"While Liszt has been immensely written about as pianist and composer,
sufficient stress has not been laid upon what the world owes him as a
teacher of pianoforte playing," writes Amy Fay. "During his life-time
Liszt despised the name of 'piano-teacher,' and never suffered himself
to be regarded as such. 'I am no Professeur du Piano,' he scornfully
remarked one day in the class at Weimar, and if any one approached him
as a 'teacher' he instantly put the unfortunate offender outside of his
door.
"I was once a witness of his haughty treatment of a Leipsic pupil of the
fair sex, who came to him one day and asked him 'to give her a few
lessons.' He instantly drew himself up and replied in the most cutting
tone:
"'I do not give lessons on the piano; and,' he added with a bow, in
which grace and sarcasm were combined, 'you really don't need me as a
teacher.'
"There was a dead silence for a minute, and then the poor girl, not
knowing what to do or say, backed herself out of the room. Liszt,
turning to the class, said:
"'That is the way people fly in my face, by dozens! They seem to think I
am there only to give them lessons on the piano. I have to get rid of
them, for I am no Professor of the Piano. This girl did not play badly,
either,' concluded he, half ashamed of himself for his treatment of
her.
"For my part, I was awfully sorry for the girl, and I was tempted to run
after her and bring her back, and intercede with Liszt to take her; but
I was a new-comer myself, and did not quite dare to brave the lion in
his den. Later, I would have done it, for the girl was really very
talented, and it was a mere want of tact on her part in her manner of
approaching Liszt which precipitated her defeat. She brought him
Chopin's F minor concerto, and played the middle movement of it, Liszt
standing up and thundering out the orchestral accompaniment, tremolo, in
the bass of the piano. I wondered it did not put the girl out, but she
persisted bravely to the end, and did not break down, as I expected she
would.
"She came at an inopportune moment, for there were only five of us in
the room, and we were having a most entertaining time with Liszt, that
lovely June afternoon, and he did not feel disposed to be interrupted by
a stranger. In spite of himself, he could not help doing justice to her
talent, saying: 'She did not play at all badly.' This, however, the poor
girl never knew. She probably wept briny tears of disappointment when
she returned to her hotel.
"While Liszt resented being called a 'piano-teacher,' he nevertheless
_was one_, in the higher sense of the term. It was the difference
between the scientific college professor of genius and the ordinary
school-teacher which distinguished him from the rank and file of musical
instructors.
"Nobody could be more appreciative of talent than Liszt was--even of
talent which was not of the first order--and I was often amazed to see
the trouble he would give himself with some industrious young girl who
had worked hard over big compositions like Schumann's Carnival, or
Chopin's sonatas. At one of the musical gatherings at the Frauleins'
Stahr (music-teachers in Weimar, to whose simple home Liszt liked to
come) I have heard him accompany on a second piano Chopin's E minor
concerto, which was technically well played, by a girl of nineteen from
the Stuttgart Conservatory.
"It was a contrast to see this young girl, with her rosy cheeks, big
brown eyes, and healthy, everyday sort of talent, at one piano, and
Liszt, the colossal artist, at the other.
"He was then sixty-three years old, but the fire of youth burned in him
still. Like his successor, Paderewski, Liszt sat erect, and never bent
his proud head over the 'stupid keys,' as he called them, even
deprecating his pupils' doing so. He was very picturesque, with his
lofty and ideal forehead thrown back, and his magnificent iron-gray hair
falling in thick masses upon his neck. The most divine expression came
over his face when he began to play the opening measures of the
accompaniment, and I shall never forget the concentration and intensity
he put into them if I live to be a hundred! The nobility and absolute
'selflessness' of Liszt's playing had to be heard to be understood.
There was something about his tone that made you weep, it was so apart
from earth and so ethereal!"