Immediately after Liszt's separation from the Countess d'Agoult began a
period of restless activity for him. The eight nomadic years during
which he wandered up and down Europe, playing constantly in public, are
the ones in which his virtuosity flourished. To-day we are inclined to
mock at the mere mention of Liszt the virtuoso--we have heard far too
much of his achievements, achievements behind which the real Liszt has
become a warped and unrecognizable personality. But it was a remarkable
tour nevertheless, and so wholesale a lesson in musical interpretation
as Europe had never had before. Whenever and wherever he smote the
keyboard the old-fashioned clay idols of piano playing were shattered,
and however much it was attempted to patch them the pieces would not
quite fit. Liszt struck the death-blow to unemotional playing, but he
destroyed only to create anew: he erected ideals of interpretation which
are still honored.
When he accepted the Weimar post of Hofkapellmeister in 1847--he had _en
passant_ in a term, lasting from December, 1843, to February of the
following year, conducted eight successful concerts in Weimar--it
looked as if his wild spirit of travel had dissipated itself:
_ausgetobt_, as the Germans say.
With scarcely any time modulation this versatile genius began his career
of Hofkapellmeister, in which he topsy-turvied traditions and roused
Weimar from the lethargy into which it had fallen with the fading of
that wonderful Goethe circle. At this point the influence of woman is
again made manifest.
Gregorovius, the great antiquarian, gives us a few glimpses of her in
his Roemischen Tagebuechern. He admits that her personality was repulsive
to him, but that she fairly sputtered spirituality. Also that she
wrote an article about the Sixtine Chapel for the _Revue du Monde
Catholique_--"a brilliant article: all fireworks, like her speech";
finally, that "she is writing an essay on friendship."
When the possibility of marriage with the Princess went up into thin air
Liszt began contemplating a permanent residence in Rome. Here he could
live more independently and privately than in Germany, and this was
desirable, since he still had some musical problems to solve. First of
all, he turned to his legend of the Holy Elizabeth, completing that;
then Der Sonnen-Hymnus des heiligen Franziskus von Assisi was written,
to say nothing of a composition for organ and trombone composed for one
of his Weimar adherents. Frequent excursions and work so consumed his
hours that soon we find him complaining as bitterly about the lack of
time in Rome as in Weimar.
Rome of this time was still "outside of Italy": the reverse side of the
Papal medallions showed Daniel in the lion's den and Pope Pio Nono
immersed in mysticism. The social features were important. Segnitz
mentions "die Koelnische Patrizierin Frau Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen,
Peter Cornelius, die Dame Schopenhauer," the Ottilie of Goethe. Besides
the artists Catel and Nerenz there was Frau von Schwarz, who attracted
Liszt. She boasted friendship with Garibaldi, and her salon was a
meeting-place of the intellectual multitude. Liszt seems to have
been king pin everywhere, and it is refreshing to read the curt,
unsentimental impression of him retailed by Gregorovius: "I have met
Liszt," wrote the latter; "remarkable, demoniac appearance; tall,
slender, long hair. Frau von Schwarz believes he is burned out, that
only the walls of him remain, wherein a small ghostly flame flits." To
add to the list of notables: the painter Lindemann-Frommel; the Prussian
representatives, Graf Arnim and Kurt von Schloezer; King Louis I, of
Bavaria, and the artists Riedel, Schweinfurt, Passini, and Feuerbach the
philosopher.
Naturally Liszt participated in the prominent church festivals and was
affected by their glamour; it even roused him to sentimental utterance.
Germany and the thoughts of it could not lure him away from Rome, nor
could the summer heat drive him out. The Holy Elizabeth was completed by
August 10, 1862, and with it he had finished the greater part of his
work as composer. Never did he lose interest in German art movements,
and was ever ready with advice and suggestions.
A severe shock, one which sent him to bed, came to him about the middle
of September of this year, when his youngest daughter, Blandine
Ollivier, the wife of Louis Napoleon's war minister, Emile Ollivier,
died. Liszt turned to religion and to his art for consolation; he slaved
away at the Christus oratorio and wrote two psalms and the instrumental
Evocatio in der Sixtinischen Kapelle. Invitations from London, Weimar,
and Budapest could not budge him from Rome; deeper and deeper he became
interested in the wonders and beauties of his religion.
The following year--1863--finds him hard at work as ever. His oratorio
is not achieving great progress, but he is revising his piano
arrangements of the Beethoven Symphonies. In the spring he changes his
quarters and moves into the Cloister Madonna del Rosario, in which he
had been offered several rooms. These new lodgings enchant him. Situated
on the Monte Mario, the site commanded a view of Rome and the Campagna,
the Albano Mountains and the River Tiber. So Signor Commendatore Liszt,
the friend of Padre Theiner, is living in a cloister and the religious
germs begin to sprout in this quiet surrounding. Liszt esteemed the
priest highly as an educated man and admired his personality.
