LISZT, THE MANY-SIDED
Richard Wagner called Liszt “the greatest musician of all the ages.” He certainly was the greatest pianist of them all, unequaled to this day; but he was very much more than that. In all departments of music, except the opera and chamber music, he created a new epoch or opened new and glorious vistas; and his influence on the musicians of his time and those who came after him was as great as Wagner’s.
LISZT PLAYING AT THE HOME OF MADAME MUNKACSY
This picture, by the artist Frédéric Régamey, represents one of the brilliant assemblages in the salon of Madame Munkacsy, in Paris. In the picture are many portraits. Beside Liszt stands Madame Munkacsy, next to her Gounod, and grouped in the front are Saint-Saëns, Portales, Daudet and other notables. Munkacsy, the celebrated painter, stands at the back on the extreme left.
The strangest thing in Liszt’s extraordinary career is that when he was at the height of his fame as a pianist, and fabulous sums were offered him for recitals, he renounced his instrument, so far as concerts were concerned. For charity he would play occasionally, and for his friends and his pupils; but not for the paying public. This happened thirty-nine years before he died.
LISZT’S HOME IN WEIMAR
It was in this house that he spent his latter years.
Various motives prompted this action, one of them being that he preferred creative work. Thus it came about that the loss of his contemporaries in not hearing him play was our gain in enabling us to hear his songs, his piano pieces, his choral and orchestral compositions. Many of these are still “music of the future”; but their day is dawning.
At piano recitals, in America as in Europe, no composer’s pieces are now more favored than Liszt’s. Pianists usually place them at the end of the program; not only because they make a brilliant close, but because they prevent the audience from leaving before the end, as few or none want to miss these pieces.