LISZT IN ENGLAND
"The visits of great musicians to our shores have furnished much interesting material to the musical historian," wrote the Musical Times. "Those of Mozart and Haydn, for instance, have been fully and ably treated by the late Carl Ferdinand Pohl, in two volumes which have never been translated, as they deserve to be, into the English language. No less interesting are the sojournings in London and the provinces of Spohr, Weber, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Berlioz, Verdi, and Wagner. 'The King of Pianists' has not hitherto received the attention due to him in this respect, and the following chit-chat upon his English experiences is offered as a small contribution to the existing biographical information concerning a great man.
"Franz was a boy of twelve years of age, when he made his first appearance in London in the year 1824. At that time Rossini shone as the bright particular star in the London musical firmament. The composer of Il Barbiere actually gave concerts. 'Persons desirous of obtaining tickets are requested to send their names to Signor Rossini, 90, Quadrant [Regent Street], 'so the advertisements stated. It was therefore thought desirable to postpone the appearance of the little Hungarian pianist until after Rossini had finished his music-makings.
"The first appearance of Liszt in England was of a semi-private nature. On June 5, 1824, the Annual Festival of the Royal Society of Musicians took place. The account of the dinner given in the Morning Post contains the following information:
"'Master Liszt (a youth from Hungary) performed on a Grand Pianoforte with an improved action, invented by Sebastian Erard, the celebrated Harp-maker, of very great power and brilliancy of tone.
"'To do justice to the performance of Master Liszt is totally out of our power; his execution, taste, expression, genius, and wonderful extemporary playing, defy any written description. He must be heard to be duly appreciated.'
"Among those who heard Master Liszt was a certain Master Wesley (Samuel Sebastian of that ilk), who, as a Chapel Royal Chorister, took part in the glees sung at that festive board. The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review of 1824 (p. 241) thus referred to the young pianist's performance:
"'We heard this youth first at the dinner of the Royal Society of Musicians, where he extemporised for about twenty minutes before that judgmatical audience of professors and their friends.'
"The announcement of Liszt's concert appeared in the Morning Post in these terms:
"'NEW ARGYLL ROOMS
"'Master Liszt, aged twelve years, a native of Hungary ... respectfully informs the Nobility, Gentry, and the Public in general, that his Benefit Concert will take place this evening, June 21, 1824, to commence at half-past 8 precisely, when he will perform on Sebastian Erard's new patent Grand Pianoforte, a Concerto by Hummel, New variations by Winkhler, and play extempore on a written Thema, which Master Liszt will request any person of the company to give him....
"'Leader, Mr. Mori. Conductor, Sir George Smart. Tickets, half-a-guinea each, to be had of Master Liszt, 18, Great Marlborough Street.'
"In an account of the concert the Morning Post said: 'Notwithstanding the contrary motions which occurred on Monday night of Pasta's benefit and a Grand Rout given by Prince Leopold, there was a numerous attendance.' The musicians present included Clementi, J. B. Cramer, Ries, Neate, Kalkbrenner, and Cipriani Potter, all of whom 'rewarded Master Liszt with repeated bravos.' The programme included an air with variations by Czerny, played by Liszt, who also took part in Di Tanti Palpiti, performed 'as a concertante with Signor Vimercati on his little mandolin with uncommon spirit.' The remainder of the Morning Post notice may be quoted in full:
"'Sir G. Smart (who conducted the Concert) invited any person in the company to oblige Master Liszt with a Thema, on which he would work (as the phrase is) extemporaneously. Here an interesting pause took place; at length a lady named Zitti, Zitti. The little fellow, though not very well acquainted with the air, sat down and roved about the instrument, occasionally touching a few bars of the melody, then taking it as a subject for a transient fugue; but the best part of this performance was that wherein he introduced the air with his right hand, while the left swept the keys chromatically; then he crossed over his right hand, played the subject with the left, while the right hand descended by semi-tones to the bottom of the instrument! It is needless to add, that his efforts were crowned with the most brilliant success.'
