It is possible, but not likely, that some pianist willing, for the moment at least, to sacrifice outward success to inward satisfaction, will, after he has played the Schumann selections on his program, essay one of Brahms’s shorter pianoforte compositions. These are even more introspective than Schumann’s works and combine a wealth of learning with great depth of musical feeling. It is almost necessary, however, that one should know them thoroughly in order to appreciate them, and audiences have been so slow to welcome them that they appear but infrequently on recital programs. Those of my readers, however, who are pianists yet still unacquainted with these rare and beautiful compositions, will soon find themselves under the spell of their intimate personal expression if they will get them and start to learn them. The Brahms Variations on a theme by HÄndel make a stupendous work, and the rare occasions on which it is played by any one capable of mastering it should be regarded as “events.”

Grieg, with his clear, fascinating Norwegian clang-tints, which also play through his fascinating “Concerta” in A minor; Dvorak, the Bohemian; Tschaikowsky, whose first “Concerto” in B flat minor 143 is among the finest modern works of its kind; or some of the neo-Russians, are composers who may figure on the program of a modern pianoforte recital. But it is more likely that the virtuoso will here elect to bring his recital to a close with some work by the grandest figure in the history of pianoforte playing and one of the greatest in the history of composition—Franz Liszt.

Kissed by Beethoven.

Liszt was born at Raiding, near Odenburg in Hungary, in October, 1811, and he died in Bayreuth in July, 1886. From early boyhood, when he was a pianoforte prodigy, almost until his death, he occupied a unique position in the musical world. He was the Paganini of the pianoforte, the greatest pianist that ever lived, and he was a great composer; and although, as a virtuoso, he retired from public performances long before he died, his fame as a player and his still greater fame as a composer have not diminished and his influence still is potent.

His father was an amateur, and began giving him instruction when he was six years old. The boy’s talent was so pronounced that even without professional instruction he was able, when he was nine years old, to appear in public and play a difficult concerto by Ries. So great was his success that his father arranged for other concerts at Pressburg. After the second of these, several Hungarian noblemen agreed to provide an annual stipend of 600 florins for six years for Franz’s further musical education. The family then removed to Vienna, where, for about a year and a half, the boy 144 took pianoforte lessons from Czerny and theory with Salieri. Beethoven heard of him, and asked to see him, and at their meeting, after Franz had played, without notes and without the other instruments, Beethoven’s pianoforte trio, Op. 97 (the large one in B flat major), the great master embraced and kissed him. In 1823 he was taken to Paris with a view to being placed in the Conservatoire. But although he passed his examination without difficulty, Cherubini, at that time the director of the institution and prejudiced against infant phenomena, revived a rule excluding foreigners and admission was denied him.

His success as a pianist, however, was enormous and there was the greatest demand in salons and musical circles for “le petit Litz.” (As some writer, whose name I cannot recall, has said, “the nearest Paris came to appreciating Liszt was to call him ‘Litz.’”) He was the friend of Chopin, of other musicians, and of painters and literary men, and the doors of the most exclusive drawing-rooms of the French capital were open to him. Paganini played in Paris in 1831, and his wonderful feats of technique inspired Liszt to efforts to develop the technique of the pianoforte with as much daring as Paganini had shown in developing the capacity of the violin. This was the beginning of those wonderful feats of virtuosity as well as of the remarkable technical demands made in his compositions, both of which combined have done so much to make the pianoforte what it is, and to bring out its full potentiality as regards execution and expression.

Episode with Countess D’Agoult.