Gregorovius, on the other hand, could pump up no liking at all for the
hermit-like Padre, discovered him dry and judged his writings and
philosophy as dry, archaic stuff.
In Italian politics and Italian music Liszt found nothing to attract
him. The latter was crude, as regards composition, and generally
resolved itself into Drehorgel-Lyrik. The piano was at that time not an
Italian object of furniture, and in the churches they still served up
operatic music with the thinnest religious varnish. In the salons one
seldom heard good music, so that Liszt, through his pupils Sgambati,
Berta, and others was able to work some reform in these matters.
On July 11, 1862, the tongue of all Rome was wagging: Pope Pius IX had
paid Liszt a visit at the Cloister Santa Maria del Rosario. Liszt
recounts that His Holiness had stayed with him about half an hour,
during which time the pianist had played for him on the harmonium and on
the little working piano. After that the Pope had spoken earnestly to
him and begged him to strive for the heavenly, even in earthly matters,
and to prepare himself for the eternal sounding harmonies by means of
the passing earthly ones.
Liszt was the first artist who had been honored thus. A few days later
the Pope granted him an audience in the Vatican, when he presented Liszt
with a cameo of the Madonna.
Segnitz quotes from two of Liszt's letters in which he voices his
religious sentiments, and hopes that eventually his bones may rest in
Roman earth.
Rather a remarkable phase of Liszt now was that he tried with might and
main to live down and forget his so-called "Glanzperiode," the one of
his virtuosity. An invitation from Cologne and also one from St.
Petersburg to play and display once more "that entrancing tone which he
could coax out of the keys" aroused his wrath. He asks, is he never to
be taken more seriously than as a pianist, is he not worthy of
recognition as a musician, a composer? On the other hand, nothing
flattered him as much as when an Amsterdam society performed his Graner
Messe and sent him a diploma of honorary membership. Furthermore, he
derived much encouragement from an article in the _Neue Zeitschrift fuer
Musik_, written by Heinrich Porges, in which Liszt's compositions were
seriously discussed.
Liszt found time to revise the four Psalms, 13--this was his favourite
one--18, 23, 137; and during this year he also composed for the piano
Alleluja, Ave Maria, Waldesrauschen, Gnomenreigen, the two legends, Die
Vogelpredigt and Der heilige Franz von Paula auf den Wogen schreitend;
then the organ variations on the Bach theme Weinen, klagen, sorgen,
zagen, and the Papsthymus. He again took up his former project of making
piano arrangements of the Beethoven quartets.
* * * * *
The year after this one was remarkable for the facts that Liszt was
coaxed to play in public on the occasion of a benefit for the Peter's
Pence, and that he participated in the Karlsruhe music festival. He left
Rome in August and journeyed first to St. Tropez to visit his daughter's
grave; then to Karlsruhe. After this he went to Munich and visited Hans
and Cosima von Buelow on the way to Weimar. Finally a trip to Paris to
see his aged mother, and he returned to Rome at the end of October.
Besides working on his oratorio and making some piano transcriptions, he
composed only two new numbers, a litany for organ and a chorus with
organ accompaniment.
Two public appearances in Rome as pianist occurred during the spring of
1865, and then, to the surprise of many, on April 25, Liszt took minor
orders of priesthood, forsook the Cloister and made his abode in the
Vatican next to the rooms of his priestly friend Monseigneur Hohenlohe.
Gregorovius writes of this appearance of Liszt as the virtuoso: "He
played Die Aufforderung zum Tanz and Erlkoenig--a queer adieu to the
world. No one suspected that already he carried his abbe's socks in his
pockets.... Now he wears the cloaklet of the abbe, lives in the Vatican,
and, as Schloezer tells me, is happy and healthy. This is the end of the
genial virtuoso, the personality of a sovereign. I am glad that I heard
Liszt play once more, he and his instrument seemed to be grown
together--a piano-centaur."
As we look back at the step now and are able to weigh the gradual
influence which asserted itself on Liszt the act seems to have been an
inevitable one. At the time, however, it was more or less unexpected.
He assures Breitkopf & Haertel that his old weakness for composition has
not deserted him, that he must commit to paper some of the wonderful
things which were spooking about in his head. And the public? Well, it
regretted that Liszt was wasting his time writing such dreadful
"Tonwirrwarr." Liszt smiled ironically--and continued to compose.
His patriotism sent him travelling once more--this year to Pesth, where
he conducted his arrangement of the Rakoczy March and the Divine Comedy.
