at the corners, which gives him a most crafty and
Mephistophelian expression when he smiles, and his
whole appearance and manner have a sort of Jesuitical
elegance and ease. His hands are very narrow, with long
and slender fingers that look as if they had twice as
many joints as other people's. They are so flexible and
supple that it makes you nervous to look at them. Any-
thing like the polish of his manner I never saw. When
he got up to leave the box, for instance, after his adieux
to the ladies, he laid his hand on his heart and made his
final bow not with affectation, or in mere gallantry,
but with a quiet courtliness which made you feel that
no other way of bowing to a lady was right or proper 33
But the most extraordinary thing about Liszt is his
wonderful variety of expression and play of feature.
One moment his face will look dreamy, shadowy, tragic ;
the next he will be insinuating, amiable, ironical,
sardonic; but always the same captivating grace of
manner. He is a perfect study. He is all spirit, but half
the time, at least, a mocking spirit, I should say. All
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FRANZ LISZT
Weimar adores him, and people say that women still go
perfectly crazy over him. When he walks out, he bows
to everybody just like a king! The Grand Duke has
presented him with a beautiful house situated on the
Park, and here he lives elegantly, free of expense.
Liszt gives no paid lessons whatever, as he is much too
grand for that, but if one has talent enough, or pleases
him, he lets one come to him and play to him. I go to
him every other day, but I don't play more than twice
a week, as I can not prepare so much, but I listen to
others. Up to this point there have been only four in the
class beside myself, and I am the only new one. From
four to six o'clock in the afternoon is the time when he
receives his scholars. The first time I went I did not play
to him, but listened to the rest. Urspruch and Leitert,
two young men whom I met the other night, have
studied with Liszt a long time, and both play superbly.
fj As I entered the salon, Urspruch was performing
Schumann's " Symphonic Studies " an immense com-
position, and one that it took at least half an hour to
get through. He played so splendidly that my heart
sank down into the very depths. I thought I should
never get on there! Liszt came forward and greeted me
in a very friendly manner as I entered. He was in a very
good humor that day, and made some little witticisms.
Urspruch asked him what title he should give to a piece
he was composing. " Per aspera ad astra," said Liszt.
This was such a good hit that I began to laugh, and he
seemed to enjoy my appreciation of his little sarcasm. I
did not play that time as my piano had only just come,
and I was not prepared to do so, but I went home and
practised tremendously for several days on Chopin's
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" B minor sonata." It is a great composition and one
of his last works. When I thought I could play it, I
went to Liszt, though with a trembling heart. I can not
tell you what it has cost me every time I have ascended
his stairs. I can scarcely summon up courage to go
there, and generally stand on the steps a few moments
before I can make up my mind to open the door and
go in 33 33
Well, on this day the artists Leitert and Urspruch, and
the young composer Metzdorf, were in the room when
I came. They had probably been playing. At first Liszt
took no notice of me beyond a greeting, till Metzdorf
said to him, " Herr Doctor, Miss Fay has brought a
sonata." "Ah, well, let us hear it," said Liszt. Just then
he left the room for a minute, and I told the three
gentlemen they ought to go away and let me play to
Liszt alone, for I felt nervous about playing before
them. They all laughed at me and said they would not
budge an inch. When Liszt came back they said to him,
" Only think, Herr Doctor, Miss Fay proposes to send
us all home." I said I could not play before such artists.
" Oh, that is healthy for you," said Liszt with a smile,
and added, " you have a very choice audience now." I
don't know whether he appreciated how nervous I was,
but instead of walking up and down the room, as he
often does, he sat down by me like any other teacher,
and heard me play the first movement. It was fright-
fully hard, but I had studied it so much that I managed
to get through with it pretty successfully. Nothing
could exceed Liszt's amiability, or the trouble he gave
himself, and instead of frightening me, he inspired me.
Never was there such a delightful teacher ! and he is the
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most sympathetic one I Ve had. You feel so free with
him, and he develops the very spirit of music in you.
He does n't keep nagging at you all the time, but he
leaves you your own conception. Now and then he will
make a criticism or play a passage, and with a few
words give you enough to think of all the rest of your
life. There is a delicate point to everything he says as
subtle as he is himself. He does n't tell you anything
about the technique; that you must work out for your-
self. When I had finished the first movement of the
sonata, Liszt, as he always does, said "Bravo!"
Taking my seat he made some little criticisms, and then
he told me to go on and play the rest of it.
