LISZT AS A FREEMASON
Memorial tablets have been placed on each of the two houses at Weimar in which Liszt used to reside. He first lived at the Altenburg and later on at the Hofgärtnerei. The act of piety was undertaken by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein, of which organisation Liszt was the president up to the time of his death.
It has been asserted that Liszt was a Freemason after his consecration as a priest. This has been contradicted, but the following from the Freemason's Journal appears to settle the question:
"On the 31st of July last one of the greatest artists and men departed at Bayreuth for the eternal east, who had proved himself a worthy member of our brotherhood by his deeds through his whole eventful life. It is Brother Franz Liszt, on whose grave we deposit an acacia branch. Millions of florins Franz Liszt had earned on his triumphal career—for others. His art, his time, his life, were given to those who claimed it. Thus he journeyed, a living embodiment of the St. Simonism to which he once belonged, through his earthly pilgrimage. Brother Franz Liszt was admitted into the brotherhood in the year 1844, at the lodge 'Unity' ('Zur Einigkeit'), in Frankfort-on-the-Main, by George Kloss, with the composer, W. Ch. Speyer as witness, and in the presence of Felix von Lichnowsky. He was promoted to the second degree in a lodge at Berlin, and elected master in 1870, as member of the lodge 'Zur Einigkeit,' in Budapest. Since 1845 he was also honorary member of the L. Modestia cum Libertate at Zurich. If there ever was a Freemason in favour with Pope Pius IX it was Franz Liszt, created abbé in 1865 in Rome."
A LISZT SON?
A letter from Paris to the Vienna Monday Review says that in the salon of the Champ de Mars a picture is on exhibition, called Italian Bagpiper. While its artistic points are hardly worthy of special mention the striking resemblance of this work by Michael Vallet to the facial traits of Franz Liszt puzzled the jury not a little, and will doubtless create much interest among the visitors of the gallery. The model for the subject was a boat-hand of Genoa named Angelo Giocati-Buonaventi, fifty-six years of age. It was while strolling about the Genoese wharves that Vallet noticed the sparse form of Angelo, whose beardless face recalled to him at once Franz Liszt's.
Angelo consented willingly to pose for the piper, but all questions as to his family extraction were answered with a laconic Chi lo sa? Vallet, by making inquiries in other directions, learned that Angelo came originally from Albano. He took a trip to that place, and after the lapse of a few days wrote a friend in Paris: "Found! Found! The surmise regarding my Angelo is correct. This boathand is without any doubt a son of Countess d'Agoult, whose relations with Franz Liszt are known throughout the world, and was born here in the year 1834. I found a picture of the countess in the home of a sister-in-law of a lately deceased peasant woman, Giocati-Buonaventi. This latter was the nurse and later the woman who had the motherly care of my Angelo...."
It happened that at the same time, as if to corroborate Vallet's statement, the Review de Paris published an interesting correspondence between Georges Sand and Countess d'Agoult. The latter writes from Albano under date of June 9, 1839: "It was our intention to present our respects to the Sultan this summer, but our trip to Constantinople came to naught. A little fellow that I had the caprice to bring here into the world prevented the carrying out of the plan. The boy promises to be a beauty. One of the handsomest women of Palestrina furnishes the milk for his nourishment. It is to be regretted that Franz has again one of his fits of melancholy. [She speaks of Liszt repeatedly in this letter, giving him the pet name crétin.] The thought of being father to three little children seems to depress his mind...."
The three children being accounted for, the story of Vallet regarding Angelo has no foundation in fact, and we would not even mention it if it was not making the rounds of the Continental press.