Away from the glare of gaslight this extraordinary Hungarian patterned after the noblest things of nature. In the atmosphere of salons of the Papal Court and the public, Liszt was hardly so admirable a character.
Oh, I know of certain cries calling to heaven to witness that he was anointed of the Lord! Pooh! if he had not had to cut and run to sanctuary to escape two women we should never have heard of Liszt the Abbé!
One penalty of genius is its pursuit by glossaries and gibes. Liszt was no exception. Like Maeterlinck and Ibsen, he has had many things read into his music; mysticism not being forgotten. Perhaps the best estimate of him is the purely human one. He was made up of the usual pleasing compound of faults and virtues, as is any distinguished man, not in a book.
The Mephisto Valse from Lenau’s Faust, in addition to its biting, broad humor and Satanic suggestiveness, contains one of the most voluptuous episodes outside of a score by Wagner. That halting languorous syncopated, valse-like theme in D flat is marvellously expressive, and the poco allegretto seems to have struck the fancy of Wagner, who did not hesitate to appropriate from his esteemed father-in-law when the notion struck him.
He certainly considered Kundry Liszt-wise before fabricating her motif for Parsifal. In the hands of a capable pianist the Mephisto Valse can be made very effective. The twelve great études should be on the desk of every student of advanced technique. So should the Waldesrauschen and Gnomenreigen and I cannot sufficiently praise the three beautiful Études de Concert. The ballades and legendes are becoming favorites at recitals. The polonaise in E, when compared to the less familiar one in C minor, seems banal. Liszt’s life was a sequence of triumphs, his sympathies were boundless, he appreciated and even appropriated Chopin, he unearthed Schumann’s piano music, he materially aided Wagner and discovered Robert Franz; yet he had time for himself and his spiritual nature was never quite submerged. I wish however that he had not manufactured the rhapsodies and the Liszt pupil!
VI
THE ROYAL ROAD TO PARNASSUS
I
Many years ago a certain young man of o’erweening ambition, with a good piano hand and a scorn for the beaten path, conceived the Gargantuan idea that by playing all the études written for the piano he could arrive at perfection by a short cut and thus make up for lost time. He was eighteen years old when he began the experiment and at twenty-two he abandoned his task, a crippled, a sadder, a wiser man.
The young man browsed on études by Bach, Czerny, Loeschorn, Berens, Prudent, Ravina, Marmontel, Planté, Jensen, Von Sternberg, Kullak, Jadassohn, Germer, Reinecke, Riemann, Mason, Löw, Schmidt, Duvernoy, Doering, Hünten, Lebert and Stark, A. E. Müller (caprices), Plaidy, Bruno, Zwintscher, Klengel (canons), Raff, Heller, Bendel, Neupert, Eggeling, Ehrlich, Lavallée, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Rheinberger, Alkan, Fétis, Ferd, Ries, Isador Seiss, Arthur Foote, Anton Strelezki, Carl Baermann, Petersilyea, Krauss, D’Abelli, Golinelli, Berger, Kalkbrenner, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Dreyschock, Moscheles, Doehler, Carl Heyman, Hans Seeling, Clementi, Thalberg, Cramer, Chopin, Sgambati, Liszt, Hiller, Brassin, Paradies (toccata), Hasert, Faelten, Vogt, J. C. Kessler, Moszkowski, Henselt, the Scharwenkas, Rubinstein, Joseffy, Dupont, Herz, Köhler, Speidel, Tausig, Schytte-Rosenthal, Von Schlözer, Schuett, Haberbier, Nicodé, Ketten, Pixis, Litolff, Charles Mayer, Balakireff, MacDowell, Leopold De Meyer, Ernst Pauer, Le Couppey, Vogrich, Deppe, Raif, Leschetizky, Nowakowski, Paderewski, Barth, Zichy, Philipp, Rosenthal and lots of names not to be recalled.
And about the same delightful chronological order as the above was observed in the order of study.