Franz Liszt Part 24

VIARDOT-GARCIA

With the exception of the Bachs, who were noted musicians for six generations, and the Viennese branch of the Strauss dynasty, there is perhaps no musical family that affords a more interesting ill.u.s.tration of heredity in a special talent than the Garcias. The elder Garcia, who was born in 1775, was not only a great tenor and teacher, but a prolific composer of operas. His two famous daughters also became composers, as well as singers. Madame Viardot (who died in 1910) was so lucky as to be able to base her operettas on librettos written by Turgenev. Liszt said of her that "in all that concerns method and execution, feeling and expression, it would be hard to find a name worthy to be mentioned with that of Malibran's sister," and Wagner was amazed and delighted when she sang the Isolde music in a whole act of his Tristan at sight. She studied the piano with Liszt and played brilliantly.

LISZT AS A FREEMASON

Memorial tablets have been placed on each of the two houses at Weimar in which Liszt used to reside. He first lived at the Altenburg and later on at the Hofgartnerei. The act of piety was undertaken by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein, of which organisation Liszt was the president up to the time of his death.

It has been a.s.serted that Liszt was a Freemason after his consecration as a priest. This has been contradicted, but the following from the _Freemason's Journal_ appears to settle the question:

"On the 31st of July last one of the greatest artists and men departed at Bayreuth for the eternal east, who had proved himself a worthy member of our brotherhood by his deeds through his whole eventful life. It is Brother Franz Liszt, on whose grave we deposit an acacia branch.

Millions of florins Franz Liszt had earned on his triumphal career--for others. His art, his time, his life, were given to those who claimed it.

Thus he journeyed, a living embodiment of the St. Simonism to which he once belonged, through his earthly pilgrimage. Brother Franz Liszt was admitted into the brotherhood in the year 1844, at the lodge 'Unity'

('Zur Einigkeit'), in Frankfort-on-the-Main, by George Kloss, with the composer, W. Ch. Speyer as witness, and in the presence of Felix von Lichnowsky. He was promoted to the second degree in a lodge at Berlin, and elected master in 1870, as member of the lodge 'Zur Einigkeit,' in Budapest. Since 1845 he was also honorary member of the L. Modestia c.u.m Libertate at Zurich. If there ever was a Freemason in favour with Pope Pius IX it was Franz Liszt, created abbe in 1865 in Rome."

A LISZT SON?

A letter from Paris to the Vienna _Monday Review_ says that in the salon of the Champ de Mars a picture is on exhibition, called Italian Bagpiper. While its artistic points are hardly worthy of special mention the striking resemblance of this work by Michael Vallet to the facial traits of Franz Liszt puzzled the jury not a little, and will doubtless create much interest among the visitors of the gallery. The model for the subject was a boat-hand of Genoa named Angelo Giocati-Buonaventi, fifty-six years of age. It was while strolling about the Genoese wharves that Vallet noticed the spa.r.s.e form of Angelo, whose beardless face recalled to him at once Franz Liszt's.

Angelo consented willingly to pose for the piper, but all questions as to his family extraction were answered with a laconic Chi lo sa? Vallet, by making inquiries in other directions, learned that Angelo came originally from Albano. He took a trip to that place, and after the lapse of a few days wrote a friend in Paris: "Found! Found! The surmise regarding my Angelo is correct. This boathand is without any doubt a son of Countess d'Agoult, whose relations with Franz Liszt are known throughout the world, and was born here in the year 1834. I found a picture of the countess in the home of a sister-in-law of a lately deceased peasant woman, Giocati-Buonaventi. This latter was the nurse and later the woman who had the motherly care of my Angelo...."

It happened that at the same time, as if to corroborate Vallet's statement, the _Review de Paris_ published an interesting correspondence between Georges Sand and Countess d'Agoult. The latter writes from Albano under date of June 9, 1839: "It was our intention to present our respects to the Sultan this summer, but our trip to Constantinople came to naught. A little fellow that I had the caprice to bring here into the world prevented the carrying out of the plan. The boy promises to be a beauty. One of the handsomest women of Palestrina furnishes the milk for his nourishment. It is to be regretted that Franz has again one of his fits of melancholy. [She speaks of Liszt repeatedly in this letter, giving him the pet name _cretin_.] The thought of being father to _three_ little children seems to depress his mind...."

The three children being accounted for, the story of Vallet regarding Angelo has no foundation in fact, and we would not even mention it if it was not making the rounds of the Continental press.