"Liszt took part in two grand miscellaneous concerts given at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, on the 2d and 4th of August, the other chief attraction being The Infant Lyra, a prodigy harpist 'not four years old,' and nine years younger than the juvenile Hungarian pianist. The programme included 'an extempore fantasia on Erard's new patent grand pianoforte of seven octaves by Master Liszt, who will respectfully request a written thema from any person present.' The advertisement of the second concert included the following:
"'Master Liszt being about to return to the Continent where he is eagerly expected in consequence of his astonishing talents, and the Infant Lyra being on his way to London, the only opportunity which can occur for the inhabitants of Manchester to hear them has been seized by Mr. Ward; and to afford every possible advantage to the Voices and Instruments, he has so constructed the Orchestra, that the Harp, and Piano-Forte will be satisfactorily heard in every part of the house.'
"The young gentleman was honoured with a 'command' to perform before King George the Fourth at Windsor Castle. In the words of the Windsor Express of July 31, 1824:
"'On Thursday evening, young Lizt (sic), the celebrated juvenile performer on the pianoforte, was introduced to the King at Windsor by Prince Esterhazy. In the course of the evening he played several pieces of Handel's and Mozart's upon the piano, which he executed in a style to draw forth the plaudits of His Majesty and the company present.'
"In the following year (1825), Master Liszt paid his second visit to England and again appeared in Manchester.
"At his third visit (in 1827), he made the acquaintance of the late Charles Salaman, two years his senior, who heard Liszt play Hummel's Concerto. In his pleasantly-written recollections of pianists of the past (Blackwood's Magazine, September, 1901), Mr. Salaman says:
"'Very shortly afterwards—just before Liszt's morning concert, for which my father had purchased tickets from his father—we became acquainted. I visited him and his father at their lodgings in Frith Street, Soho, and young Liszt came to early family dinner at my home. He was a very charmingly natural and unaffected boy, and I have never forgotten his joyful exclamation, 'Oh, gooseberry pie!' when his favourite dish was put upon the table. We had a good deal of music together on that memorable afternoon, reading several duets. Liszt played some of his recently published Etudes, Op. 6, a copy of which he gave me, and in which he wrote specially for me an amended version of the sixth study, Molto agitato.'
"Here is the programme of the morning concert above referred to:
NEW ARGYLL ROOMS
MASTER LISZT
Has the honour to inform the Nobility, Gentry, and his
Friends, that his
MORNING CONCERT
will take place at the above rooms on
Saturday, June 9, 1827Part I
Part II
Quartet for Voice, Harp, Piano Forte, and Violin, Miss Stephens, Mr. Labarre, Master Liszt, and Mr. Mori Moscheles and Mayseder Aria, Miss Fanny Ayton, "Una voce poco fa" Rossini Solo, Guitar, Mr. Huerta Huerta Duet, Miss Stephens and Mr. Braham. Song, Miss Love, "Had I a heart." Fantasia, Flute, Master Minasi Master Minasi Song, Miss Grant, "The Nightingale" Crivelli Brilliant Variations on "Rule Britannia," Master Liszt Master Liszt Leader, Mr. Mori Conductor, Mr. Schuncke
THE CONCERT WILL COMMENCE AT HALF-PAST ONE O'CLOCK
PRECISELYTickets, Half-a-Guinea each, to be had of Mr. Liszt, 46,
Great Marlborough Street, and at all the principal
Music Shops.
| Quartet for Voice, Harp, Piano Forte, and Violin, Miss Stephens, Mr. Labarre, Master Liszt, and Mr. Mori | Moscheles and Mayseder |
| Aria, Miss Fanny Ayton, "Una voce poco fa" | Rossini |
| Solo, Guitar, Mr. Huerta | Huerta |
| Duet, Miss Stephens and Mr. Braham. | |
| Song, Miss Love, "Had I a heart." | |
| Fantasia, Flute, Master Minasi | Master Minasi |
| Song, Miss Grant, "The Nightingale" | Crivelli |
| Brilliant Variations on "Rule Britannia," Master Liszt | Master Liszt |
"Thirteen years elapsed before Liszt again favoured us with his presence. He had in the meantime passed from boyhood to manhood, from having been a prodigy to becoming a mature artist. The year was 1840—an important one, as we shall presently see. He appeared, for the first time, at the Philharmonic Concert of May 11, 1840, which was conducted by Sir Henry Bishop. Liszt played his own version of Weber's Concertstück in which, according to a contemporary account, 'passages were doubled, tripled, inverted, and transmogrified in all sorts of ways.' Be this as it may, the Philharmonic Directors showed their appreciation of his performance by a presentation, an account of which appeared in a snappy and short-lived paper called the Musical Journal. Here is the extract:
"'Liszt has been presented by the Philharmonic Society with an elegant silver breakfast service, for doing that which would cause every young student to receive a severe reprimand—viz., thumping and partially destroying two very fine pianofortes. The Society has given this to Mr. Liszt as a compliment for performing at two of its concerts gratuitously! Whenever did they present an Englishman with a silver breakfast service for gratuitous performances?'
