What became of Part Third of the Liszt Piano Method? It was spirited
away and has never been heard of since. In his Franz Liszt in Weimar,
the late A. W. Gottschalg discusses the mystery. A pupil, a woman, is
said to have been the delinquent. The Method, as far as it goes is not a
work of supreme importance. Liszt was not a pedagogue, and abhorred
technical drudgery.
As to the legend of his numerous children, we can only repeat Mark
Twain's witticism concerning a false report of his death--the report has
been much exaggerated. At one time or another Alexander Winterberger, a
pupil (since dead), the late Anton Seidl, Servais, Arthur Friedheim,
and many others have been called "sons of Liszt." And I have heard
of several ladies who--possibly thinking it might improve their
technic--made the claim of paternity. At one time in Weimar, Friedheim
smilingly assured me, there was a craze to be suspected an offspring of
the Grand Old Man--who like Wotan had his Valkyrie brood. When Eugen
d'Albert first played for Liszt he was saluted by him as the "Second
Tausig." That settled his paternity. Immediately it was hinted that he
greatly resembled Karl Tausig, and although his real father was a French
dance composer--do you remember the Peri Valse?--everyone stuck to the
Tausig legend. I wonder what the mothers of these young Lisztians
thought of their sons' tact and delicacy?
Liszt denied that Thalberg was the natural son of Prince Dietrichstein
of Vienna, as was commonly believed. To Goellerich he said that his early
rival was the son of an Englishman. Richard Burmeister told me when
Servais visited Weimar the Lisztian circle was agitated because of the
remarkable resemblance the Belgian bore to the venerable Abbe. At the
whist-table--the game was a favourite one with the Master--some
tactless person bluntly put the question to Liszt as to the supposed
relationship. He fell into a rage and growlingly answered: "Ich kenne
seine Mutter nur durch Correspondenz, und so was kann man nicht durch
Correspondenz abmachen." Then the game was resumed.
Liszt admired the brilliant talents of the young Nietzsche, but he
distrusted his future. Nietzsche disliked the pianist and said of him in
one of his aphorisms: "Liszt the first representative of all musicians,
but no musician. He was the prince, not the statesman. The conglomerate
of a hundred musicians' souls, but not enough of a personality to cast
his own shadow upon them." In his Roving Expeditions of an Inopportune
Philosopher, Nietzsche even condescends to a pun on Liszt as a piano
teacher: "Liszt, or the school of running--after women" (Schule der
Gelaeufigkeit).