"Have you read the story of Liszt's conversion as told by Emile Bergerat
in Le Livre de Caliban?" asks Philip Hale. "I do not remember to have
seen it in English, and in the dearth of musical news the story may
amuse. I shall not attempt to translate it literally, or even English it
with a watchful eye on Bergerat's individuality. This is a paraphrase,
not even a pale, literal translation of a brilliant original.
THE CONVERSION
OF
THE ABBE LISZT
"And so he will not play any more.
"Well, a pianist cannot keep on playing forever, and if Liszt had not
promised to stop, the Pope would never have pardoned him--no, never. For
the pianist turned priest because he was remorseful, horror-stricken at
the thought of his abuse of the piano. His conversion is a matter of
history. When one takes Orders, he swears to renounce Satan, his gauds
and his works--that is to say, the piano.
"If he should play he'd be a renegade. Of course he longs to touch the
keys. His daddy-long-legs-fingers itch, and he doesn't know what to do
with them. But an apostate? Perish the thought! And apostasy grins at
him; lurks in the metronome with its flicflac. Here's what I call a
dramatic situation.
"Wretched Abbe! Never more will you smash white or black keys; never
more will you dance on the angry pedals; O never, never more! Do you not
hear the croaking of Poe's raven? Never again, O Father, will you tire
the rosewood! Good-bye to tumbling scales and pyrotechnical arpeggios!
Thus must you do penance. The president of the Immortals does not love
piano playing. He scowls on pianists. He condemns them to thump
throughout eternity. In Dante's hell there is a dumb piano, and Lucifer
sees to it that they practice without ceasing.
"I am naturally tender-hearted, but I approve of this eternal
punishment.
"Yes, Father Liszt, because the piano is not in the scheme of Nature.
Even in Society the fewer the pianos the greater the merriment. If the
piano were really a thing in Nature the good Lord would have taken at
least ten minutes of the seven days and designed a model. But the piano
never occurred to Him. Now, as everything, existing or to exist, was
foreseen by him, and a part of Him (that is, according to the dogma), I
am inclined to think He was afraid of the piano. He recoiled at the
responsibility of creating it. And yet the machine exists!
"A syllogism leads us to declare that the piano is an after-thought. Of
whom? Why, Satan of course. A grim joke of Satan. The piano is the enemy
of man. Liszt finally discovered this, though he was just a little late.
So he will only go to Purgatory, and in Purgatory there are no dumb
pianos. But there are organs without pipes, without bellows, and many
have pulled the stops in vain for centuries. I earnestly beseech you, my
Father, to accumulate indulgences.
"They tell many stories about the conversions of Abbe Liszt, and how he
found out that the piano is the enemy of humanity. Lo, here is the
truth. He once gave a concert in a town where there were many dogs. He
was then exceedingly absent-minded; he mistook the date and appeared the
night before. Extraordinary to relate, there was no one in the hall,
although the concert was announced for the next day! Liszt sat down
nevertheless, and played for his own amusement. The effect was
prodigious, as George Sand told us in her Lettres d'un Voyageur. The
dogs ran to the noise--curs, water spaniels, poodles, greyhounds--all
the dogs, including the yellow outcast. They all howled fearfully, and
they would fain have fleshed their teeth in the pianist.
"Then Liszt reasoned--in his fashion: 'Since the dog is the friend of
man, if he abominates the piano it is because his instinct tells him,
"the piano is my friend's enemy!"' Professor Jevons might not have
approved the conclusion, but Liszt saw no flaw.
"And then a sculptor wished to make a statue of Liszt. He hewed him as
he sat before a piano, and he included the instrument. It was naturally
a grand piano, one lent by Madame Erard expressly for the occasion.
Liszt went to the studio, saw the clay, and turned green.
"'Where did you get such a ghastly idea?' he asked, and his voice
trembled. 'You represent me as playing a music coffin.'
"'What's that? I have copied nature. Is not the shape exact?'
