“Perhaps the mysterious influence which binds me to it so strongly, prejudices me,” he writes, “but I consider the piano as of great consequence. In my estimation it holds the first place in the hierarchy of instruments. It is the most enjoyable and the most common of all. Its importance and popularity are due to the harmonious power which it almost exclusively possesses, in consequence of which it is also capable of compressing the whole art of music in itself. In the compass of its seven octaves it includes the entire scope of the orchestra and the ten fingers suffice for the harmony which is produced by a band of a hundred performers. By its agency it is possible to diffuse works which, owing to the difficulty of collecting an orchestra, would remain unknown to the great majority. Consequently it is to the orchestral composition what the steel engraving is to painting, which it repeats over and over, and though it lacks color yet it can exhibit light and shade.”
In order to reach the goal of an art which has been rightly designated as the idea of the world and the soul of humanity, and to behold it spreading over our age and extending to posterity, he settled down to rest after his career as a virtuoso, and founded “Weimar.” It must be in that Germany of which he wrote to his friend Berlioz, in 1838, “the study of art is universally less superficial here, the feeling is truer, the usages are better. The traditions of Mozart, Beethoven and Weber are not lost. These three geniuses have taken deep root in Germany.” Without this Weimar we should certainly have had no artistic execution to-day which would be worthy of the modern or classic productions. Indeed Munich and Baireuth themselves, how could they have been possible without the master-scholars who by Liszt’s piano instruction displayed in every form the expressive, soaring, flaming revelation of minute details as well as of the whole.
In bringing to a close the review of Liszt’s moral and artistic influence, alike fruitful and far-reaching, we give first of all an animated descriptive sketch by a pupil of this Weimar school and then the list of master-scholars, whom Liszt has educated, and who have continuously assisted in the realization of his ideal wishes and hopes.
“Music Study in Germany,” says the “Allgemeine Deutsche Musikzeitung,” of 1881, “is the name of a very comprehensive, elegant and spiritedly written little American book. It is in the form of letters which the American author, Miss Amy Fay, sent from Germany to her home, during her studies with Tausig, Kullak and Deppe. She manifests not only great musical and artistic intelligence in general, but also an unusual knowledge of human nature. Miss Fay has a feeling for the finest emotions of the soul. With genuine stereoscopic fidelity she points out the grand characteristics and the little peculiarities of the important personages with whom she has had the good fortune to come in contact. Of the many beauties and charms contained in these letters, those which relate to Liszt must naturally awaken the greatest, most universal and lasting interest. We select from them a few brief extracts, because we know that the feelings of reverence, love and intense admiration, which the author cherishes for Liszt, are shared to the full by thousands and thousands of hearts.”
Miss Fay saw the master first at the theater in Weimar, with three ladies, one of whom was very handsome. “He sat,” so she says, “with his back to the stage, not paying the least attention, apparently, to the play, for he kept talking all the while himself, and yet no point of it escaped him, as I could tell by his expression and gestures. Liszt is the most interesting and striking man imaginable, tall and slight, with deep set eyes, shaggy eyebrows and iron-gray hair. His mouth turns up at the corners, which gives him, when he smiles, a most crafty and Mephistophelean expression. His hands are very narrow, with long and slender fingers, which look as if they had twice as many joints as other people’s. They are so flexible and supple that it makes you nervous to look at them. Anything like the polish of his manners I never saw. When he got up to leave his box, for instance, after his adieus to the ladies, he laid his hand on his heart and made his final bow, not with affectation or in mere gallantry, but with a quiet courtliness which made you feel that no other way of bowing to a lady was right or proper. It was most characteristic. But the most extraordinary thing about Liszt is his wonderful variety of expression and play of feature. One moment his face will look dreamy, shadowy, tragic, the next, insinuating, amiable, ironical, sarcastic, but always the same captivating grace of manners. He is a perfect study. He is all spirit, but half the time at least, I should say, a mocking spirit. All Weimar adores him, and people say that women still go perfectly crazy over him. When he goes out every one greets him as if he were a king. Liszt looks as if he had been through everything, and has a face seamed with experience. He wears a long Abbe’s coat, reaching nearly down to his feet. He made me think of an old-time magician and I felt with a touch of his wand he could transform us all.”
