Liszt and Rubinstein (who once said that compared with Liszt all other pianists, including himself, were mere wood-choppers) both visited England in 1886—Rubinstein still in the full possession of his powers, which he displayed in his remarkable cycle of seven historical recitals; Liszt, full of years and honours, but claiming attention as a composer, not as a performer, though he did play once or twice in private. The mention of the performance of his oratorio St. Elizabeth in St. James's Hall comes home to the present writer, who was a humble member of the chorus. Punch's notice is an adroit blending of facetiousness and respect. In his Postscript he observes, "How tired Liszt must be of hearing his own music! Fancy Pears being treated for a whole week to nothing but his own Soap!" I wonder whether Punch knew, what was the fact, that Liszt fell asleep in the performance of his own oratorio. Three months later he died at Bayreuth, having never recovered from the exhaustion caused by the lionizing hospitality of his English admirers. Rubinstein survived his visit for eight years. Punch was not far out in describing him in 1886 as the first player in the world. He was then fifty-seven, and his playing of Beethoven's Op. 57—the Appassionata Sonata—beggared description. Rubinstein used to say that in these recitals he played enough wrong notes to make a symphony; he was at times violent and extravagant and took strange liberties with the text. But here he was Titanic, and Punch's welcome was well deserved, though the critic erred in ranking Rubinstein the composer on the same plane with Rubinstein the performer. It is amusing to read, in the reference to the last recital, that the programme included works by
—such small contemporary deer as Liadoff, Balakireff, Rimsky-Korsakoff, and César Cui. My gracious! What names! Familiar, too, don't they seem? In the same category the patronymic of Tschaikowski rings refreshingly as that of an old friend.
The spelling of foreign musicians' names had always been a stumbling block to Punch, and I have revised his versions of two of the composers mentioned above, but by 1886 he had at least learned to spell Liszt correctly.
Hans Richter had shared the duties of conductor at the Wagner Festival of 1877 with the great composer himself. The concerts which made his name a household word in the musical world began in 1879. His leonine appearance and Olympian calm, his wonderful memory, which enabled him to conduct the great masterpieces, classical and modern, without a score; and the dignity and authority of his interpretations soon gained for him an admiration which survived his repudiation in 1914 of all the honours and distinctions conferred on him by the country in which for many years he had made his home. There are still a good many orchestral players amongst us who have a warm corner in their hearts for the "Doctor," and a profound respect for his mastery of the high art of conducting. His quaint sayings are legion, and ought to be collected. One of the best is his rebuke of his band at a rehearsal of the Venusberg music: "Gentlemen, you play it as if you were teetotallers, which you are not."
Punch acclaimed him as a master in 1886, and his tribute is all the more remarkable because it is coupled with an unexpected acknowledgment of the genius of Brahms, whose Fourth Symphony, a very tough nut to crack in those days, is contrasted with the "howling balderdash" of other moderns. Paderewski, who made his first appearance in the spring of 1890, is handsomely extolled. His first concert, which the present writer attended, only attracted a meagre audience, but the effect on his hearers was electrifying and the crescendo of popularity was immediate and abiding. Punch, of course, made puns on his name, but in these years he was so consistent an offender that he might very well have appropriated the old doggerel confession:—
If for every pun I shed
I were to be punishèd,
I could not find a puny shed
Wherein to hide my punnish head.