"The foregoing is written in the strain which characterised the attitude of a section of the musical press towards the great pianist. His use of the word 'Recitals' appears to have been as a red rag to those roaring bulls. The familiar term owes its origin to Liszt's performances. The late Willert Beale records that his father, Frederick Beale, invented the designation, and that it was much discussed before being finally adopted. The advertisement reads thus:
"'LISZT'S PIANOFORTE RECITALS
"'M. Liszt will give at Two o'clock on Tuesday morning, June 9, 1840, RECITALS on the PIANOFORTE of the following works:—No. 1. Scherzo and Finale from Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony. No. 2. Serenade, by Schubert. No. 3. Ave Maria, by Schubert. No. 4. Hexameron. No. 5. Neapolitan Tarentelles. No. 6. Grand Galop Chromatique. Tickets 10s. 6d. each; reserved seats, near the Pianoforte, 21s.'
"The 'Recitals'—the plural form of the term will be noticed—took place at the Hanover Square Rooms, and the piece entitled Hexameron (a set of variations on the grand march in I Puritani) was the composition of the following sextet of pianists: Thalberg, Chopin, Herz, Czerny, Pixis, and Liszt, not exactly 'a singular production,' as the Musical World remarked, but 'an uncommon one.' In connection with the 'Recitals,' Mr. Salaman may be quoted:
"'I did not hear Liszt again until his visit to London in 1840, when he puzzled the musical public by announcing "Pianoforte Recitals." This now commonly accepted term had never previously been used, and people asked, "What does he mean? How can any one recite upon the pianoforte?" At these recitals, Liszt, after performing a piece set down in his programme, would leave the platform, and, descending into the body of the room, where the benches were so arranged as to allow free locomotion, would move about among his auditors and converse with his friends, with the gracious condescension of a prince, until he felt disposed to return to the piano.'
"The Musical World referred to the 'Recitals' as 'this curious exhibition'; that the performance was 'little short of a miracle'; and that the Hexameron contained 'some difficulties of inconceivable outrageousness.' Another specimen of critical insight may be quoted—it refers to Liszt's participation in a concert given by John Parry:
"'On being unanimously recalled, he tore the National Anthem to ribbons, and thereby fogged the glory he had just achieved. Let him eschew such hyper-erudite monstrosities—let him stick to the 'recital' of sane and sanative music, and he will attain a reputation above all contemporary musical mono-facturers—and what is more, deserve it.'
"In the autumn of the same year (1840), Liszt formed one of a concert-party, organised by Lavenu, in a tour in the south of England. The party included John Parry, the composer of Wanted, a Governess, and the comic man of the Lavenu troup. Like Mendelssohn, Liszt seems to have taken to the jocose Parry, and he quite entered into the fun of the fair. For instance, at Bath, 'in addition to the pieces announced in the bills, Liszt played an accompaniment to John Parry's Inchape Bell, sung by the author, in which he introduced an extemporaneous storm, which had a most terrific effect.' We can well believe it. This storm was not 'a local disturbance,' as meteorologists would say, but it followed the party wherever they went, and it was doubtless received with thunderous applause.
"In November, a second and more extended tour, also under Lavenu's auspices, was undertaken, and the journey embraced the great provincial towns of England, Ireland, and Scotland. The preliminary announcement was couched in terms more or less pungent:
"'Mr. Lavenu with his corps musicale will enter the lists again on the 23d instant, when it is to be hoped the listless provinces will listen with more attention than on his last experiment, or he will have enlisted his talented list to very little purpose.'
