Another evening I was there about twilight and Liszt sat at the piano looking through a new oratorio, which had just come out in Paris upon "Christus," the same subject that his own oratorio was on. He asked me to turn for him, and evidently was not interested, for he would skip whole pages and begin again, here and there. There was only a single lamp, and that rather a dim one, so that the room was all in shadow, and Liszt wore his Merlin-like aspect. I asked him to tell me how he produced a certain effect he makes in his arrangement of the ballad in Wagner's Flying Dutchman. He looked very "fin" as the French say, but did not reply. He never gives a direct answer to a direct question. "Ah," said I, "you won't tell." He smiled, and then immediately played the passage. It was a long arpeggio, and the effect he made was, as I had supposed, a pedal effect. He kept the pedal down throughout, and played the beginning of the passage in a grand rolling sort of manner, and then all the rest of it with a very pianissimo touch, and so lightly, that the continuity of the arpeggios was destroyed, and the notes seemed to be just strewn in, as if you broke a wreath of flowers and scattered them according to your fancy. It is a most striking and beautiful effect, and I told him I didn't see how he ever thought of it. "Oh, I've invented a great many things," said he, indifferently—"this, for instance,"—and he began playing a double roll of octaves in chromatics in the bass of the piano. It was very grand, and made the room reverberate. "Magnificent," said I. "Did you ever hear me do a storm?" said he. "No." "Ah, you ought to hear me do a storm! Storms are my forte!" Then to himself between his teeth, while a weird look came into his eyes as if he could indeed rule the blast, "Da KRACHEN die Bäume (Then crash the trees!)"
How ardently I wished he would "play a storm," but of course he didn't, and he presently began to trifle over the keys in his blasé style. I suppose he couldn't quite work himself up to the effort, but that look and tone told how Liszt would do it.—Alas, that we poor mortals here below should share so often the fate of Moses, and have only a glimpse of the Promised Land, and that without the consolation of being Moses! But perhaps, after all, the vision is better than the reality. We see the whole land, even if but at a distance, instead of being limited merely to the spot where our foot treads.
Once again I saw Liszt in a similar mood, though his expression was this time comfortably rather than wildly destructive. It was when Fräulein Remmertz was playing his E flat concerto to him. There were two grand pianos in the room, and she was sitting at one, and he at the other, accompanying and interpolating as he felt disposed. Finally they came to a place where there were a series of passages beginning with both hands in the middle of the piano, and going in opposite directions to the ends of the key-board, ending each time in a short, sharp chord. "Alles zum Fenster hinaus werfen (Pitch everything out of the window)," said he, in a cozy, easy sort of way, and he began playing these passages and giving every chord a whack as if he were splitting everything up and flinging it out, and that with such enjoyment, that you felt as if you'd like to bear a hand, too, in the work of general demolition! But I never shall forget Liszt's look as he so lazily proposed to "pitch everything out of the window." It reminded me of the expression of a big tabby-cat as it sits and purrs away, blinking its eyes and seemingly half asleep, when suddenly—!—! out it strikes with both its claws, and woe be to whatever is within its reach! Perhaps, after all, the secret of Liszt's fascination is this power of intense and wild emotion that you feel he possesses, together with the most perfect control over it.
Liszt sometimes strikes wrong notes when he plays, but it does not trouble him in the least. On the contrary, he rather enjoys it. He reminds me of one of the cabinet ministers in Berlin, of whom it is said that he has an amazing talent for making blunders, but a still more amazing one for getting out of them and covering them up. Of Liszt the first part of this is not true, for if he strikes a wrong note it is simply because he chooses to be careless. But the last part of it applies to him eminently. It always amuses him instead of disconcerting him when he comes down squarely wrong, as it affords him an opportunity of displaying his ingenuity and giving things such a turn that the false note will appear simply a key leading to new and unexpected beauties. An accident of this kind happened to him in one of the Sunday matinees, when the room was full of distinguished people and of his pupils. He was rolling up the piano in arpeggios in a very grand manner indeed, when he struck a semi-tone short of the high note upon which he had intended to end. I caught my breath and wondered whether he was going to leave us like that, in mid-air, as it were, and the harmony unresolved, or whether he would be reduced to the humiliation of correcting himself like ordinary mortals, and taking the right chord. A half smile came over his face, as much as to say—"Don't fancy that this little thing disturbs me,"—and he instantly went meandering down the piano in harmony with the false note he had struck, and then rolled deliberately up in a second grand sweep, this time striking true. I never saw a more delicious piece of cleverness. It was so quick-witted and so exactly characteristic of Liszt. Instead of giving you a chance to say, "He has made a mistake," he forced you to say, "He has shown how to get out of a mistake."
