"Liszt soon afterward witnessed a performance of 'Rienzi,' at Dresden, on which he had almost to insist, and after that I heard from all the different corners of the world, where he had been on his artistic excursions, how he had everywhere expressed his delight with my music, and indeed had—I would rather believe unintentionally—canvassed people's opinions in my favour.
"This happened at a time when it became more and more evident that my dramatic works would have no outward success. But just when the case seemed desperate, Liszt succeeded by his own energy in opening a hopeful refuge to my art. He ceased his wanderings, settled down in the small and modest Weimar, and took up the conductor's bâton, after having been at home so long in the splendour of the greatest cities of Europe. At Weimar I saw him for the last time, when I rested a few days in Thuringia, not yet certain whether my threatening prosecution would compel me to continue my flight from Germany. The very day when my personal danger became a certainty, I saw Liszt conducting a rehearsal of my 'Tannhäuser,' and was astonished at recognising my second self in his achievements. What I had felt in inventing the music, he felt in performing it; what I wanted to express in writing it down, he proclaimed in making it sound. Strange to say, through the love of this rarest friend, I gained, at the moment of becoming homeless, a real home for my art, which I had longed and sought for always in the wrong place.
"At the end of my last stay at Paris, when ill, broken down, and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eyes fell on the score of my 'Lohengrin,' totally forgotten by me. Suddenly I felt something like compassion that this music should never sound from off the death-pale paper. I wrote two lines to Liszt; his answer was the news that preparations for the performance were being made on the largest scale the limited means of Weimar would permit. Everything that men and circumstances could do was done in order to make the work understood.… Errors and misconceptions impeded the desired success. What was to be done to supply what was wanted, so as to further the true understanding on all sides, and with it the ultimate success of the work? Liszt saw it at once and did it. He gave to the public his own impression of the work in a manner the convincing eloquence and overpowering efficacy of which remain unequalled. Success was his reward, and with this success he now approaches me, saying: 'Behold, we have come so far, now create us a new work that we may go still further.'"
LISZT.
In a letter written to Franz von Schober, the poet and writer, and the intimate friend of Schubert, in 1840, Liszt says: "Most affectionate remembrances to Kriehuber. His two portraits of me have been copied in London. They are without doubt the best."
Joseph Kriehuber, whose fine drawing of Liszt at the piano, playing Beethoven's C sharp minor sonata to some friends, we reproduce, was a Viennese artist of great talent, who made many excellent portraits in pencil, lithography, water-colours, and miniatures. In this work, Kriehuber has introduced a portrait of himself seated at the left of the pianist, with pencil and sketchbook in hand. Behind the piano stands Berlioz, and next him is Czerny, the celebrated music teacher and composer, and the teacher of Liszt.