"Liszt again appeared in London in 1841, and took the town by storm. Musical critics of the present day may be glad to enlarge their vocabulary from the following notice, which appeared in the columns of the Musical World of sixty years ago:
"'M. Liszt's Recitals.—We walk through this world in the midst of so many wonders, that our senses become indifferent to the most amazing things: light and life, the ocean, the forest, the voice and flight of the pigmy lark, are unheeded commonplaces; and it is only when some comet, some giant, some tiger-tamer, some new Niagara, some winged being (mental or bodily, and unclassed in the science of ornithology) appears, that our obdurate faculties are roused into the consciousness that miracles do exist. Of the miracle genus is M. Liszt, the Polyphemus of the pianoforte—the Aurora Borealis of musical effulgence—the Niagara of thundering harmonies! His rapidity of execution, his power, his delicacy, his Briareus-handed chords, and the extraordinary volume of sound he wrests from the instrument, are each and all philosophies in their way that might well puzzle all but a philosopher to unriddle and explain.'
"Shortly before the 'recitals' above referred to, Liszt was thrown out of a carriage, and the accident resulted in a sprained wrist. At the performance, he apologised in French to the audience 'for his inability to play all the pieces advertised.'
"It is strange, but true, that no less than forty-five years had come and gone before Liszt again set foot on Albion's shores. In the year 1886, aged seventy-five, he came again, and charmed everybody with the geniality of his presence.
"It was at the invitation of the late Mr. Henry Littleton (then head of the firm of Novello & Co.) that Liszt paid his last visit to England in 1886. The great pianist arrived on May 3, and remained under Mr. Littleton's hospitable roof at Westwood House, Sydenham, during the whole of his sojourn in this country. The events of those seventeen days were a series of triumphs to the grand old man of pianists. A command visit to Windsor Castle, when he played to Queen Victoria; dining with the Prince and Princess of Wales at Marlborough House; a visit to the Baroness Burdett Coutts; attending performances of his oratorio St. Elisabeth (conducted by Sir, then Mr. A. C. Mackenzie) at St. James's Hall and the Crystal Palace; concerts of Chev. Leonard E. Bach; the Royal Amateur Orchestral Society (when he was seated next to the king, then Prince of Wales); Monday Popular; pianoforte recitals by Mr. Frederic Lamond and Herr Stavenhagen; a visit to the Royal Academy of Music; in addition to receptions given by his devoted pupil and attached friend, the late Walter Bache at the Grosvenor Gallery, and the 'at homes' of his host and hostess at Westwood House.
"As an indication of the general interest aroused by the coming of Liszt, Punch burst forth in the following strain:
"'A Brilliant Variation.—Mr. and Mrs. Littleton's reception of the Abbé Franz Liszt, at Westwood House, Saturday night last, was an event never to be forgotten. But it was not until all the Great 'uns had left the Littletons that the Greatest of them all sat at the piano in the midst of a cosy and select circle, and then, when Mr. P-nch had put on his Liszt slippers ... but to say more were a breach of hospitality. Suffice it that on taking up his sharp-and-flat candlestick in a perfectly natural manner the Abbé, embracing Mr. P-nch, sobbed out, "This is the Abbé'ist evening I've ever had. Au plaisir!"—(Extract from a Distinguished Guest's Diary. Privately communicated.)'
"Although he was in his seventy-sixth year at the time of this, his last sojourn in England, his pianoforte technic astonished those who were capable to form an opinion, and who were amazed that he did not 'smash the pianoforte, like his pupils!' He was immensely gratified at his visit, and in parting with Mr. Alfred and Mr. Augustus Littleton, at Calais, he said: 'If I should live two years longer I will certainly visit England again!' But alas! a little more than three months after he had said 'Good-bye' to these friends, Franz Liszt closed his long, eventful, and truly artistic career at Bayreuth on July 31, 1886. Professor Niecks said, 'Liszt has lived a noble life. Let us honour his memory.'"