He returned to Rome and learned that his friend Hohenlohe was about to
be made cardinal, an event which had its bearing on his stay in the
Vatican.
Liszt moved back to the Cloister after Hohenlohe had given up his
quarters in the Vatican for a cardinal's house. This year--1866--is also
a record of travel. After he had conducted his Dante Symphony in
Rome--and the natives found it "inspired but formless"--he went to
Paris to witness a performance of his Mass. Report had preceded him that
he was physically a wreck, and he delighted in showing himself to prove
the falsehood of the rumour. And partly to display his mental activity
he began theological studies, so that he might pass his examination and
take higher orders.
In addition to his Paris trip he also wandered to Amsterdam to hear his
Mass once more. Immediately after his return to Rome he completed the
Christus oratorio and began work on the arrangements of the Beethoven
quartets. He soon found that he had attacked an impossible task. "I
failed where Tausig succeeded," he lamented; and then explained that
Tausig had been wise enough to select only such movements as were
available for the piano.
* * * * *
His compositions this year were not very numerous--some piano extracts
out of his oratorio and sketches for the Hungarian Coronation Mass.
Politics were throwing up dense clouds of dust in Rome, the Papal
secular power was petering out, and in consequence Liszt, who hated
politics, was compelled to change his residence again, moving this time
to the old cloister Santa Francesca Romana. Here he met his friends
weekly on Friday mornings, and besides animated conversation there was
much chamber music to be heard.
The Hungarian Mass was finished early in 1867, and Liszt went to Pesth,
where he conducted it with much success when Francis Joseph was made
King of Hungary. Then he appeared at the Wartburg Festival, and on his
return trip stopped at Lucerne to greet Wagner. After a short stay at
Munich, with Cosima and Hans von Buelow, he found himself once more in
Rome and was allowed a few months of rest. Besides the Hungarian Mass he
composed this year a Funeral March on the occasion of Maximilian of
Mexico's death--it appeared later as the sixth of the third collection:
Annees de Pelerinage. His piano transcriptions were confined to works by
Verdi and Von Buelow, and as a souvenir of the days passed with Wagner at
Triebschen he transcribed Isolde's Liebestod.
The social features of his stay in Rome were becoming unbearable, and
Liszt could only command privacy by being rude to the persistent ones.
Several little excursions out of Rome during the spring were followed by
a long journey in the summer with his friend Abbe Solfanelli. First to a
place of pilgrimage; then to the city of Liszt's patron saint, Assisi,
and from there to Loreto. When Liszt re-entered Rome he found the social
life so exigent that he was driven to the stillness of the Campagna, and
lived for some time in the Villa d'Este. This--1868--was his last year
at Rome, for the middle of January of the following year found him
settled in Weimar again. Although he was still spared many years in
which to work, yet the eve of his life was upon him. If he had hoped to
find finally in Weimar homely rest and peace he was doomed to
disappointment. He remained a wanderer to the end of his days.
There remains to be made a mention of his compositions during his last
year at Rome. Principal among these was the Requiem dedicated to the
memory of his deceased mother and his two children, Daniel and Blandine;
then three church compositions and the epilogue to his Tasso, Le
Triomphe du Tasse, and the usual transcriptions for the piano.
Whether or not Liszt's interest in matters religious abated is not made
very clear. So much is certain that his plans for taking higher orders
came to nothing. Was the Church after all a disappointment to him? One
recalls his childish delight when first he was created Abbe. Then he
wrote Hohenlohe: "They tell me that I wear my _soutane_ as though I
always had worn one."
* * * * *
The Hungarian Government elected the Abbe honorary president of the
Landes Musikakademie in 1873. This gave Liszt's wanderings still a third
objective point, Budapest.
In Weimar his time was now devoted more to teaching than to composing,
and the Liszt pupils began to sprout by the gross. The absurd
sentimentality which clings about this period has never been condemned
sufficiently. Read this entry in the note-book of Gregorovius and draw
at least a few of your own conclusions: "Dined with Liszt at Weimar. He
was very lovable, made up to me and hoped at parting that I would give
him my confidence. This would be very difficult, as we have not one
point in common. He has grown very old; his face is all wrinkled; yet
his animation is very attractive. The Countess Tolstoy told me yesterday
that an American lady living here had stripped the covering off a chair
on which Liszt had sat, had had it framed and now it hung on her wall.
She related this to Liszt, who at first seemed indignant and then asked
if it were really true! If such a man does not despise mankind then one
must give him great credit for it."
Still Liszt fluttered to Rome from time to time. "If it had not been for
music I should have devoted myself entirely to the church and would have
become a Franciscan; It is in error that I am accused of becoming a
'frivolous Abbe' because of external reasons. On the contrary, it was my
most innermost wish which led me to join the church that I wished to
serve" he said.
