Weingartner's reminiscences of Liszt throw many interesting lights on the personality of that great composer and greatest of teachers. The gathering of famous artists at his house are well described, and his own mannerisms excellently portrayed. His playing was always marked by the ripest perfection of touch. He did not incline to the impetuous power of his youthful days, but sat almost without motion before the keyboard. His hands glided quietly over the keys, and produced the warm, magnetic stream of tone almost without effort.
His criticism of others was short, but always to the point. His praise would be given heartily, and without reserve, while blame was always concealed in some kindly circumlocution. Once, when a pretty young lady played a Chopin ballade in execrable fashion, he could not contain ejaculations of disgust as he walked excitedly about the room. At the end, however, he went to her kindly, laid his hand gently on her hair, kissed her forehead, and murmured, "Marry soon, dear child—adieu."
Another young lady once turned the tables on the composer. It was the famous Ingeborg von Bronsart, who came to him when eighteen years old, in the full bloom of her fair Northern beauty. Liszt asked her to play, inwardly fearing that this was to be one more of the petted incompetents. But when she played a Bach fugue for him, with the utmost brilliancy, he could not contain his admiration. "Wonderful," he cried, "but you certainly didn't look like it." "I should hope I didn't look like a Bach fugue," was the swift retort, and the two became lifelong friends.
AS ORGAN COMPOSER
Liszt's importance in this field is not overlooked.
"In Germany, the land of seriousness, organ music had acquired a character so heavy and so uniformly contrapuntal that, by the middle of last century, almost any decently trained Capellmeister could produce a sonata dull enough to be considered first-rate. There were, doubtless, many protests in the shape of unorthodox works which left no mark; but two great influences, which are the earliest we need notice, came in the shape of Liszt's Fantasia on the name of Bach and Julius Reubke's Sonata on the Ninety-fourth Psalm. Without minute analysis we may say that the former, though not an entirely great work, was at all events something entirely new. It showed the possibility of freedom of form without shapelessness, of fairly good counterpoint without dulness, of the adaptation of piano technic to the organ in a way never before attempted; and the whole work, brilliant and effective, never outraged in the smallest degree the natural dignity of the instrument."
LISZT'S TECHNIC
Rudolf Breithaupt thus wrote of the technical elements in Liszt's playing in Die Musik:
"What we hear of Liszt's technic in his best years, from 1825 to 1850, resembles a fairy tale. As artists, Liszt and Paganini have almost become legendary personages. In analysing Liszt's command of the piano we find that it consists first and foremost in the revelation of a mighty personality rather than in the achievement of unheard of technical feats. Though his admirers will not believe it, technic has advanced since his day. Tausig excelled him in exactness and brilliancy; Von Bülow was a greater master of interpretation: Rubinstein went beyond him in power and in richness of tone-colour, through his consummate use of the pedal. Even contemporary artists, e.g., Carreño, d'Albert, Busoni, and in part, Godowsky, are technically equal to Liszt in his best days, and in certain details, owing to the improved mechanism of the piano, even his superior.
"It is time to do away with the fetich of Liszt's technic. It was mighty as an expression of his potent personality, mighty in its domination of all instrumental forms, mighty in its full command of all registers and positions. But I believe that if the Liszt of former days—not the old man whose fingers did not always obey his will, but the young, vigorous Titan of the early nineteenth century—were to play for us now, we should be as little edified as we should probably be by the singing of Jenny Lind or by the playing of Paganini. Exaggeration finds no more fruitful field than the chronicling of the feats of noted artists.