Franz Liszt

by James Huneker

CLARA NOVELLO

There are interesting anecdotes of great musicians. Rossini was her intimate friend and adviser for years. In Paris she knew Chopin, who came to the house often and would only play for them if "la petite Clara would recite Peter Piper Picked." She remembered waltzing to his and Thalberg's playing. Later, when she was studying in Milan and knew Liszt, she sang at one of his concerts when no one else would do so, because he had offended the Milanese by a pungent newspaper article. He gave her courage to have a tooth out by playing Weber's Concertstück. She remembered hearing Paganini play when that arch-trickster took out a pair of scissors and cut three of the strings of his violin so that they hung down loose, and on the fourth performed his Witches' Dance, so that "the lights seemed to turn blue."