Now, I only half-knew the other movements, for the
first one was so extremely difficult that it cost me all the
labor I could give to prepare that. But playing to Liszt
reminds me of trying to feed the elephant in the Zoo-
logical Garden with lumps of sugar. He disposes of
whole movements as if they were nothing, and stretches
out gravely for more! One of my fingers fortunately
began to bleed, for I had practised the skin off, and that
gave me a good excuse for stopping. Whether he was
pleased at this proof of industry, I know not; but after
looking at my finger and saying, " Oh! " very compas-
sionately, he sat down and played the whole three last
movements himself. That was a great deal and showed
off his powers. It was the first time I had heard him,
and I don't know which was the most extraordinary
the Scherzo, with its wonderful lightness and swiftness,
the Adagio with its depth and pathos, or the last move-
ment, where the whole keyboard seemed to " donnern
und blitzen." There is such a vividness about everything
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he plays that it does not seem as if it were mere music
you are listening to, but it is as if he had called up a
real, living form, and you saw it breathing before your
face and eyes. It gives me almost a ghostly feeling to
hear him, and it seems as if the air were peopled with
spirits. Oh, he is a perfect wizard! It is as interesting to
see him as it is to hear him, for his face changes with
every modulation of the piece, and he looks exactly as
he is playing. He has one element that is most capti-
vating, and that is a sort of delicate and fitful mirth
that keeps peering out at you here and there. It is most
peculiar, and when he plays that way, the most bewitch-
ing expression comes over his face. It seems as if a little
spirit of joy were playing hide-and-go-seek with you 53
At home Liszt does n't wear his long Abbe's coat, but a
short one, in which he looks much more artistic. His
figure is remarkably slight, but his head is most im-
posing. It is so delicious in that room of his! It was all
furnished and put in order for him by the Grand
Duchess herself. The walls are pale gray, with a gilded
border running round the room, or rather two rooms,
which are divided, but not separated, by crimson
curtains. The furniture is crimson, and everything is so
comfortable such a contrast to German bareness and
stiffness generally. A splendid grand piano (he receives
a new one every year,) stands in one window. The other
window is always open and looks out on the park. There
is a dovecote just opposite the window, and doves
promenade up and down upon the roof of it, and fly
about, and sometimes whirr down on the sill itself.
That pleases Liszt. His writing-table is beautifully
fitted up with things that match. Everything is in
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bronze inkstand, paper-weight, match-box, etc. and
there is always a lighted candle standing on it by which
he and the gentlemen can light their cigars. There is a
carpet on the floor, a rarity in Germany, and Liszt
generally walks about and smokes and mutters, and
calls upon one or the other of us to play. From time to
time he will sit down and himself play where a passage
does not suit him, and when he is in good spirits he
makes little jests all the time. His playing was a com-
plete revelation to me, and has given me an entirely
new insight into music. You can not conceive, without
hearing him, how poetic he is, or the thousand nuances
that he can throw into the simplest thing, and he is
equally great on all sides. From the zephyr to the
tempest, the whole scale is equally at his command 3&
Liszt is not at all like a master, and can not be treated
as one. He is a monarch, and when he extends his royal
scepter you can sit down and play to him. You never
can ask him to play anything for you, no matter how
much you 're dying to hear it. If he is in the mood he
will play; if not, you must content yourself with a few
remarks. You can not even offer to play yourself.
You lay your notes on the table, so he can see that you
want to play, and sit down. He takes a turn up and
down the room, looks at the music, and if the piece
interests him he will call upon you. We bring the same
piece to him but once, and but once play it through 33
Yesterday I had prepared for him his "Au Bord d'une
Source." I was nervous and played badly. He was not
to be put out, however, but acted as if he thought I had
played charmingly, and then he sat down and played
the whole thing himself, oh, so exquisitely! It made me
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FRANZ LISZT
feel like a wood-chopper. The notes just seemed to
ripple off his fingers' ends with scarce any perceptible
motion. As he neared the close I noticed that funny
little expression come over his face, which he always
has when he means to surprise you, and he then
suddenly took an unexpected chord and extemporized a
poetical little end, quite different from the written one.
Do you wonder that people go distracted over him?