LISZT ON VIRTUOSITY

In these days of virtuosity let us hear what Liszt, the master of all virtuosi, says:

"What, then, makes the virtuoso on an instrument?" asks the master, and we gain on this occasion the most comprehensive and the most decisive information on the point ourselves. Is he really a mere spiritless machine? Do his hands only attend to the office of a double winch on a street organ? Has he to dispense with his brain and with his feelings in his mechanical execution of the prescribed performance? Has he to supply the ear only with a photograph of the object before him? Such representations bring him to the somewhat proud remark: "We know too well how many amongst those who enjoy great praise, unable to translate even to the letter the original that is on the desk before them, degrade its sense, carrying on the art as a trade, and not understanding even the trade itself. However victorious a counterfeit may be, it does not destroy the power of the real authors and poet virtuosi; they are for those who are 'called' to an extent of which a degraded public, under an illegitimate and ignorant 'dominion,' has no idea. You hear the rolling of the thunder, the roaring of the lion, the far-spreading sound of man's strength. For the words virtuosity and virtus are derived from the Latin 'vir'; the execution of both is an act of manly power," says he, and characterises now his 'artist' as follows: "The virtuoso is not a mason, who, with the chisel in his hand, faithfully and conscientiously cuts his stone after the design of the architect. He is not a pa.s.sive tool that reproduces feeling and thought without adding himself. He is not the more or less experienced reader of works that have no margin for his notes, and which make no paragraph necessary between the lines.

These spiritedly written musical works are in reality for the virtuoso only the tragic and touching putting-in-scene of feelings; he is called upon to let these speak, weep, sing, sigh--to render these to his own consciousness. He creates in this way like the composer himself, for he must embrace in himself those pa.s.sions which he, in their complete brilliancy, has to bring to light. He breathes life into the lethargic body, infuses it with fire, and enlivens it with the pulse of gracefulness and charm. He changes the clayey form into a living being, penetrating it with the spark which Prometheus s.n.a.t.c.hed from the flash of Jupiter. He must make this form wander in transparent ether; he must arm it with a thousand winged arms; he must unfold scent and blossom and breathe into it the breath of life. Of all artists the virtuoso reveals perhaps most immediately the overpowering forces of the G.o.d who, in glowing embraces of the proud muse, allures every hidden secret."

LISZT'S FAVOURITE PIANO

LETTER FROM DR. FRANZ LISZT

"WEIMAR, _November, 1883_.

"MR. STEINWAY:

"_Most Esteemed Sir_: Again I owe you many and special thanks. The new Steinway Grand is a glorious masterpiece in power, sonority, singing quality, and perfect harmonic effects, affording delight even to my old piano-weary fingers. Ever continuing success remains a beautiful attribute of the world-renowned firm of Steinway & Sons. In your letter, highly esteemed sir, you mention some new features in the Grand Piano, _viz._, the vibrating body being bent into form out of one continuous piece, and that portion of the strings heretofore lying dormant being now a part of and thus incorporated as partial tones into the foundation tones. Their utility is emphatically guaranteed by the name of the inventor. Owing to my ignorance of the mechanism of piano construction I can but praise the magnificent _result_ in the 'volume and quality of sound.' In relation to the use of your welcome tone-sustaining pedal I inclose two examples: Danse des Sylphes, by Berlioz, and No. 3 of my Consolations. I have to-day noted down only the introductory bars of both pieces, with this proviso, that, if you desire it, I shall gladly complete the whole transcription, with exact adaptation of your tone-sustaining pedal.

"Very respectfully and gratefully,

"F. LISZT."

LISZT AS TEACHER

"While Liszt has been immensely written about as pianist and composer, sufficient stress has not been laid upon what the world owes him as a teacher of pianoforte playing," writes Amy Fay. "During his life-time Liszt despised the name of 'piano-teacher,' and never suffered himself to be regarded as such. 'I am no Professeur du Piano,' he scornfully remarked one day in the cla.s.s at Weimar, and if any one approached him as a 'teacher' he instantly put the unfortunate offender outside of his door.

"I was once a witness of his haughty treatment of a Leipsic pupil of the fair s.e.x, who came to him one day and asked him 'to give her a few lessons.' He instantly drew himself up and replied in the most cutting tone:

"'I do not give lessons on the piano; and,' he added with a bow, in which grace and sarcasm were combined, 'you really don't need me as a teacher.'

"There was a dead silence for a minute, and then the poor girl, not knowing what to do or say, backed herself out of the room. Liszt, turning to the cla.s.s, said:

"'That is the way people fly in my face, by dozens! They seem to think I am there only to give them lessons on the piano. I have to get rid of them, for I am no Professor of the Piano. This girl did not play badly, either,' concluded he, half ashamed of himself for his treatment of her.

