FROM Hamburg I went to Leipsic, but Schuberth did not lose sight of me. Whenever he came there he looked me up, and was very kind in introducing me to people whom it was well for me to meet. He knew Liszt very well, and having taken a fancy to a composition of mine, "Les Perles de Rosée," which was still in manuscript, he said: "Let me have it for publication. Dedicate it to Liszt. I can easily get Liszt to accept the dedication. I am going directly from here to Weimar, and will see him about it. At the same time, I will prepare the way for your reception later as a pupil."
Autograph of I. Moscheles
Not long afterward I received a letter from Schuberth in which he told me that when he handed the music to Liszt, the latter looked at the manuscript, hummed it over, then sat down and played it from memory. Then, going to his desk, he took a pen, and accepted the dedication by writing his name at the top of the title-page. Encouraged by this, I wrote a letter to Liszt, expressing my desire to become one of his pupils, and asking what my chances were. Unfortunately, I misinterpreted his reply, and received the impression that it amounted to a refusal; but at the same time he gave me a cordial invitation to attend the festival about to take place in Weimar in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of Goethe's birth. I still have this letter, which is dated August 18, 1849. Had I understood then that Liszt was ready to accept me as a pupil, I should have taken up my residence at Weimar at once, instead of waiting until I learned my mistake, as I did during a call which I made upon Liszt nearly four years later.
FIRST MEETING WITH LISZT
HOWEVER, I went to Weimar with Mr. Hill to attend the Goethe festival, arriving there early in the afternoon of the day before it began.
The third day of the festival we called on Liszt, who was then living in the Hotel zum Erbprinzen, and were received most cordially. Schlesinger, the Paris publisher, was there with his little daughter, who was precocious as a pianist and played several Chopin waltzes. Liszt was very busy with his guests, so that our visit was limited, and nothing was said about my coming to Weimar to study except that Liszt said he never received pupils for regular lessons, but that those who lived in Weimar (and there were only three or four in those days) had frequent opportunities of hearing and meeting artists who visited him. Having misinterpreted his letter, I accepted these remarks as a further politely worded refusal to receive me. So I returned to Leipsic to continue my studies there.
ARRIVAL AT LEIPSIC
I WELL remember the feeling of awe mingled with interest with which I looked upon every German whom I met in the streets of Leipsic on my first arrival in that famously musical city. I looked on even the laboring-men, the peasants as well as those in higher positions, as being Mozarts and Beethovens, and the idea gained such ascendancy that I felt my own inferiority and metaphorically held down my head. This feeling, however, was not of long duration, and changed in the course of a month or two on account of what happened at a concert of the Euterpe Society which I attended. The concerts of this musical society were second only to those of the famous Gewandhaus, and their audiences were made up largely of those who attended the concerts of the latter. At this concert the program was classical and unimpeachable as to the orchestral concerted pieces, but one of the numbers was a solo for clarinet. At my age I was disposed to look down on this as an inferior kind of music, and as decidedly unsuitable to an educated and musically cultivated taste. Therefore, when, to my surprise, this turned out to be the most popular piece of the evening and received the most vociferous applause of the entire audience, I found my high opinion of the select musical taste of the Germans sensibly decreased.
Since then I have learned that there is a place for everything good in its way; but the clarinet solo seemed out of place in the classical atmosphere of a symphony concert.