This was really nothing more than a forerunner of the present
piano-recital. Liszt was the first one who ventured an evening of piano
compositions without fearing the disgust of an audience. From his
accounts they behaved very well indeed, and applauded and chatted only
at the proper time.
Liszt, realising that he had nothing to learn from the living Italians,
turned to their dead; and for such studies his first visit to Rome was
especially propitious. Gregory XIV, had opened the Etruscan Museum but
two years before and was stocking it with the treasures which were being
unearthed in the old cities of Etruria. The same pope also enlarged the
Vatican library and took active interest in the mural decorations of
these newly added ten rooms. The painters Overbeck, Cornelius, and Veit
were kept actively employed in this city, and the influence of their
work was not a trifling one on the painter colony. The diplomat Von
Bunsen and the Cardinals Mezzofanti and Mai exerted their influences to
spread general culture.
An interesting one of Liszt's friendships, dating from this time, is
that with Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, director of the French
Academie. Strolling under the oaks of the Villa Medici, Ingres would
disentangle for his younger friend the confusion of impressions gathered
in his wanderings among Rome's art treasures. Himself a music lover and
a musician--he played the violin in the theatre orchestra of his native
place, Montauban, at some performances of Gluck's operas--Ingres admired
Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and above all Gluck, upon whom he looked as
the musical successor to AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Under such
sympathetic and intelligent guidance Liszt's admiration for the other
arts became ordered. After a day among the forest of statues he would
coax his friend to take up the violin, and Liszt writes almost
enthusiastically of his Beethoven interpretations.
It is entirely within reason to argue that we owe to this new viewpoint
such of Liszt's compositions as were inspired by works of the other
arts. Such, to name a few, were the Sposalizio and Il Penseroso--by
Raphael and Michelangelo--Die Hunnenschlacht--Kaulbach--and Danse
Macabre--after Andrea Orcagna. That Liszt was susceptible to such
impressions, even before, is proven by his essay Die Heilige Caecelia by
Raphael, written earlier than this Roman trip; but under Ingres' hints
his width of vision was extended, and he began to find alluring
parallels between the fine arts--his comprehension of Mozart and
Beethoven grew with his acquaintance of the works of Raphael and
Michelangelo. He compared Giovanni da Pisa, Fra Beato, and Francia with
Allegri, Marcello, and Palestrina; Titian with Rossini!
What attracted Liszt principally during his first stay at Rome was the
religion of art, as it had attracted Goethe before him. Segnitz quotes
against this attitude the one of Berlioz, whom the ruins of Rome touched
slightly, as did Palestrina's church music. He found the latter devoid
of religious sentiment, and in this verdict he was joined by none less
than Mendelssohn.
The surroundings, the atmosphere of Rome, appealed to Liszt, and under
them his individuality thrived and asserted itself. The scattered and
often hurried impressions of this first visit ordered themselves
gradually, but the composite whole deflected his life's currents into
the one steady and broad stream of art. Like Goethe, he might have
regarded his first day at Rome as the one of his second birth, as the
one on which his true self came to light. The Via Sacra by which he left
Rome led him into the forum of the art world.
In June, 1839, after a stay of five months, Liszt, accompanied by the
Countess d'Agoult, left Rome for the baths at Lucca. The elusive peace
he was tracking escaped him here, and he wandered to the little fishing
village San Rossore. In November of the same year he parted company with
Italy--and also with the countess. The D'Agoult had romantic ideas of
their union, in which the inevitable responsibilities of this sort of
thing played no part. Segnitz regards the entire affair as having been a
most unfortunate one for Liszt, and believes that the latter only saved
himself and his entire artistic future by separating from the countess.
The years of contact had formed no spiritual ties between them and the
rupture was inevitable.
With her three children d'Agoult started for Paris there to visit
Liszt's mother; later, through Liszt's intervention, a complete
reconciliation with her family was effected. Although after the death of
her mother the countess inherited a fortune, Liszt continued to support
the children.
Leaving San Rossore the artist began his public life in earnest. It was
the beginning of his virtuoso period and Vienna was the starting-point
of his triumphal tournee across Europe. This period was an important one
for development of piano playing, placing the latter on a much higher
artistic plane than it had been; in it Liszt also inaugurated a new
phase of the possibilities of concert giving. It was the time in which
he fought both friend and enemy, fought without quarter for the cause of
art.
As a composer Liszt, during his first stay in Italy, 1837-40, was far
from active. The Fantaisie quasi Sonata apres une lecture de Dante and
the twelve Etudes d'execution transcendante both came to life at Lake
Como. There were besides the Chromatic Galop and the pieces Sposalizio,
Il Penseroso and Tre Sonetti di Petrarca, which became part of the
Annees de Pelerinage (Italie). His first song, with piano accompaniment,
Angiolin dal biondo crin, dates from these days. The balance of this
time was devoted to making arrangements of melodies by Mercadante,
Donizetti, and Rossini, and to finishing the piano transcriptions of
the Beethoven symphonies. These and a few others about cover his list of
compositions and arrangements.