Rudolf Breithaupt thus wrote of the technical elements in Liszt's
playing in _Die Musik_:
"What we hear of Liszt's technic in his best years, from 1825 to 1850,
resembles a fairy tale. As artists, Liszt and Paganini have almost
become legendary personages. In analysing Liszt's command of the piano
we find that it consists first and foremost in the revelation of a
mighty personality rather than in the achievement of unheard of
technical feats. Though his admirers will not believe it, technic has
advanced since his day. Tausig excelled him in exactness and brilliancy;
Von Buelow was a greater master of interpretation: Rubinstein went beyond
him in power and in richness of tone-colour, through his consummate use
of the pedal. Even contemporary artists, _e.g._, Carreno, d'Albert,
Busoni, and in part, Godowsky, are technically equal to Liszt in his
best days, and in certain details, owing to the improved mechanism of
the piano, even his superior.
"It is time to do away with the fetich of Liszt's technic. It was mighty
as an expression of his potent personality, mighty in its domination of
all instrumental forms, mighty in its full command of all registers and
positions. But I believe that if the Liszt of former days--not the old
man whose fingers did not always obey his will, but the young, vigorous
Titan of the early nineteenth century--were to play for us now, we
should be as little edified as we should probably be by the singing of
Jenny Lind or by the playing of Paganini. Exaggeration finds no more
fruitful field than the chronicling of the feats of noted artists.
"We hear, for instance, much of Liszt's hand, of its vampire-like
clutch, of its uncanny, spidery power of extension--as a child I firmly
believed that he could reach two octaves without difficulty. These
stories are all fables. His fingers were long and regular, the thumb
abnormally long; a more than usual flexibility of muscles and sinews
gave him the power of spanning a twelfth. Klindworth tells us that he
did some things with his left thumb that one was led to believe it twice
the length of an ordinary thumb.
[Illustration: Liszt's Hand]
"What chiefly distinguished Liszt's technic was the absolute freedom of
his arms. The secret lay in the unconstrained swinging movement of the
arm from the raised shoulder, the bringing out of the tone through the
impact of the full elastic mass on the keys, a thorough command and use
of the freely rolling forearm. He had the gift for which all strove, the
rhythmic dance of the members concerned--the springing arm, the
springing hand, the springing finger. He played by weight--by a swinging
and a hurling of weight from a loosened shoulder that had nothing in
common with what is known as finger manipulation. It was by a direct
transfer of strength from back and shoulders to fingers, which explains
the high position of hands and fingers.
"At the time of his most brilliant period as virtuoso he paid no
attention to technic and its means; his temperament was the reverse of
analytical--what he wished to do he did without concerning himself as to
the how or why. Later in life he did attempt to give some practical
suggestions in technic, but these were of but doubtful worth. A genius
is not always to be trusted when it comes to theoretical explanation of
what he does more by instinct than by calculation.
"His power over an audience was such that he had only to place his hands
on the keyboard to awaken storms of applause. Even his pauses had life
and movement, for his hands spoke in animated gesture, while his
Jupiter-like head, with its mane of flowing hair, exercised an almost
hypnotic effect on his entranced listeners.
"From a professional stand-point his execution was not always flawless.
His great rival, Thalberg, had greater equality of touch in scales and
runs; in what was then known as the jeu perle (literally, pearly
playing) his art was also finer. Liszt frequently struck false
notes--but ears were closed to such faults; his hearers appeared not to
notice them. These spots on the sun are mentioned only to put an end
once for all to the foolish stories that are still current about Liszt's
wonderful technic. This greatest of all reproductive artists was but
a man, and often erred, though in a large and characteristic fashion.
"Liszt's technic is the typical technic of the modern grand piano
(Hammerklavier). He knew well the nature of the instrument, its
old-fashioned single-tone effects on the one hand, its full harmonic
power and polyphonic capabilities on the other. While to his predecessors
it was simply a medium for musical purposes, under his hands it was a
means of expression for himself, a revelation of his ardent temperament.
In comparison with the contracted five-finger positions of the classical
technic, its broken chords and arpeggios, Liszt's technic had the
advantage of a fuller, freer flow, of greater fulness of tone and
increased brilliancy. Chopin has discovered more original forms; his
style of writing is far more delicate and graceful; his individual note
is certainly more musical, but his technic is special in its character;
it lacks the broad sweep that gives Liszt's technic its peculiar freedom
and adaptability to the instrument.
"Take Schumann and Brahms also, and compare their manner of writing for
the piano with Liszt's. Both have written much that is noble and
beautiful considered as music, but so clumsily put on the instrument
that it is unduly difficult for the player. With Liszt, however, no
matter what the difficulty of the means may be, they are always
precisely adapted to the end in view, and everything he writes sounds
well. It is no merely theoretical combination, but meant to be played
on the piano, and is in strict accordance with the nature of the
instrument. The player finds nothing laboriously put together and
requiring study for its disentanglement. Liszt considers the structure
of the hand, and assigns it tasks suited to its capabilities.
"Among the distinctively original features of Liszt's technic are the
bold outline, the large form, the imitative effects of organ and
clavier, the orchestral timbre it imparts to the piano. We thank him
also for the use of the thumb in the declamation of pathetic cantilena,
for a breadth of melodic characterisation which resembles that of the
horn and violoncello, for the imitation of brass instruments, for the
great advance in all sorts of tremolos, trills and vibratos, which serve
to give colour and intensity to moments of climax. His finger passages
are not merely empty runs, but are like high lights in a picture; his
cadenzas fairly sparkle like comet trains and are never introduced for
display alone. They are preparatory, transitional or conclusive in
character; they point contrasts, they heighten dramatic climaxes. His
scales and arpeggios have nothing in common with the stiff monotony of
the Czerny school of playing; they express feeling, they give emotional
variety, they embellish a melody with ineffable grace. He often supplies
them with thirds and sixths, which fill out their meagre outlines and
furnish support to hands and fingers.
"In his octave technic Liszt has embodied all the elementary power and
wildness of his nature. His octaves rage in chromatic and diatonic
scales, in broken chords and arpeggios, up and down, hither and thither,
like zigzag flashes of lightning. Here he is seen at his boldest,
_e.g._, in his Orage, Totentanz, Mazeppa, Don Juan fantasia, VI
Rhapsody, etc. In the trill, too, he has given us such novel forms as
the simple trill with single fingers of each hand, the trill in double
thirds in both hands, the octave trill--all serving to intensify the
introduction or close of the salient divisions of a composition.
"From Liszt dates the placing of a melody in the fullest and most
ringing register of the piano--that corresponding to the tenor or
baritone compass of voice; also the division of the accompaniment
between the two hands and the extension of hand-crossing technic. To him
we owe exactness in the fixing of tempo, the careful designation of
signs for dynamics and expression, the use of three staves instead of
two for the sake of greater clearness of notation, as well as the modern
installation of the pedal.
"In short, Liszt is not only the creator of the art of piano playing as
we have it to-day, but his is the strongest musical influence in modern
musical culture. But granting this, those thinkers who declare this
influence not unmixed with harm are not altogether wrong. It is not the
fault of genius, however, that undesirable consequences follow in its
wake. It is also my opinion that it will do no harm to retrace our steps
and revive the more simple times when there was less piano playing and
more music."