The original melody composed by Michael Barna remained, however, the one preferred by the Hungarian people. In the Berlioz transcription the composition of Ruzsitska was partially employed. Berlioz worked together the original melody; that is, the Rakoczy Lied proper, and the battle music of Ruzsitska and placed them in his Damnation de Faust.
The Rakoczy March owes its greatest publicity to the above named Panna Czinka. The gipsy girl's great talent as a violinist was recognised by her patron, Joann von Lanyi, who had her educated in the Upper Hungarian city of Rozsnyo, where as a pupil of a German kapellmeister she received adequate musical instruction. When she was fifteen she married a gipsy, who was favourably known as the player of the viola de gamba in Hungary. With her husband and his two brothers, who also were good musicians, she travelled through all Hungary and attracted great attention, especially by the Rakoczy March. Later her orchestra, over which she presided till her death, consisted only of her sons. Her favourite instrument, a noble Amati, which had been presented to her by the Archbishop of Czaky, was, in compliance with her wishes expressed in life, buried with her.
The Rakoczy March has meanwhile undergone countless revisions, of which the most important is beyond doubt that of Berlioz.
Berlioz composed this march while in Hungary, and had it performed there. Its first performance at Pesth led to a scene of excitement which is one of the best-remembered incidents in Berlioz's life. In consequence of its success, Berlioz was asked to leave the original score in Pesth, which he did; requesting, however, to be furnished with a copy without the Coda, as he intended to rewrite that section. The new Coda is the one always played now, the old one having indeed disappeared.
Liszt's arrangement of the same march, it may be remembered, led to a debate in the Hungarian Diet, in which M. Tisza spoke of the march as the work of Franz Rakoczy II. He was wrong; and so was Berlioz mistaken in saying that it is by an unknown composer. Its real author, according to a statement quoted by Liszt's biographer, Miss Ramann, was a military band master named Scholl. Liszt had really made his transcription in 1840, but refrained, out of respect for Berlioz, from publishing it till 1870.
VI
MIRRORED BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES
VON LENZ
The Russian councillor and the author of the well-known work, Beethoven et Ses Trois Styles, has contributed quite a small library of articles on Liszt, but as it is impossible to quote all of them, we select the following, which refers more particularly to his own intimacy and first acquaintance with the great musician:
"In 1828 I had come to Paris, at the age of nineteen, to continue my studies there, and, moreover, as before, to take lessons on the piano; now, however, with Kalkbrenner. Kalkbrenner was a man of Hebrew extraction, born in Berlin; and in Paris under Charles X he was the Joconde of the drawing-room piano. Kalkbrenner was a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and the fair Camille Mock, afterward Madame Pleyel, who was not indifferent to Chopin or Liszt, was the favourite pupil of the irresistible Kalkbrenner. I heard her, between Kalkbrenner and Onslow, play in the sextuor of the last named composer at the house of Baron Trémont, a tame musical Mæcenas of that day in Paris. She played the piano as a pretty Parisian wears an elegant shoe. Nevertheless I was in danger of becoming Kalkbrenner's pupil, but my stars and Liszt willed it otherwise. Already on the way to Kalkbrenner (who plays a note of his now?), I came to the boulevards, and read on the theatre bills of the day, which had much attraction for me, the announcement of an extra concert to be given by Liszt at the Conservatoire (it was in November), with the piano concerto of Beethoven, in E flat, at the head. At that time Beethoven was, and not in Paris only, a Paracelsus in the concert room. I only knew this much of him, that I had been very much afraid of the very black-looking notes in his D-major trio and choral fantasia, which I had once and again looked over in a music shop of my native town, Riga, in which there was much more done in business than in music.