The Masters and their Music

Z LI

2, 1811, at Ra

31, 1886,

peared in concert with such success that, after a repetition of the concert in a neighboring town, the great Hungarian magnates, Prince Esterhazy at their head, united in providing a stipend of six hundred gulden yearly for his proper education. Thereupon Liszt's father resigned his position and attended scrupulously to his son, removing to Vienna and p

nz

personality did the rest. Liszt seems to have been of a very fine and sincere nature, genial, charming in conversation, having plenty of wit as well as sentiment; entirely free from jealousy, yet most likely feeling within himself powers which as yet had not come to expression. He was singularly pure in character and a universal favorite of women as well as men. In 1824 he made his first concert journey to England, and he played everywhere in France and in parts of Germany. In 1827 his father died, and the boy now had the responsibility of supporting his mother. Accordingly

1831. This wonderful genius performed the most astonishing and unheard-of things upon the violin. More than a year before this time Robert Schumann had heard h

ed Liszt to new efforts on his own behalf, and he now entered upon the career of original mastery of the pianoforte and the new style which from this time characterized his works. It is probable that some of his famous "Studies for Transcendent Execution" dat

f an Artist." This work Liszt set for the piano, and, if I am right, it was the beginning of the enormous number of transcriptions of orchestral works fo

practice of Richard Wagner from the rules of the classic school. So it was with two fixed ideas that Liszt began to write. First (from Berlioz), that music ought to signify something, adhere more or less closely to a poetic or imaginative program; and, second, that in trying to do this, one might go in any direction needed for the desired tonal effect. Meanwhile, upon th

s great career as performing artist, when he astonished Europe from one end to the other by playing the piano in a manner previously unheard of. His art had everything in it. He had enormous facility, his very long hand giving him the same kind of mastery over technical difficulties that Paganini had upon the finger-board of the violin; and, while indulging in long stretches of pianissimo, he diversified his per

mselves making little or no headway, Liszt wrote them offering to raise the entire missing sum himself. This he did, and in 1847, I think it was, he himself conducted the musical festival with

le to accept the manuscript of Wagner's "Lohengrin" when that hot-headed young musician had gotten himself mixed up in the revolution of 1848 at Dresden, and Liszt produced the work at Weimar in 1850. From that time forward Liszt was the mouthpiece of the new

r (at least for the pianoforte)-that, namely, in which the melody is carried by the thumbs in the middle range of the instrument, the long tones being sustained by the pedal while the hands carry long and light running passages across the full range of the instrument. The real inventor of this effect was Parish-Alvars, a great virtuoso of the harp, who was born in 1808. Availing himself of the beautiful melodies of his native Wales, and later of suit

tirely reposeful in his work, never manifesting any uneasiness of bodily position, no matter what the difficulty of his playing might be. Liszt, on the other hand, being of an impassioned and nervous temperament, had a great deal more motion, and i

rd playing, where at least one tone of the chord belongs to the melodic thread, and as such receives an emphasis, or at least a distinctness of delivery, to which the remainder of the chord has no claim whatever. Moreover, while Thalberg employed the pedal,-and it was, in fact, an indispensable condition of the effect of his pieces,-he did not rightly consider what would be the effect when the piano should be developed to a sonority and continuance of vibration which in his time it did not have

t them to perfection himself, and illustrated them in a thousand ways in his voluminous works; and, through the charm of his personality and his pleasure in c

hings of Wagner. But, while creative periods can not be affirmed with certainty, there are differences of style. In some of his works he indulges in a variety of piano-playing additions having no essential, or indeed suitable, relation to the musical matter which he purports to be illustrating. In others, on the contrary, he is essentially simple, loyal, and scrupulous to the last degree. The latter is true of his transcriptions of some of the Schubert songs, especially such as "My Sweet Repose," "The Wanderer," "Hark! Hark! the Lark," "The Erl King," "The Ave Mari

held, and his works later are generally more confined to musical considerations, and free from display as such. Nevertheless

s a whole world of pieces by Liszt which are more practicable to young players than most of the serious compositions of Chopin. The latter composer demands, above everything else, refinement and delicate finish; Liszt demands musical idea and effect, and, while refinement adds greatly to the charm of the works, it is not absolutely a sine qua non. In other words, Liszt always wrote with an eye to the stage, and with a certain largeness

fficulty, since it is in these that he has shown most fully what he considers possible upon the pianoforte. The following list, however, will afford a good idea of his style, without making upon

OG

of Love

esrau

ation."

se in E

ions from the s

Wande

ng to S

eet Re

Hark! t

Erl K

ions from Wagne

horus from

Evening Star.

from "The Fl

nella." (

at. With second

rs" in Wagner's "Siegfried," except that Liszt operates mainly in the upper range of the piano, whereas Wagner busies himself for a long time with the lower ranges of pitch. When this piece is done with sufficient delicacy, and at the same time with adequate brilliancy and fervor, it produces a most astonishing and gratifying effect. The next selection is one of a set of six called "Consolations." These, again, are nocturne-like in character, and the one here select

bly on well-known Hungarian Czardas. It is difficult to speak with certainty on this subject, as Liszt has left no indications as to which are original and which are quoted. To refer to a very different composition in the same sch

tment, but, with the exception of the long-continued succession of octaves in "The Erl King,"-for which Schubert is responsible rather than Lisz

ctions conclude with the very brilliant study after Paganini, "La Campanella." In case this should not prove practicable for the player, a Liszt rhapsody might be substituted or the Tarantelle from "Venice and Naples." The program may be regarded as complete at this point, but if it happens to be convenient to give one or more movements of the Concerto in E-flat, a still dif