For a time Liszt left Paris with the Countess d’Agoult, who wrote under the nom-de-plume of Daniel Stern, and who was the mother of his three children, of whom Cosima became the wife, first of Von BÜlow and then of Wagner. His four years with the Countess he passed in Geneva. Twice, however, he came forth from this retirement to cross the sword of virtuosity with and vanquish his only serious rival in pianoforte playing, Sigismund Thalberg, a brilliant player and a man, like Liszt himself, of fascinating personality, but lacking the Hungarian’s intellectual capacity. In 1829, he and Countess d’Agoult having separated, he began his triumphal progress through Europe, and for the following ten years the world rang with his fame. He then settled down as Court Conductor at Weimar, which became the headquarters of the new romantic movement in Germany. Hardly a person of distinction in music or any of the other arts passed through the town without a visit to the Altenburg, to pay his respects to Liszt. At Weimar, “Lohengrin” had its first performance; here Berlioz’s works found a hearing; here everything new in music that also was meritorious was made welcome. Liszt’s activity at Weimar continued until 1859, when he left there on account of the hostility displayed to the production of Cornelius’s opera, “The Barber of Bagdad,” and its resultant failure. He remained away from Weimar for eleven years, living for the most part in Rome, until 1870, when he was invited to conduct the Beethoven festival and re-established cordial relations with the Court. 146 Thereafter he divided his year between Rome, Buda-Pest, where he had been made President of the new Hungarian Academy of Music, and Weimar.

“Liszt, the artist and the man,” says Baker, in his “Biographical Dictionary of Musicians,” “is one of the grand figures in the history of music. Generous, kindly and liberal-minded, whole-souled in his devotion to art, superbly equipped as an interpreter of classic and romantic works alike, a composer of original conceptions and daring execution, a conductor of marvellous insight, worshipped as teacher and friend by a host of disciples, reverenced and admired by his fellow-musicians, honored by institutions of learning and by potentates as no artist before or since, his influence, spread by those whom he personally taught and swayed, will probably increase rather than diminish as time goes on.”

It has been said that Liszt passed through six lives in the course of his existence—only three less than a cat. As “petit Litz” he was the precocious child adored of Paris; as a youth, he plunged into the early romanticism which united the devotees of various branches of art in the French capital: next came the episode with the Countess d’Agoult; then his triumphal tours through Europe; settling at Weimar, he became the centre of the modern musical movement in Europe; finally, he revolved in a cycle through Rome, Buda-Pest and Weimar, followed from place to place by a band of devotees.

Liszt’s compositions for the pianoforte may be classified as follows: “Fantasies Dramatiques”; “AnnÉes de PÈlerinage”; “Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses”; 147 the Sonata, Concertos, Études, and miscellaneous works; “Rhapsodies Hongroises”; arrangements and transcriptions from Berlioz, Beethoven, Weber, Paganini, Schubert and others.

The Don Juan Fantasie.

Among the “Fantasies Dramatiques,” which are variations on themes from operas, not mere potpourris or transcriptions, but genuine fantasies, and usually based on one or two themes only, the best known is the “Don Juan Fantasie.” It is founded upon the duet, “La ci darem la mano.” Liszt utilizes a passage from the overture as an introduction, then gives the entire duet, varying it, however, not in set form, but with the effect of a brilliant fantasia, and then winds up the whole with a presto on the “Champagne Song.” It is true it no longer is Mozart—but Mozart might be glad if it were. It is even possible that the time will come when “Don Giovanni” will have vanished from the operatic stage, yet be remembered by this brilliant fantasia of Liszt’s. It is one of the great tours de force of pianoforte music, and it is good music as well. Another of the better known “Fantasies Dramatiques” is the one Liszt made from “Norma,” in which occurs a long sustained trill and a melody for the right hand, while the left plays another melody and the accompaniment to the whole. In other words, there is in this passage a trill sustained throughout, two melodies and the accompaniment, all going on at the same time, yet written with such perfect knowledge of pianoforte technique 148 that any virtuoso worthy of the name as used in a modern sense, can compass it.

A work called the “Hexameron” is included in catalogues of Liszt’s compositions, although he only contributed part of it. It is the march from Bellini’s “Puritani” with six variations, written by six pianists and originally played by them on six pianofortes, five of them full grands, while Chopin, whose variation was not of the bravura, kind, sat at a two-stringed semi-grand. Liszt contributed the introduction, the connecting links and the finale of the “Hexameron.”

