The year after this one was remarkable for the facts that Liszt was coaxed to play in public on the occasion of a benefit for the Peter's Pence, and that he participated in the Karlsruhe music festival. He left Rome in August and journeyed first to St. Tropez to visit his daughter's grave; then to Karlsruhe. After this he went to Munich and visited Hans and Cosima von Bülow on the way to Weimar. Finally a trip to Paris to see his aged mother, and he returned to Rome at the end of October. Besides working on his oratorio and making some piano transcriptions, he composed only two new numbers, a litany for organ and a chorus with organ accompaniment.
Two public appearances in Rome as pianist occurred during the spring of 1865, and then, to the surprise of many, on April 25, Liszt took minor orders of priesthood, forsook the Cloister and made his abode in the Vatican next to the rooms of his priestly friend Monseigneur Hohenlohe.
Gregorovius writes of this appearance of Liszt as the virtuoso: "He played Die Aufforderung zum Tanz and Erlkönig—a queer adieu to the world. No one suspected that already he carried his abbé's socks in his pockets.... Now he wears the cloaklet of the abbé, lives in the Vatican, and, as Schlözer tells me, is happy and healthy. This is the end of the genial virtuoso, the personality of a sovereign. I am glad that I heard Liszt play once more, he and his instrument seemed to be grown together—a piano-centaur."
As we look back at the step now and are able to weigh the gradual influence which asserted itself on Liszt the act seems to have been an inevitable one. At the time, however, it was more or less unexpected.
He assures Breitkopf & Härtel that his old weakness for composition has not deserted him, that he must commit to paper some of the wonderful things which were spooking about in his head. And the public? Well, it regretted that Liszt was wasting his time writing such dreadful "Tonwirrwarr." Liszt smiled ironically—and continued to compose.
His patriotism sent him travelling once more—this year to Pesth, where he conducted his arrangement of the Rakoczy March and the Divine Comedy. He returned to Rome and learned that his friend Hohenlohe was about to be made cardinal, an event which had its bearing on his stay in the Vatican.
Liszt moved back to the Cloister after Hohenlohe had given up his quarters in the Vatican for a cardinal's house. This year—1866—is also a record of travel. After he had conducted his Dante Symphony in Rome—and the natives found it "inspired but formless"—he went to Paris to witness a performance of his Mass. Report had preceded him that he was physically a wreck, and he delighted in showing himself to prove the falsehood of the rumour. And partly to display his mental activity he began theological studies, so that he might pass his examination and take higher orders.
In addition to his Paris trip he also wandered to Amsterdam to hear his Mass once more. Immediately after his return to Rome he completed the Christus oratorio and began work on the arrangements of the Beethoven quartets. He soon found that he had attacked an impossible task. "I failed where Tausig succeeded," he lamented; and then explained that Tausig had been wise enough to select only such movements as were available for the piano.
His compositions this year were not very numerous—some piano extracts out of his oratorio and sketches for the Hungarian Coronation Mass. Politics were throwing up dense clouds of dust in Rome, the Papal secular power was petering out, and in consequence Liszt, who hated politics, was compelled to change his residence again, moving this time to the old cloister Santa Francesca Romana. Here he met his friends weekly on Friday mornings, and besides animated conversation there was much chamber music to be heard.