Franz Liszt

me with variations, and is, we suspect, a theme nearly exhausted; but Liszt as tone poet, Liszt as song writer, as composer for the pianoforte, as littérateur, the man, the wickedest of Don Juans

their pupils are beginning to intone the psalmody of uncritical praise. Liszt the romantic, magnificent, magnanimous, supernal, is set to the same old harmonies, until the reader, tired of the ga

d his technique transcendentally brilliant. His critical compositions were received with less approval. That such an artist of the keyboard could be also a successor to Beethoven was an idea mocked at by the conservative Leipsic school. Besides, he came in such a questionable guise as a Symphoniker. A piano concerto with a triangle in the score (the E flat), compositions for full orchestra which were called symphonic poems, lyrics without a tune, that pretended to follow the curve of the words; finally church music, solemn masses through which stalked the apparition of the haughty Magyar chieftain, accompanied by echoes of the gipsies on the putzta (the Graner M

inand Hiller, Joseph Joachim, the Schumanns, later Brahms and Hanslick, t

t-Sa?ns to Richard Strauss. Why, then, the inevitable wail from the Lisztians that the Liszt music is not heard? Christus and the other oratorios and the masses might be heard oftener, and there are many of the sacred compositions yet unsung that would make some critics sit up. No, we are lovers of Liszt, but the martyrdom motive has been sounded too often. In a double sense a reaction is bound to come. The true Liszt is to emerge from the clouds of legend, and Liszt the composer will be definitely placed. A little disappointment will result in both camps; the camp of the ult

wn. Let us drop these futile comparisons. Liszt was as supreme in his domain as Wagner in his; only the German had the more popular domain. His culture was intensive, that of Liszt extensive. The tragedy was that Liszt lived to hear himself denounced as an imitator of Wagner; butchered to make a Bayreuth holiday. The day after his death in 1886 the news went abroad in Bayreuth that the "father-in-law of Wagner" had died; that his funeral might disturb the success of the current music festival! Liszt, who had be

sent her in the light of pursuing him with matrimonial designs. That she did is not to be denied. Dr. Kapp is often severe on his hero. Is any man ever a hero to his biographer? He does not glorify his subject, and for the amiable weakness displayed by Liszt for princesses and other noble dames Dr. Kapp is sharp. The compositions are fairly judged, neither in the superlative key, nor condescendingly, as being of mere historic interest. There are over thirteen hundred, of which about four hundred are original. Liszt wrote too much, although he was a better self-critic than was Rubinstein. New details of the quarrel with the Schumanns are given. The gifted pair do not emerge exactly in an agreeable light.

, denying that he was much with Liszt. How these Liszt pupils love each other! Joseffy-who was with the master two summers at Weimar, though he never relinquished his proud title of Tausig scholar-when the younger brilliant stars Rosenthal, first a Joseffy pupil, Sauer, and others cynica

"I've come all the way from America to hear you play." "Come up," said the aged magician, "I'll play for you." He did so, much to the scandal of the Liszt pupils assembled for da

ghter Cosima, a dweller among memories only, said that the music of her father did not exist for her; Weimar had been swallowed by Bayreuth, and the crowning sorrow for Liszt lovers is the tomb of Liszt at Bayreuth. It should be in his beloved Weimar. He lies in the shadow of his dear f