The “AnnÉes de PÈlerinage” were published in three divisions, extending in point of time from 1835 to 1883. They are a series of musical impressions, as the titles indicate—“Au lac de Wallenstadt, Pastoral,” “Au bord d’une source, Sposalizio” (after Raphael’s picture in the Brera), “Il Penseroso” (after Michael Angelo). Many of these are adroit and elegant in the treatment of the pianoforte, and at the same time beautiful as music. The “Harmonies” are partly transcriptions of his own vocal pieces, partly musical illustrations to poems. Among them is the familiar “Cantique d’Amour,” and the “Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude,” of which he himself was very fond. William Mason says that at the Altenburg a copy of it always was lying on the pianoforte, “which Liszt had used so many times when playing for his guests that it became associated with memories of Berlioz, Rubinstein, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, Joachim.” When Mr. Mason left Weimar he took this copy with him as a souvenir, still has it, and treasures it all the more for the marks of usage which it bears. The “Consolations,” 149 which, as Edward Dannreuther says, may be taken as corollaries to the “Harmonies,” are tenderly expressive pianoforte pieces.

Giant Strides in Virtuosity.

The Études bear the dates 1827, 1839 and 1852, and as they are in the main progressive editions of the same pieces, they represent the history of pianoforte technique as it developed under Liszt’s own fingers. In their earliest shape when issued in 1827, they were but little different from the classical Études of Czerny and Cramer. In their latest shape they form the extreme of virtuosity. Indeed, these three editions are three giant strides in the development of pianoforte technique. Von BÜlow’s coupling of the Étude called “Feux Follets” with the A flat study (No. 10) of Chopin already has been quoted under that composer. He considered it even more difficult. Schumann called the collection “Sturm und Graus Etuden” (Studies of Storm and Dread), and expressed the opinion that there were only ten or twelve pianists living who could play them. In the Étude called “Waldesrauschen” will be found some ingenious double counterpoint. The theme is divided into two portions, a descending and ascending one, which later on appear together, with first one and then the other uppermost. Other titles among the Études are “Paysage,” “Mazeppa” (a tremendous test of endurance), “Vision,” “Chasse-neige,” “Harmonies de Soir” and “Gnomentanz.” Through Liszt’s transcriptions of some of the Paganini pieces in the form of Études, which include the famous “Bell Rondo” from 150 one of the Paganini concertos, this piece, for example, now is far better known as a pianoforte composition than in its original form for violin.

Sonata, Concertos and Rhapsodies.

The “Sonata in B Minor” dedicated to Schumann is one of the few sonatas in which there is psychological unity throughout. This is due to the fact that it is one movement; although by employing various themes both in rapid and in slow time, Liszt has given it a certain aspect of division into movements. It might well serve as a model to younger composers who think they have to write sonatas. Dannreuther, it is true, says of it that it is “a curious compound of true genius and empty rhetoric,” but admits that it contains enough of genuine impulse and originality in the themes of the opening section, and of suave calm in the melody of the section that stands for the slow movement, to secure the hearer’s attention. Mr. Hanchett’s characterization of it as one of the most masterly compositions ever put into this form—a gigantic, wholly admirable and original work—is more just.

The two pianoforte concertos (in E flat and A major) are superb works. Not only are they written with all the skill which Liszt knew so well how to apply when composing for the instrument, but with this technical perfection they also unite thought and feeling. Like the sonata, they show throughout their development the psychological unity which is so essentially modern. What the pianoforte owes to Chopin and Liszt can be summed up by saying that they were 151 poets and thinkers who took the trouble to thoroughly understand the instrument. Because their music sounds so well on it, at least one of them, Liszt, frequently is stigmatized as a trickster of virtuosity and a charlatan, as if there were some wonderful mark of genius in writing something for one instrument that sounds better on another or may not sound as well as it ought to on any. If Liszt’s pianoforte music is grateful to the player and equally grateful to the listener, it is not only because he knew how to write for the pianoforte, but because, with deep thoughts and poetic feelings, he also understood how to express them clearly and pianistically.

