I possess, and value as a curiosity, a copy of Liszt's Etudes, Opus 1.
The edition is rare and the plates have been destroyed. Written when
Liszt was fresh from the tutelage of Carl Czerny, they show decided
traces of his schooling. They are not difficult for fingers inured to
modern methods. When I first bought them I knew not the Etudes
d'Execution Transcendentale, and when I encountered the latter I
exclaimed at the composer's cleverness. The Hungarian has taken his opus
1 and dressed it up in the most bewildering technical fashion. He gave
these studies appropriate names, and even to-day they require a
tremendous technique to do them justice. The most remarkable of the
set--the one in F minor No. 10--Liszt left nameless, and like a peak it
rears its head skyward, while about it cluster its more graceful
fellows: Ricordanza, Feux-follets, Harmonies du Soir (Chasse-neige, and
Paysage). The Mazeppa is a symphonic poem in miniature. What a superb
contribution to piano literature is Liszt's. These twelve incomparable
studies, the three effective Etudes de Concert (several quite Chopinish
in style and technique), the murmuring Waldesrauschen, the sparkling
Gnomenreigen, the stormy Ab-Irato, the poetic Au Lac de Wallenstadt and
Au Bord d'une Source, have they not all tremendously developed the
technical resources of the instrument? And to play them one must have
fingers of steel, a brain on fire, a heart bubbling with chivalric
force; what a comet-like pianist he was, this Magyar, who swept European
skies, who transformed the still small voice of Chopin into a veritable
hurricane. Nevertheless, we cannot imagine a Liszt without a Chopin
preceding him.
But, Liszt lost, the piano would lose its most dashing cavalier; while
his freedom, fantasy, and fire are admirable correctives of the
platitudes of the Hummel-Czerny-Mendelssohn school. Liszt won from his
instrument an orchestral quality. He advanced by great wing-strokes
toward perfection, and deprived of his music we should miss colour,
sonority, richness of tinting, and dramatic and dynamic contrasts. He
has had a great following. Tausig was the first to feel his influence,
and if he had lived longer would have beaten out a personal style of his
own. Of the two we prefer Liszt's version of the Paganini studies to
Schumann's. The Campanella is a favourite of well equipped virtuosi.
In my study of Chopin reference is made to Chopin's obligations to
Liszt. I prefer now to quote a famous authority on the subject, no less
a critic than Professor Frederick Niecks, whose biography of Chopin is,
thus far, the superior of all. He writes: "As at one time all
ameliorations in the theory and practice of music were ascribed to Guido
of Arezzo, so it is nowadays the fashion to ascribe all improvements and
extensions of the pianoforte technique to Liszt, who, more than any
other pianist, drew upon himself the admiration of the world, and
through his pupils continued to make his presence felt even after the
close of his career as a virtuoso. But the cause of this false opinion
is to be sought not so much in the fact that the brilliancy of his
artistic personality threw all his contemporaries into the shade, as in
that other fact, that he gathered up into one web the many threads
new and old which he found floating about during the years of his
development. The difference between Liszt and Chopin lies in this, that
the basis of the former's art is universality, that of the latter's,
individuality. Of the fingering of the one we may say that it is a
system, of that of the other that it is a manner. Probably we have here
also touched on the cause of Liszt's success and Chopin's want of
success as a teacher."
Niecks does not deny that Liszt influenced Chopin. In volume 1 of his
Frederick Chopin, he declares that "The artist who contributed the
largest quotum of force to this impulse was probably Liszt, whose fiery
passions, indomitable energy, soaring enthusiasm, universal tastes and
capacity of assimilation, mark him out as the opposite of Chopin. But,
although the latter was undoubtedly stimulated by Liszt's style of
playing the piano and of writing for this instrument, it is not so
certain as Miss L. Ramann, Liszt's biographer, thinks, that this
master's influence can be discovered in many passages of Chopin's music
which are distinguished by a fiery and passionate expression, and
resemble rather a strong, swelling torrent than a gently gliding
rivulet. She instances Nos. 9 and 12 of Douze Etudes, Op. 10; Nos. 11
and 12 of Douze Etudes, Op. 25; No. 24 of Vingt Quatre Preludes, Op. 28;
Premier Scherzo, Op. 20; Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 32. All these
compositions, we are told, exhibit Liszt's style and mode of feeling.
Now the works composed by Chopin before he came to Paris and got
acquainted with Liszt, comprise not only a sonata, a trio, two
concertos, variations, polonaises, waltzes, mazurkas, one or more
nocturnes, etc., but also--and this is for the question under
consideration of great importance--most of, if not all, the studies of
Op. 10 (Sowinski says that Chopin brought with him to Paris the MS. of
the first book of his studies) and some of Op. 25; and these works prove
decisively the inconclusiveness of the lady's argument. The twelfth
study of Opus 10 (composed in September, 1831) invalidates all she says
about fire, passion, and rushing torrents. In fact, no cogent reason can
be given why the works mentioned by her should not be the outcome of
unaided development. [That is to say, development not aided in the way
indicated by Miss Ramann.] The first Scherzo alone might make us pause
and ask whether the new features that present themselves in it ought not
to be fathered on Liszt. But seeing that Chopin evolved so much, why
should he not also have evolved this? Moreover, we must keep in mind
that Liszt had, up to 1831, composed almost nothing of what in after
years was considered either by him or others of much moment, and that
his pianoforte style had first to pass through the state of fermentation
into which Paganini's playing had precipitated it (in the spring of
1831) before it was formed; on the other hand, Chopin arrived in Paris
with his portfolios full of masterpieces, and in possession of a style
of his own as a player of his instrument as well as a writer for it.
That both learned from each other cannot be doubted; but the exact gain
of each is less easily determinable. Nevertheless, I think I may venture
to assert that whatever may be the extent of Chopin's indebtedness to
Liszt, the latter's indebtedness to the former is greater. The tracing
of an influence in the works of a man of genius, who, of course, neither
slavishly imitates nor flagrantly appropriates, is one of the most
difficult tasks. If Miss Ramann had first noted the works produced by
the two composers in question before their acquaintance began, and had
carefully examined Chopin's early productions with a view to ascertain
his capability of growth, she would have come to another conclusion, or,
at least have spoken less confidently."
To the above no exception may be taken except the reference to the
B-minor Scherzo as possibly having been suggested by Liszt. For me it is
most characteristic of Chopin in its perverse, even morbid, ironical
humour, its original figuration; who but Chopin could have conceived
that lyrical episode! Liszt, doubtless, was the first who introduced
interlocking octaves instead of the chromatic scale at the close; Tausig
followed his example. But there the matter ended. Once when Chopin heard
that Liszt intended to write an account of his concerts for the _Gazette
Musicale_, he said: "He will give me a little kingdom in his empire."
This remark casts much illumination on the relations of the two men.
Liszt was the broader minded of the two; Chopin, as Niecks points out,
forgave but never forgot.