"For my part, I was awfully sorry for the girl, and I was tempted to run after her and bring her back, and intercede with Liszt to take her; but I was a new-comer myself, and did not quite dare to brave the lion in his den. Later, I would have done it, for the girl was really very talented, and it was a mere want of tact on her part in her manner of approaching Liszt which precipitated her defeat. She brought him Chopin's F minor concerto, and played the middle movement of it, Liszt standing up and thundering out the orchestral accompaniment, tremolo, in the ba.s.s of the piano. I wondered it did not put the girl out, but she persisted bravely to the end, and did not break down, as I expected she would.

"She came at an inopportune moment, for there were only five of us in the room, and we were having a most entertaining time with Liszt, that lovely June afternoon, and he did not feel disposed to be interrupted by a stranger. In spite of himself, he could not help doing justice to her talent, saying: 'She did not play at all badly.' This, however, the poor girl never knew. She probably wept briny tears of disappointment when she returned to her hotel.

"While Liszt resented being called a 'piano-teacher,' he nevertheless _was one_, in the higher sense of the term. It was the difference between the scientific college professor of genius and the ordinary school-teacher which distinguished him from the rank and file of musical instructors.

"n.o.body could be more appreciative of talent than Liszt was--even of talent which was not of the first order--and I was often amazed to see the trouble he would give himself with some industrious young girl who had worked hard over big compositions like Schumann's Carnival, or Chopin's sonatas. At one of the musical gatherings at the Frauleins'

Stahr (music-teachers in Weimar, to whose simple home Liszt liked to come) I have heard him accompany on a second piano Chopin's E minor concerto, which was technically well played, by a girl of nineteen from the Stuttgart Conservatory.

"It was a contrast to see this young girl, with her rosy cheeks, big brown eyes, and healthy, everyday sort of talent, at one piano, and Liszt, the colossal artist, at the other.

"He was then sixty-three years old, but the fire of youth burned in him still. Like his successor, Paderewski, Liszt sat erect, and never bent his proud head over the 'stupid keys,' as he called them, even deprecating his pupils' doing so. He was very picturesque, with his lofty and ideal forehead thrown back, and his magnificent iron-gray hair falling in thick ma.s.ses upon his neck. The most divine expression came over his face when he began to play the opening measures of the accompaniment, and I shall never forget the concentration and intensity he put into them if I live to be a hundred! The n.o.bility and absolute 'selflessness' of Liszt's playing had to be heard to be understood.

There was something about his tone that made you weep, it was so apart from earth and so ethereal!"

VON BuLOW CRITICISES

"I look forward eagerly," Bulow wrote to a friend, "to your Chopin, that immortal romanticist par excellence, whose mazurkas alone are a monument more enduring than metal. Never will this great, deep, sincere, and at the same time tender and pa.s.sionate poet become antiquated. On the contrary, as musical culture increases, he will appear in a much brighter light than to-day, when only the popular Chopin is in vogue, whereas the more aristocratic, manly Chopin, the poet of the last two scherzi, the last two ballads, the barcarole, the polonaise-fantaisie, the nocturnes, Op. 9, No. 3; Op. 48; Op. 55, No. 2, etc., still awaits the interpreters who have entered into his spirit and among whom, if G.o.d grants me life, I should like to have the pride of counting myself.

"You know from my introduction to the etudes how highly I esteem Chopin.

In his pieces we find Lenau, Byron, Musset, Lamartine, and at the same time all sorts of heathen Apollo priests. You shall learn through me to love him dearly.

"We must grant Chopin the great distinction of having in his works fixed the boundaries between piano and orchestral music, which other romanticists, notably Robert Schumann, confused, to the detriment of both.

"There are two Chopins--one an aristocrat, the other democratic."

Concerning the mazurka, Op. 50, No. 1, he said: "In this mazurka there is dancing, singing, gesticulating.

"Chopin's pupils issued in Paris an edition of his works. Chopin's pupils are, however, as unreliable as the girls who pose as Liszt's pupils. Use the Klindworth edition.

"Liszt's ballads and polonaises have proved most strikingly that it was possible after Chopin to write ballads and polonaises. In the polonaises in particular Liszt opened many new points of view for the widening and spiritualising of that form, quite apart from the individual peculiarities of his productions, which put in place of the national Polish colour an entirely new element, thus making possible the filling out of this form with new contents."

In one of his essays Bulow indignantly attacks the current notion that Liszt's pieces are all unplayable except by concert pianists: "Some day I shall make a list of all of Liszt's pieces for piano which most amateurs will find much easier to master and digest than the chaff of Thalberg or the wheat of Henselt or Chopin. But it seems that the name of Liszt as composer for the piano has become a.s.sociated inseparably with the words 'inexecutable,' and making 'colossal demands.' It is a harmless prejudice of the ignorant, like many others, but for all that none the less objectionable.

"Liszt does not represent virtuosity as distinguished from music--very far from it.