The “Rhapsodies Hongroises” are of such dazzling brilliancy and show off a pianist’s technique to such good purpose and so brilliantly, that their real musical worth has been under-estimated. They are full of splendid fire, vitality and passion, and their rhythmic throb is simply irresistible. Like the Études, their history is curious. At first they were merely short transcriptions of Hungarian tunes. These were elaborated and republished and canceled, and then rewritten and published again. In all there are fifteen pieces in the set, ending with the “Rakoczy March.” As “Ungarische Melodien” they began to appear in 1838; as “Melodies Hongroises” in 1846; as “Rhapsodies Hongroises” in 1854. Consider that they are over fifty years old, yet remain the greatest pieces for the display of brilliant technique and the most grateful works for which a pianist can ask, and that at the same time they are full of admirable musical content! Because they happen to be brilliant and effective they are called 152 trashy, whereas they owe their brilliancy and effectiveness to Liszt’s own transcendent virtuosity, to his knowledge of the pianoforte. In order to be great must music be “classic,” heavy and dull, and badly written for the instrument on which it is to be played?

How Liszt Played.

In those charming reminiscences from which I already have had occasion to quote several times, William Mason’s “Memories of a Musical Life,” Mr. Mason says that time and again at Weimar he heard Liszt play, and that there is absolutely no doubt in his mind that Liszt was the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century, what the Germans call an Erscheinung, an epoch-making genius. Tausig said of him: “Liszt dwells alone upon a solitary mountain-top and none of us can approach him.” Rubinstein said to Mr. William Steinway, in the year 1873 (I quote from Mason): “Put all the rest of us together and we would not make one Liszt.” While Mr. Mason willingly acknowledges that there have been other great pianists, some of them now living, he adds: “But I must dissent from those writers who affirm that any of these can be placed upon a level with Liszt. Those who make this assertion are too young to have heard Liszt other than in his declining years, and it is unjust to compare the playing of one who has long since passed his prime with that of one who is still in it.”

Edward Dannreuther, who heard Liszt play from 1863 onward, says that there was about his playing an air of improvisation and the expression of a grand and 153 fine personality, perfect self-possession, grace, dignity and never-failing fire; that his tone was large and penetrating, but not hard, every effect being produced naturally and easily. Dannreuther adds that he has heard performances, it may be of the same pieces, by younger men, such as Rubinstein and Tausig, but that they left an impression as of Liszt at second-hand or of Liszt past his prime. “None of his contemporaries or pupils were so spontaneous, individual and convincing in their playing; and none except Tausig so infallible with their fingers and wrists.”

Liszt himself paid this superb tribute to the pianoforte as an instrument: “To me my pianoforte is what to the seaman is his boat, to the Arab his horse; nay, more, it has been till now my eye, my speech, my life. Its strings have vibrated under my passions and its yielding keys have obeyed my every caprice. It may be that the secret tie which binds me to it so closely is a delusion, but I hold the pianoforte very high. In my view, it takes the first place in the hierarchy of instruments. It is the oftenest used and the widest spread. In the circumference of its seven octaves it embraces the whole range of an orchestra, and a man’s ten fingers are enough to render the harmonies which in an orchestra are brought out only by the combination of hundreds of musicians. The pianoforte has on the one side the capacity of assimilation, the capacity of taking unto itself the life of all instruments; on the other hand it has its own life, its own growth, its own individual development. My highest ambition is to leave to the piano players to come after me, some useful instructions, the footprints of advanced attainment, 154 something which may some day provide a worthy witness of the labor and study of my youth.”

Bear in mind that Liszt played for Beethoven, that he was a contemporary of Chopin and Schumann, that he was one of the first to throw himself heart and soul into the Wagner movement, and that death came to him while he was attending the festival performances at Bayreuth; bear in mind, I repeat, that he played for Beethoven and died at “Parsifal”; strive to appreciate the extremes of musical history and development implied by this; then remember that he remains a potent force in music—and you may be able to form some idea of his greatness.