"'Horribly,' said Liszt. 'And thus, thus shall I appear to posterity! I
shall be seen hanging by my nails to this funereal box, a virtuoso,
ferocious, with dishevelled hair, raising the dead and digging a grave
at the same time! The idea puts me in a cold sweat!'
"The sculptor smiled. 'I can substitute an upright.'
"'Then I should seem to be scratching a mummy case. They would take me
for an Egyptologist at his sacrilegious work.'
"Homeward he fled. In his own room he arranged the mirrors so that he
could see himself in all positions while he was plying his hellish
trade. And then salvation came to him. He saw that the machine was
demoniacal, that it recalled nothing in the fauna or the flora of the
good Lord, that the sculptor was right, that the piano had the
appearance of the sure box, in which occurs vague metempsychosis, that
is if the box only had a jaw. He was horror-stricken at his past life.
Frightened, his soul tormented by doubt, it seemed to him that from
under the eighty-five molars, which he snatched hurriedly from the
shrieking piano, Astaroth darted his tongue. He ran to Rome and threw
himself at the Pope's feet, imploring exorcism.
"The confession lasted three days and three nights. The possessed could
not get to an end. There were crimes which the Pope himself knew nothing
about, which he had never heard mentioned, professional crimes, crimes
peculiar to pianists, horrid crimes in keys natural and unnatural! This
confession is still celebrated.
"'Holy Father,' cried the wretch, 'you do not, you cannot know
everything! There are pianists and pianists. You believe that the piano,
as diabolical as it is, whether it be a Pleyel or an Erard, cannot give
out more noise than it holds. You believe that he who makes it exhibit
in full its terrible proportions is the strongest, and that piano
playing has human limitations. Alas, alas! You say to yourself when in
an apartment house of seven stories the seven tenants give notice
simultaneously to the trembling landlord, it makes no difference whether
the cause of the desperate flight is named Saint-Saens, Pugno or
Chabrier. The tenants run because the piano gives forth all that is
inside of it, and the inanimate is acutely animate. How Your Holiness is
deceived. There's a still lower depth!'
"Liszt smote his breast thrice, and continued: 'I know a man (or is it
indeed a human being?) who never quitted the sonorous coffin until the
entire street in which he raged had emigrated. And yet he had only ten
fingers on his hands, as you and I, and never did he use his toes. This
monster, Holy Father, is at your feet!'
"Pius IX shivered with fright. 'Go on, my son, the mercy of God is
unbounded.'
"Then Liszt accused himself:
"Of having by Sabbatic concerts driven the half of civilised Europe mad,
while the other half returned to Chopin and Thalberg.
"('There's Rubinstein,' said Pius, and he smiled.) Liszt pretended not
to hear him, and he continued:
"'My Father, I have encouraged the trade in shrill mahogany, noisy
rosewood and shrieking ebony in the five parts of the acoustic world, so
that at this very moment there is not a single ajoupa or a single
thatched hut among savages that is without a piano. Even wild men are
beginning to manufacture pianos, and they give them as wedding gifts to
their daughters.'
"('Just as it is in Europe,' said the Pope.)
"'And also,' added Liszt, 'with instructions how to use them. Mea
culpa!'
"Then he confessed that apes unable to scramble through a scale were
rare in virgin forests; that travellers told of elephants who played
with their trunks the Carnival of Venice variations; and it was he,
Franz Liszt, that had served them as a model. The plague of universal
"pianisme" had spread from pole to pole. Mea culpa! Mea culpa!
"Overcome with shame, he wished to finish his confession at the piano.
But Pius IX had anticipated him. There was no piano in the Vatican. In
all Christendom, the Pope was the only one without a boxed harp.
"'Ah! you are indeed the Pope!' cried Liszt as he knelt before him.
"A little after this Liszt took Orders. They that speak without
intelligence started the rumour that it was at La Trappe. But at La
Trappe there is a piano, and Liszt swore to the Holy Father that he
would never touch one.
"To-day the world breathes freely. The monster has been disarmed and
exorcised.
"Now when Liszt sees a piano he approaches it with curiosity and asks
the use of that singular article of furniture.
"It is true there's one in his room, but he keeps his cassocks in it."