Punctually at eight o’clock I knocked at Liszt’s door and as I entered I saw this wonderful-looking old man with his splendid white hair and deep-set eyes, already at his work-table. As he saw me his eyebrows arched and said:
“What, still in Weimar?”
I came forward and tried to speak, suddenly burst into tears and then managed to stammer out my great admiration for him, how my father had always held him up as the ideal musician of our times, and how he must have misunderstood my words of yesterday if he thought that I intended any lack of respect or reverence for such a man as he. As I reread this it seems quite articulate, but as I told it to Liszt it must have sounded very ridiculous, but nevertheless I suddenly felt his arms about me and a very gentle furtive kiss placed upon my forehead. He led me to a chair, sat down by me and began again to talk and reminisce about my father and mother. He then invited me to come that afternoon to his piano class and I left very much relieved at the outcome of my visit.
I then called on another old friend of my parents and also of Liszt’s, Fräulein von Schorn. I found at her house a friend of hers, Baron von Joukowski, a Russian painter of distinction and a highly interesting man, who had become very friendly with the Wagner family and who had designed the Hall of the Holy Grail for the “Parsifal” production at Bayreuth. When I told them of my experience with Liszt they explained to me that Liszt had grown very old, that he felt the modern musical world was forgetting him and that in choosing a sacred text like “Parsifal,” Wagner had been, so to speak, encroaching somewhat on his domain. Perhaps even a latent jealousy of Wagner’s all-usurping powers was slightly clouding a friendship and self-sacrifice which Liszt had so abundantly given to Wagner all his lifetime. They also told me that Liszt was now surrounded by a band of cormorants in the shape of ostensible piano students, many of whom had no real talent or ambition, but who virtually lived on the master’s incredible kindness, abusing it in every way and altogether making the Weimar of that day a travesty on former times.
Bülow confirmed this to me several years later and told me how he had once “cleaned out” Liszt’s rooms and bade this unsavory crowd never to return. Liszt had thanked him, but next morning they were all back again.
I attended the audition in Liszt’s rooms that afternoon and found that there was indeed a pitiful crowd of sycophants and incompetents assembled, but there were a few exceptions, notably young Eugene d’Albert who was then perhaps fifteen or sixteen years of age and who played wonderfully and to Liszt’s great satisfaction. There were a few others who, however, did not play on that afternoon. But another one who shall be nameless, sat down to play the Beethoven sonata in E flat, Op. 31, No. 3, and botched the introduction so horribly that Liszt gently pushed her off the chair and sat down himself saying, “This is the way it should be played,” and then the music seemed to just drop from his fingers onto the piano keys, and such a heavenly succession of sounds ravished my ear that I did not think it possible human hands could evoke it. He then said to her: “Now, try it again.” And she did, and, if anything, played even worse than before. Again Liszt played the opening phrases, and then, somewhat irritated, he said:
“So, blamieren Sie sich noch einmal.” (Now, make a fool of yourself again.) By that time to our relief she felt that both she and we had had enough.
After this I met Liszt several times and he always treated me with uniform cordiality, but every once in a while the memory of our first meeting would come to him and he would make some gently malicious remark, such as “Oh, here comes our young American; like lightning he flashes through the world!”
From Weimar I went to Ems and dutifully took the “cure” for five weeks, drinking the three glasses of the more or less miraculous waters while the band played before breakfast, and watching little girls dressed in white smilingly presenting bouquets of bachelor’s-buttons, popularly supposed to be his favorite flower, to old Emperor William, who, accompanied by an adjutant or two, used to take the cure at Ems every summer.
To strangers like myself the place on the promenade at which the French Ambassador, Benedetti, had “insulted” the King of Prussia in 1870 was always pointed out, but this was many years before Bismarck’s famous and cynical confession that it had all been a put-up job by him in so altering the famous telegram relating to the King’s meeting with Benedetti that, according to Bismarck’s memoirs: “It will be known in Paris before midnight, and not only on account of its contents but also on account of the manner of its distribution, will have the effect of a red rag upon the Gallic Bull.”