Indeed, it may be said that he never really recovered from this shock. In the summer he went with his wife and children, and in company with his brother Paul and his family, on a tour in Switzerland, where he hoped that complete idleness as regards music, life in the open air, sketching, and intercourse with chosen friends, might once more give strength to his enfeebled nerves. And for a time the beauty of the mountains and the lakes seemed to bring him rest, and again he began to work at his oratorio "Christus;" but still his friends continued anxious about him. He looked broken down and aged, a constant agitation seemed to possess him, and the least thing would often strangely affect and upset him.

In September he returned to Leipsic; he was then more cheerful, and able to talk about music and to write, although he could not resume the conductorship of the Gewandhaus concerts. He again had projects in view. Jenny Lind was to sing in his "Elijah," at Vienna, whither he would go and conduct, and he was about to publish some new songs. One day in October he went to call upon his friend, Madame Frege, a gifted lady who, he said, sang his songs better than anyone else, to consult her about some new songs. She sang them over to him several times, and then, as it was getting dark, she went out of the room for a few minutes to order lights. When she returned he was lying on the sofa, shivering with cold, and in agonizing pain. Leeches were applied, and he partially recovered; but another attack followed, and this was the last.[Back to Contents]

FRANZ LISZT
By Rev. Hugh R. Haweis, M.A.
(1811-1886)

Franz Liszt was born in 1811. He had the hot Hungarian blood of his father, the fervid German spirit of his mother, and he inherited the lofty independence, with none of the class prejudices, of the old Hungarian nobility from which he sprang. Liszt's father, Adam, earned a modest livelihood as agent and accountant in the house of Count Esterhazy. In that great musical family, inseparably associated with the names of Haydn and Schubert, Adam Liszt had frequent opportunities of meeting distinguished musicians. The prince's private band had risen to public fame under the instruction of the venerable Haydn himself. The Liszts, father and son, often went to Eisenstadt, where the count lived; there they rubbed elbows with Cherubini and Hummel, a pupil of Mozart.

Franz took to music from his earliest childhood. When about five years old he was asked what he would like to do. "Learn the piano," said the little fellow. Soon afterward his father asked him what he would like to be; the child pointed to a print of Beethoven hanging on the wall, and said, "Like him." Long before his feet could reach the pedals or his fingers stretch an octave, the boy spent all his spare time strumming, making what he called "clangs," chords and modulations. He mastered scales and exercises without difficulty.

Czerny at once took to Liszt, but refused to take anything for his instruction. Salieri was also fascinated, and instructed him in harmony; and fortunate it was that Liszt began his course under two strict mentors. He soon began to resent Czerny's method—thought he knew better and needed not those dry studies of Clementi and that irksome fingering by rule—he could finger anything in a half-a-dozen different ways. There was a moment when it seemed that master and pupil would have to part, but timely concessions to genius paved the way to dutiful submission, and years afterward the great master dedicated to the rigid disciplinarian of his boyhood his "Vingt-quatre Grandes Études" in affectionate remembrance.

Such a light as Liszt's could not be long hid; all Vienna, in 1822, was talking of the wonderful boy. "Est deus in nobis," wrote the papers, profanely. The "little Hercules," the "young giant," the boy "virtuoso from the clouds," were among the epithets coined to celebrate his marvellous renderings of Hummel's "Concerto in A," and a free "Fantasia" of his own. The Vienna Concert Hall was crowded to hear him, and the other illustrious artists—then, as indeed they have been ever since forced to do wherever Liszt appeared—effaced themselves with as good a grace as they could.

It is a remarkable tribute to the generous nature as well as to the consummate ability of Liszt, that, while opposing partisans have fought bitterly over him—Thalbergites, Herzites, Mendelssohnites versus Lisztites—yet few of the great artists who have, one after another, had to yield to him in popularity have denied to him their admiration, while most of them have given him their friendship.