The recommendations of the Countess von Schleinitz secured the author’s introduction to Liszt. She continues: “To-morrow I shall present myself, though I don’t know how the lion will act when I beard him in his den. I brought the B minor sonata of Chopin and intended to play only the first movement, for it is extremely difficult and it cost me all the labor I could give to prepare that. But playing to Liszt reminds me of trying to feed the elephant in the Zoological Gardens with lumps of sugar. He disposes of whole movements as if they were nothing and stretches out gravely for more. One of my fingers fortunately began to bleed and that gave me a good excuse for stopping. Liszt sat down and played the whole last three movements himself. It was the first time I had heard him and I don’t know which was the most extraordinary, the Scherzo, with its wonderful lightness and swiftness, the Adagio, with its depth and pathos, or the last movement where the whole key-board seemed to thunder and lighten. There is such a vividness about everything he plays that it does not seem as if it were mere music you were listening to, but it is as if he had called up a real living form and you saw it breathing before your face and eyes. It gives me almost a ghostly feeling to hear him, and it seems as if the air were peopled with spirits. Oh! he is a perfect wizard! It is as interesting to see him as it is to hear him, for his face changes with every modulation of the piece and he looks exactly as he is playing. He has one element that is most captivating and that is a sort of delicate and fitful mirth that keeps peering out at you here and there! It is most peculiar, and when he plays that way the most bewitching little expression comes over his face. It seems as if a little spirit of joy were playing hide and go seek with you.
“On Friday Liszt came and paid me a visit and even played a little on my piano. Only think what an honor! At the same time he invited me to a matinee he was going to give on Sunday for some countess of distinction. * * * He played five times, the last three times duets with Capellmeister Lassen, and made me come and turn the leaves. Gracious! how he does read! It is very difficult to turn for him, for he reads ever so far ahead of what he is playing, and takes in fully five bars at a glance, so you have to guess about where you think he would like to have the page over. Once I turned it too late, and once too early, and he snatched it out of my hand and whirled it back. Not quite the situation for timorous me, was it? At home Liszt doesn’t wear his long Abbe’s coat, but a short one in which he looks much more artistic. It is so delicious in that room of his. It was furnished and put in order for him by the Grand Duchess of Weimar herself. The walls are pale gray with gilded border running round the room, or rather two rooms which are divided, but not separated, by crimson curtains. The furniture is crimson, and everything is so comfortable—such a contrast to German bareness and stiffness generally. A splendid grand piano stands in one window. The other window is always wide open and looks out on the park. There is a dove cote just opposite the window, and the doves promenade up and down on the roof of it and fly about and sometimes whirr down on the sill itself. That pleases Liszt. His writing-table is beautifully fitted up with things that all match. Everything is in bronze—ink-stand, paper-weight, match-box, etc., and there is always a lighted candle standing on it by which the gentlemen can light their cigars.
“There is a carpet on the floor, a rarity in Germany, and Liszt generally walks about, and smokes, talks and calls upon one or other of us to play. From time to time he will sit down and play himself where a passage does not suit him and when he is in good spirits he makes little jests all the time. His playing was a complete revelation to me and has given me an entirely new insight into music. You can not conceive, without hearing him, how poetic he is, or the thousand nuances which he can throw into the simplest thing. He is equally great on all sides. From the zephyr to the tempest the whole scale is equally at his command.
“But Liszt is not at all like a master and can not be treated as one. He is a monarch, and when he extends his royal scepter you can sit down and play to him. You never can ask him to play anything for you no matter how much you are dying to hear it. You can not even offer to play yourself. You lay your notes on the table so he can see that you want to play, and sit down. He takes a turn up and down the room, looks at the music, and if the piece interests him, he will call upon you.
“Yesterday I had prepared for him his ‘Au Bord d’une Source.’ I was nervous and played badly. He was not to be put out, however, but acted as if he thought I had played charmingly, and then he sat down and played the whole piece himself, oh, so exquisitely! It made me feel like a wood-chopper. The notes just seemed to ripple off his fingers’ ends with scarce any perceptible motion. As he neared the close I remarked that the funny little expression came over his face which he always has when he means to surprise you, and he suddenly took an unexpected chord and extemporized a poetical little end, quite different from the written one. Do you wonder that people go distracted over him?”