Liszt had the pick of all the young musicians in Europe for his pupils, and I attribute his acceptance of me somewhat to the fact that I came all the way from America, something more of an undertaking in those days than it is now. I became very well acquainted with those whom I have mentioned, especially with Klindworth and Raff, and before many days we were all "Dutzbrüder."
THE ALTENBURG, LISZT'S HOUSE AT WEIMAR
The first evening Raff, whom I had previously never heard of, struck me as being rather conceited; but when I grew to know him better, and realized how talented he was, I was quite ready to make allowance for his little touch of self-esteem. We became warm friends, dining together every day at the table d'hôte, and after dinner walking for an hour or so in the park. Nineteen years later I went abroad again and visited Raff at the Conservatory in Frankfort. He interrupted his lessons the moment that he heard I was there, came running down-stairs, threw his arms around my neck, and was so overjoyed at seeing me that I felt as if we were boys once more at Weimar. Of the pupils and of the many musicians who came to Weimar to visit Liszt at that time,—"die goldene Zeit" (the Golden Age), as it is still called at Weimar,—I think Klindworth and I are the only survivors. Klindworth is one of the most distinguished teachers in Europe, and taught for many years at the Conservatory in Moscow. He is now in Potsdam.
HOW LISZT TAUGHT
WHAT I had heard in regard to Liszt's method of teaching proved to be absolutely correct. He never taught in the ordinary sense of the word. During the entire time that I was with him I did not see him give a regular lesson in the pedagogical sense. He would notify us to come up to the Altenburg. For instance, he would say to me, "Tell the boys to come up to-night at half-past six or seven." We would go there, and he would call on us to play. I remember very well the first time I played to him after I had been accepted as a pupil. I began with the "Ballade" of Chopin in A flat major; then I played a fugue by Handel in E minor.
After I was well started he began to get excited. He made audible suggestions, inciting me to put more enthusiasm into my playing, and occasionally he would push me gently off the chair and sit down at the piano and play a phrase or two himself by way of illustration. He gradually got me worked up to such a pitch of enthusiasm that I put all the grit that was in me into my playing.
I found at this first lesson that he was very fond of strong accents in order to mark off periods and phrases, and he talked so much about strong accentuation that one might have supposed that he would abuse it, but he never did. When he wrote to me later about my own piano method, he expressed the strongest approval of the exercises on accentuation.
"PLAY IT LIKE THIS"
WHILE I was playing to him for the first time, he said on one of the occasions when he pushed me from the chair: "Don't play it that way. Play it like this." Evidently I had been playing ahead in a steady, uniform way. He sat down, and gave the same phrases with an accentuated, elastic movement, which let in a flood of light upon me. From that one experience I learned to bring out the same effect, where it was appropriate, in almost every piece that I played. It eradicated much that was mechanical, stilted, and unmusical in my playing, and developed an elasticity of touch which has lasted all my life, and which I have always tried to impart to my pupils.