So in many a way Thalberg is a slave to his purpose. The ear that has been trained to listen cannot but be wearied or outraged; but forget our recently acquired habit of listening (for even among many of the exalted it is only half acquired) and Thalberg may still today become what Schumann called him more than half a century ago,—a god—at the piano. Rubinstein, by the way, was hardly the man to call him a grocer, even though he dealt, as we have had to admit, with masses of notes. There was a splendor about him, something fine and grand as well; but like gods in general he was not to be, or may not now be approached, else he loses his godhead, which resolves into an agitation of the ear. There is no splendor in his music but the splendor of sensation.
If we examine the fabric of his music with a more technical eye we shall find that he makes relatively little use of double notes, relatively little demand upon the left hand as far as broad figures are concerned, but much upon the lightness and freedom of the wrist in both hands. There is, besides, the dividing of the melody between the thumbs of both hands, already mentioned.
He had a very unusual power over melody on the piano. For this we have the word of his none too amiable rival, Liszt, that Thalberg alone could make the piano sing like the violin. He was invited to publish an instruction book on L’art du chant, appliqué au piano. This is composed of a few introductory paragraphs, and a dozen transcriptions of melodies upon which the student was expected to work out the precepts he had just read. The remarks may still be of some interest to the pianist, but surely the transcriptions will be more so. The day for that sort of music has gone by, but one may still delight in the skill with which Thalberg was able to write melody, originally conceived for voices or violin, with orchestral accompaniment, upon the piano. None of these is so pretentious as some of the big transcriptions of symphonies and overtures made by Liszt; but from the point of view of workmanship all are quite equal to Liszt. The eighth—on a scene from Meyerbeer’s Il Crociato—is tremendously effective in places. The ninth—on a ballade from Preciosa—is exceedingly well done. The tenth is a wholly charming transcription of one of the Müller-Lieder.
We may speak, in passing, of a nocturne in E major, opus 28, as representative of the best of his original compositions. It is by no means great music either in the sense of inspired emotion or of richly varied workmanship; but it is well adapted to the piano, sweet in melody, and not too sweet in mood. The obbligato treatment of the left hand in the middle section is worthy of note as a sign of considerable technical ability, the development of which probably atrophied under the close pressure of a constant adulation. This Nocturne seems on the whole rather above the average of Mendelssohn’s ‘Songs without Words,’ by virtue of the treatment of the piano in it; and may, with other of his original works, be gently slid into the company of Liszt’s ‘Consolations’ and ‘Love Dreams.’
Most of the music of Herz and Thalberg has been forgotten, and that which might still be successfully played, is now banished from the concert stage as trash. It is true not only that one finds a great sameness in it, but also that in the light of a longer familiarity with the instrument and of strides in executive skill on the keyboard little of it presents what may seem to us today even ingenuity. Yet to estimate its value as well as its significance in the world of pianoforte music one must not forget the purpose for which it was written; namely, to display the composer’s skill as a performer, and the brilliant and powerful resources of the instrument, and at the same time to win a livelihood from the world by stirring its inhabitants to a frenzied delight. The aim to succeed with the public, no matter what the means, has something of the heroic in it, and in music which has been the means of such success there must be some element of bigness. This bears no relation to the greatness of service to an ideal which is sacred. It is in every way profane. Yet it is at the same time a force always to be reckoned with, the more so as the development of society gives the power to the mass of people to assert its own tastes and demand its own enjoyments. To such a development the universal success of Herz and Thalberg is related. It is because of still further development that their wonders have become commonplaces, not because either their purpose or their music is intrinsically contemptible. Both these are respectable as manifestations of energy and great labor; and that the two great players achieved a victory which won the applause of the whole world, indicates a streak of the hero in the cosmos of both.
III
We may conceive Herz and Thalberg each to be an infant Hercules, strangling serpents in his cradle, if we compare them with Franz Liszt, who, above all else, represents virtuosity grown to fully heroic proportions. He was the great and universal hero in the history of music. He cannot be dissociated from the public, the general world over which he established his supremacy by feats of sheer muscular or technical skill. Even the activity of his mind was essentially empirical. Especially in the realm of pianoforte music he won his unique place by colossal energy put to test or to experiment upon the public through the instrument. The majority of his compositions in this branch of music are tours de force.
His manifold activities in music all reveal the truly great virtuoso, whom we may here define as an agent of highest efficiency between a created art and the public to which it must be related. We will presently analyze some of his compositions for the pianoforte, but without presuming to draw from features of them so discovered any conclusions as to their musical vitality or their æsthetic value. These conclusions must be left to the wisdom and sense of posterity; whatever they may prove to be, one cannot at present but recognize in Liszt first and foremost the intermediary. He so conducted himself in all his musical activities, which, taken in the inverse order of their importance, show him as a writer upon subjects related to music, as a conductor, as a composer, and as a pianist. He worked in an indissoluble relation with the public, and by virtue of this relation appears to us a hero of human and comprehensible shape, though enormous, whose feet walked in the paths of men and women, and whose head was not above the clouds in a hidden and secret communion which we can neither define nor understand.
Many qualities in his character and in his person, which, of course, are of no importance in estimating the value of his compositions, made his peculiar relation with the public secure. His face was very handsome, brilliantly so; he had a social charm which won for him a host of friends in all the capitals of Europe; he was fascinating to men and women in private, and in public exercised a seemingly irresistible personal magnetism over his audiences. He was, moreover, exceedingly generous and charitable, quick to befriend all musicians, especially men younger than he, and to lend his aid in, movements of public benefaction. He was an accomplished linguist, and cosmopolitan, indeed international in his sympathies. As a teacher he inspired his many pupils with an almost passionate affection and feeling of loyal devotion. All these qualities set him quite apart from the wizard Paganini, with whom alone his technical mastery of his instrument was comparable. Paganini was wrapped in mystery, whether he wove the veil himself or not; Liszt was thoroughly a man of the world.
Liszt’s playing was stupendous. At least two influences fired him not only to develop a technique which was limited only by the physically impossible, but to establish himself as the unequalled player of the age. Already as a youth when he first came to Paris this technique was extraordinary, though probably not unmatched. It was the wizardry of Paganini, whom he heard in Paris, that determined him to seek an attainment hitherto undreamed of in skill with the keyboard. This he achieved before he left Paris to journey away from the world in Switzerland and Italy. During his absence Thalberg came to Paris and took it by storm. Back came Liszt post-haste to vanquish his rival and establish more firmly his threatened position. The struggle was long and hotly fought, but the victory remained with Liszt, who, though he had not that skill in a kind of melody playing which was peculiar to Thalberg, towered far above his rival in virility, in fire, and in variety.