Another day I heard him pass from one piece into another by making the finale of the first one play the part of prelude to the second. So exquisitely were the two woven together that you could hardly tell where the one left off and the other began.—Ah me! Such a facile grace! Nobody will ever equal him, with those rolling basses and those flowery trebles. And then his Adagios! When you hear him in one of those, you feel that his playing has got to that point when it is purified from all earthly dross and is an exhalation of the soul that mounts straight to heaven.
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WEIMAR, August 8, 1873.
The other day we all made an excursion to Jena, which is about three hours' drive from here. We went in carriages in a long train, and pulled up at a hotel named The Bear. There we took our second breakfast. There was to be a concert at five in a church, where some of Liszt's music was to be performed. After breakfast we went to the church, where Liszt met us, and the rehearsal took place. After the rehearsal we went to dinner. We had three long tables which Liszt arranged to suit himself, his own place being in the middle. He always manages every little detail with the greatest tact, and is very particular never to let two ladies or two gentlemen sit together, but always alternately a lady and a gentleman. "Immer eine bunte Reihe machen (Always have a little variety)," said he. The dinner was a very entertaining one to me, because I could converse with Liszt and hear all he said, as he was nearly opposite me. I was in very high spirits that day, and as Kellerman, Bendix and Urspruch were all near me, too, we had endless fun. We had new potatoes for dinner, boiled with their skins on, and Liszt threw one at me, and I caught it. There was another young artist there from Brussels named Gurickx, whom I didn't know, because he spoke only French, and as I do not speak it, we had never exchanged words in the class. I wasn't paying any attention to him, therefore, when suddenly my left-hand neighbour touched my arm. I looked round and he handed me a flower made of bread "from Monsieur Gurickx." I wish you could have seen it! It had the effect of a tube rose. Every little leaf and petal was as delicately turned as if nature herself had done it. The bread was fresh, and Gurickx had worked it between his fingers to the consistency of clay, and then modelled these little flowers which he stuck on to a stem. It was so artistically done, and it was such a dainty little thing to do, that I saw at once that he was interesting and that he possessed that marvellous French taste.
Since then we have become very good friends, and he is teaching me to speak French. He plays beautifully, and was trained in the famous Brussels conservatory, of which Dupont is the head. Servais also got his musical education there. They both advise me to go there for a year, as Dupont is a very great master indeed, and Brussels is the very home and centre of art and taste of every description—a "little Paris"—but more earnest, more German. Gurickx went through the art-school in Brussels as well as the conservatory, so that he paints as well as plays, and he had quite a struggle with himself to decide to which art he should devote himself. His style is the grandiose and fiery. Rubinstein is his model, and he plays Liszt's Rhapsodies as I never heard any one else. He brings out all their power, brilliancy and careering wildness, and makes the greatest sensation of them. Such tremendous sweeping chords! Liszt himself doesn't play the chords as well as Gurickx;—perhaps because he does not care now to exert the strength.
But to return to Jena. After dinner Liszt said, "Now we'll go to Paradise." So we put on our things, and proceeded to walk along the river to a place called Paradise, on account of its loveliness. We passed the University, on one corner of which is a tablet with "W. von Goethe" written against the wall of the room which Goethe occupied. It seemed strange to me to be passing the room of my beloved Goethe, with our equally beloved Liszt!—This walk along the river was enchanting. The current was very rapid, and the willows were all blowing in the breeze. There is an odd triangular-shaped hill that rises on one side very boldly and abruptly, called the Fox's Head. The way was under a double row of tall trees, which met at the top and formed a green arch over our heads. It was all breeze and freshness, and the sunlight struck picturesquely aslant the hill-sides. I started to walk with Liszt, but he was so surrounded that it was difficult to get near him, so I walked instead with an interesting young artist named O., who was at once extraordinarily ugly and extremely clever.