However, all playing sounds barren by the side of Liszt, for his is the living, breathing impersonation of poetry, passion, grace, wit, coquetry, daring, tenderness and every other fascinating attribute that you can think of! I'm ready to hang myself half the time when I've been to him. Oh, he is the most phenomenal being in every respect! All that you've heard of him would never give you an idea of him. In short, he represents the whole scale of human emotion. He is a many-sided prism, and reflects back the light in all colours, no matter how you look at him. His pupils adore him, as in fact everybody else does, but it is impossible to do otherwise with a person whose genius flashes out of him all the time so, and whose character is so winning.
One day this week, when we were with Liszt, he was in such high spirits that it was as if he had suddenly become twenty years younger. A student from the Stuttgardt conservatory played a Liszt Concerto. His name is V., and he is dreadfully nervous. Liszt kept up a little running fire of satire all the time he was playing, but in a good-natured way. I shouldn't have minded it if it had been I. In fact, I think it would have inspired me; but poor V. hardly knew whether he was on his head or on his feet. It was too funny. Everything that Liszt says is so striking. For instance, in one place where V. was playing the melody rather feebly, Liszt suddenly took his seat at the piano and said, "When I play, I always play for the people in the gallery [by the gallery he meant the cock-loft, where the rabble always sit, and where the places cost next to nothing], so that those persons who pay only five groschens for their seat also hear something." Then he began, and I wish you could have heard him! The sound didn't seem to be very loud, but it was penetrating and far-reaching. When he had finished, he raised one hand in the air, and you seemed to see all the people in the gallery drinking in the sound. That is the way Liszt teaches you. He presents an idea to you, and it takes fast hold of your mind and sticks there. Music is such a real, visible thing to him, that he always has a symbol, instantly, in the material world to express his idea. One day, when I was playing, I made too much movement with my hand in a rotatory sort of a passage where it was difficult to avoid it. "Keep your hand still, Fräulein," said Liszt; "don't make omelette." I couldn't help laughing, it hit me on the head so nicely. He is far too sparing of his playing, unfortunately, and, like Tausig, only sits down and plays a few bars at a time, generally. It is dreadful when he stops, just as you are at the height of your enjoyment, but he is so thoroughly blasé that he doesn't care to show off, and doesn't like to have any one pay him a compliment. Even at the court it annoyed him so that the Grand Duchess told people to take no notice when he rose from the piano.
On the same day that Liszt was in such high good-humour, a strange lady and her husband were there who had made a long journey to Weimar, in the hope of hearing him play. She waited patiently for a long time through the lesson, and at last Liszt took compassion on her, and sat down with his favourite remark that "the young ladies played a great deal better than he did, but he would try his best to imitate them," and then played something of his own so wonderfully, that when he had finished we all stood there like posts, feeling that there was nothing to be said. But he, as if he feared we might burst out into eulogy, got up instantly and went over to a friend of his who was standing there, and who lives on an estate near Weimar, and said, in the most commonplace tone imaginable, "By the way, how about those eggs? Are you going to send me some?" It seems to be not only a profound bore to him, but really a sort of sensitiveness on his part. How he can bear to hear us play, I cannot imagine. It must grate on his ear terribly, I think, because everything must sound expressionless to him in comparison with his own marvellous conception. I assure you, no matter how beautifully we play any piece, the minute Liszt plays it, you would scarcely recognize it! His touch and his peculiar use of the pedal are two secrets of his playing, and then he seems to dive down in the most hidden thoughts of the composer, and fetch them up to the surface, so that they gleam out at you one by one, like stars!
The more I see and hear Liszt, the more I am lost in amazement! I can neither eat nor sleep on those days that I go to him. All my musical studies till now have been a mere going to school, a preparation for him. I often think of what Tausig said once: "Oh, compared with Liszt, we other artists are all blockheads." I did not believe it at the time, but I've seen the truth of it, and in studying Liszt's playing, I can see where Tausig got many of his own wonderful peculiarities. I think he was the most like Liszt of all the army that have had the privilege of his instruction.—I began this letter on Sunday, and it is now Tuesday. Yesterday I went to Liszt, and found that Bülow had just arrived. None of the other scholars had come, for a wonder, and I was just going away, when Liszt came out, asked me to come in a moment, and introduced me to Bülow. There I was, all alone with these two great artists in Liszt's salon! Wasn't that a situation? I only stayed a few minutes, of course, though I should have liked to spend hours, but our conversation was in the highest degree amusing while I was there. Bülow had just returned from his grand concert tour, and had been in London for the first time. In a few months he had given one hundred and twenty concerts! He is a fascinating creature, too, like all these master artists, but entirely different from Liszt, being small, quick, and airy in his movements, and having one of the boldest and proudest foreheads I ever saw. He looks like strength of will personified. Liszt gazed at "his Hans," as he calls him, with the fondest pride, and seemed perfectly happy over his arrival. It was like his beautiful courtesy to call me in and introduce me to Bülow instead of letting me go away. He thought I had come to play to him, and was unwilling to have me take that trouble for nothing, though he must have wished me in Jericho. You would think I paid him a hundred dollars a lesson, instead of his condescending to sacrifice his valuable time to me for nothing.
CHAPTER XIX.
Liszt's Expression in Playing. Liszt on Conservatories.
Ordeal of Liszt's Lessons. Liszt's Kindness.
WEIMAR, June 19, 1873.
In Liszt I can at last say that my ideal in something has been realized. He goes far beyond all that I expected. Anything so perfectly beautiful as he looks when he sits at the piano I never saw, and yet he is almost an old man now.[E] I enjoy him as I would an exquisite work of art. His personal magnetism is immense, and I can scarcely bear it when he plays. He can make me cry all he chooses, and that is saying a good deal, because I've heard so much music, and never have been affected by it. Even Joachim, whom I think divine, never moved me. When Liszt plays anything pathetic, it sounds as if he had been through everything, and opens all one's wounds afresh. All that one has ever suffered comes before one again. Who was it that I heard say once, that years ago he saw Clara Schumann sitting in tears near the platform, during one of Liszt's performances?—Liszt knows well the influence he has on people, for he always fixes his eyes on some one of us when he plays, and I believe he tries to wring our hearts. When he plays a passage, and goes pearling down the key-board, he often looks over at me and smiles, to see whether I am appreciating it.
But I doubt if he feels any particular emotion himself, when he is piercing you through with his rendering. He is simply hearing every tone, knowing exactly what effect he wishes to produce and how to do it. In fact, he is practically two persons in one—the listener and the performer. But what immense self-command that implies! No matter how fast he plays you always feel that there is "plenty of time"—no need to be anxious! You might as well try to move one of the pyramids as fluster him. Tausig possessed this repose in a technical way, and his touch was marvellous; but he never drew the tears to your eyes. He could not wind himself through all the subtle labyrinths of the heart as Liszt does.
Liszt does such bewitching little things! The other day, for instance, Fräulein Gaul was playing something to him, and in it were two runs, and after each run two staccato chords. She did them most beautifully, and struck the chords immediately after. "No, no," said Liszt, "after you make a run you must wait a minute before you strike the chords, as if in admiration of your own performance. You must pause, as if to say, 'How nicely I did that.'" Then he sat down and made a run himself, waited a second, and then struck the two chords in the treble, saying as he did so "Bra-vo," and then he played again, struck the other chord, and said again "Bra-vo," and positively, it was as if the piano had softly applauded! That is the way he plays everything. It seems as if the piano were speaking with a human tongue.