fascinating music,
the score of which was finished a year ago. Perhaps it will be in
London. Chorley, for instance, can be of great service to him in this
undertaking. Then if Wagner comes, with his success in his pocket, to
Paris in the winter, the doors of the opera, at which he has always
been knocking, will open to him. It is unnecessary to trouble you with
any further explanations. You understand and must learn whether there
is at this moment an English theatre in London--for the Italian opera
would be of no service to our friend, and whether there is any prospect
that a great and beautiful work by a master-hand could make a success.
Reply as soon as possible. Later, that is, toward the end of the month,
Wagner will pass through Paris. You will see him, and he will speak
with you personally about the direction and extent of his plan, and
will be royally thankful for every favor. Write soon and help me as
ever. It is a noble purpose for the accomplishment of which all this
must be done.”
Richard Wagner himself, in confirmation of what we have said, relates
the most beautiful thing of all. At the close of his brief Paris visit,
in 1849, when, sick, miserable and despairing, he sat brooding over
his situation, he happened to espy the score of his almost forgotten
“Lohengrin.” It suddenly struck him with a sense of pity, that the
music on this death-pale paper would never be heard: “I wrote two words
to Liszt and he replied that extensive preparations were being made
for the performance of the work. Whatever men and circumstances could
accomplish there (in Weimar,) should be done. Success rewarded him and
after this success he approached me and said: ‘See, thus far have we
come. Now create us a new work, that we may go still further.’”
Wagner created it. It was the “Nibelungen.”
And what occurred, when in the summer of 1876, this colossal work, the
glory of modern art as well as of modern culture, one might say of all
the culture of the world, for every nation was represented there, was
at last produced in an artistic manner worthy of it?
“Here is one who first gave me faith in my work, when no one knew
anything of me,” said the artist, in the midst of a joyful company, at
the close of the first performance. “But for him perhaps you would not
have had a note from me to-day. It is my dear friend, Franz Liszt.”
All this shows that what he did was only the fulfillment of duty. With
him, as with one of the greatest spirits of all the centuries, it was
his pride to be of service in his art. The proud words apply to him who
truly feels the greatness which he himself helps to create, beyond and
above all else in universal service, “genie oblige.”