During these later visits he took up his abode in the Hotel d'Alibert.
His rooms were furnished as plainly as possible--in the one a bed and a
writing-desk, and the second one, his reception and class-room, held a
grand piano. Some of his pupils lived at the same hotel--Stradal,
Ansorge, Goellerich, Burmeister, Stavenhagen, and Mademoiselle Cognetti.
Liszt's daily mode of life is rather intimately described. He arose at
four in the morning and began composing, which he continued until seven.
His pupils would drop in to greet him and be dismissed kindly with a
cigar. After a second breakfast he attended early mass in the San Carlo
Church, where he was accompanied by Stradal; then back to his rooms, and
after an hour's rest he would work or pay some visits.
His noon meal was taken regularly with the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein,
who now lived a retired life and devoted herself to religious studies.
These visits brought to Liszt much peace and to the Princess happiness;
they were still devoted to each other. After this meal Liszt returned to
his quarters and rested. Only on every other day he taught. The pupil
played the composition of his own choice and Liszt's criticisms would
follow. Muddy playing drove him frantic, and he often told his pupils to
"wash their dirty linen at home"! He taught liberal use of the pedal,
but with utmost discretion. The one thing he could not abide was
pedantic performance: "Among artists there is not the division of
professors and non-professors. They are only artists--or they are not."
Occasionally he would play for a small assembly--once he favoured the
few with the D-flat Etude, and the crossing left hand struck false notes
repeatedly. He played the piece to the end, and then atoned for his
bulls by adding an improvisation on the theme which moved the assembly
to tears!
During these class hours a small circle of intimate ones was usually
invited. The Princess Wittgenstein was noticeably absent; but there were
the Princess Minghetti, the Countess Reviczy--to whom the Fifth Rhapsody
is dedicated--and several barons and artists--Alma Tadema among the
latter. Depend upon it, wherever Liszt pitched his tent there were some
titles in the neighbourhood. From two until six in the afternoon these
lessons lasted. Then the small audience withdrew and Liszt played cards
with his pupils for one hour.
About eight in the evening Liszt would take himself to the house of the
Princess Wittgenstein and sup with her. This meal consisted principally
of ham, says the biographer, and Hungarian red wine. By nine he had
usually retired.
Stradal seems to have been one of his favourites and accompanied Liszt
on some of his little excursions to the beloved cloisters, San Onofrio
and Monte Mario, then into the Valle dell' Inferno. Here under the Tasso
oak Liszt spoke of the life of the great poet and compared his own fate
to that of Tasso. "They will not carry me in triumph across the Capitol,
but the time will come when my works will be acknowledged. This will
happen too late for me--I shall not be among you any more," he said. Not
an untrue prophecy.
[Illustration: Liszt in His Atelier at Weimar]
During these trips he gave alms freely. His servant Mischka filled
Liszt's right vest pocket with _lire_ and the other one with _soldi_
every morning. And Liszt always strewed about the silver pieces,
returning to his astonished servant with the pocket full of copper coins
untouched.
Rudolf Louis, another Liszt biographer, tells an amusing story which
fits in the time when Pius the Ninth visited Liszt in the cloister.
While most of the living composers contented themselves with envying
Liszt, old Rossini tried to turn the incident to his own advantage. He
begged Liszt to use his influence in securing the admission of female
voices in service of the church because he--Rossini--did not care to
hear his churchly compositions sung by croaking boys' voices! Of course
nothing came of this request.
The incident itself--the Pope's visit to Liszt--caused much gossip at
the time. It was even reported that Pio Nono had called Liszt "his
Palestrina."
M. Louis also makes a point which most Wagner biographers seem to have
overlooked in their hurry to make Richard appear a very moral man,
namely, that the little Von Buelow-Cosima-Wagner affair did not please
Papa Liszt at all. Truce was patched up only in 1873, when Liszt's
"Christus" performance at Weimar was witnessed by Wagner. Bayreuth of
'76 cemented the friendship once more.
Read this paragraph from the pen of the cynical Gregorovius; it refers
to the Roman performance of the Dante Symphony in the Galleria Dantesca
when the Abbe reaped an aftermath of homage: "The Ladies of Paradise
(?!) poured flowers on him from above; Frau L. almost murdered him with
a big laurel wreath! But the Romans criticised the music severely as
being formless. There is inspiration in it, but it does not reach(?!).
Liszt left for Paris. The day before his departure I breakfasted with
him at Tolstoy's; he played for a solid hour and allowed himself to be
persuaded to do this by the young Princess Nadine Hellbig--Princess
Shahawskoy--a woman of remarkably colossal figure, but also of
remarkable intelligence."
V