<& One day this week, when we were with Liszt, he was
in such high spirits that it was as if he had suddenly
become twenty years younger. A student from the
Stuttgart conservatory played a Liszt concerto. His
name is V., and he is dreadfully nervous. Liszt kept up a
running fire of satire all the time he was playing, but
in a good-natured way. I should n't have minded it if
it had been I. In fact, I think it would have inspired
me; but poor V. hardly knew whether he was on his head
or on his feet. It was too funny. Everything that Liszt
says is so striking. For instance, in one place where V.
was playing the melody rather feebly, Liszt suddenly
took his seat at the piano and said, " When I play, I
always play for the people in the gallery, so that those
people who pay only five groschens for their seats also
hear something." Then he began, and I wish you could
have heard him! The sound did n't seem to be very
loud, but it was penetrating and far-reaching. When he
had finished, he raised one hand in the air, and you
seemed to see all the people in the gallery drinking in
the sound. That is the way Liszt teaches you. He
presents an idea to you, and it takes fast hold of your
mind and sticks there. Music is such a real, visible thing
to him that he always has a symbol, instantly, in the
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FRANZ LISZT
material world to express his idea. One day, when I was
playing, I made too much movement with my hand in
a rotary sort of a passage where it was difficult to avoid
it. "Keep your hand still, Fraulein," said Liszt; "don't
make omelet." I couldn't help laughing it hit me on
the head so nicely. He is far too sparing of his playing,
unfortunately, and like Tausig, sits down and plays
only a few bars at a time generally. It is dreadful when
he stops, just as you are at the height of your enjoy-
ment, but he is so thoroughly blase that he does n't
care to show off before people and does n't like to have
any one pay him a compliment about his playing. In
Liszt I can at least say that my ideal in something has
been realized. He goes far beyond all that I expected.
Anything so perfectly beautiful as he looks when he sits
at the piano I never saw, and yet he is almost an old
man now. I enjoy him as I would an exquisite work of
art. His personal magnetism is immense, and I can
scarcely bear it when he plays. He can make me cry all
he chooses, and that is saying a good deal, because I 've
heard so much music, and never have been affected
by it. Even Joachim, whom I think divine, never moved
me. When Liszt plays anything pathetic, it sounds as if
he had been through everything, and opens all one's
wounds afresh. All that one has ever suffered comes
before one again. Who was it that I heard say once, that
years ago he saw Clara Schumann sitting in tears near
the platform during one of Liszt's performances? Liszt
knows well the influence he has on people, for he always
fixes his eyes on some one of us when he plays, and I
believe he tries to wring our hearts. When he plays a
passage and goes pearling down the keyboard, he often
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FRANZ LISZT
looks over at me and smiles, to see whether I am
appreciating it.
But I doubt if he feels any particular emotion himself
when he is piercing you through with his rendering. He
is simply hearing every tone, knowing exactly what
effect he wishes to produce and just how to do it. In
fact, he is practically two persons in one the listener
and the performer. But what immense self-command
that implies! No matter how fast he plays you al-
ways feel that there is "plenty of time" no need to
be anxious! You might as well try to move one of the
pyramids as fluster him. Tausig possessed this repose
in a technical way, and his touch was marvelous ; but he
never drew the tears to your eyes. He could not wind
himself through all the subtle labyrinths of the heart as
Liszt does. Liszt does such bewitching little things ! The
other day, for instance, Fraulein Gaul was playing
something to him, and in it were two runs, and after
each run two staccato chords. She did them most
beautifully and struck the chords immediately after.
" No, no," said Liszt; " after you make a run you must
wait a minute before you strike the chords, as if in
admiration of your own performance. You must pause,
as if to say, ' How nicely I did that ! ' ' Then he sat
down and made a run himself, waited a second, and
then struck the two chords in the treble, saying as he
did so, " Bravo! " and then he played again, struck the
other chord and said again, " Bravo! " and positively, it
was as if the piano had softly applauded.
Liszt has n't the nervous irritability common to artists,
but on the contrary his disposition is the most exquisite
and tranquil intheworld. We have been there incessantly
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and I 've never seen him ruffled except two or three
times, and then he was tired and not himself, and it was
a most transient thing. When I think what a little
savage Tausig often was, and how cuttingly sarcastic
Kullak could be at times, I am astonished that Liszt
so rarely lost his temper. He has the power of turning
the best side of every one outward, also the most
marvelous and instant appreciation of what that side is.
If there is anything in you, you may be sure that Liszt
will know it. On Monday I had a most delightful
tete-a-tete with Liszt, quite by chance. I had occasion
to call upon him for something, and strange to say, he
was alone, sitting by his table writing. Generally all
sorts of people are up there. He insisted upon my stay-
ing for a while, and we had the most amusing and
entertaining conversation imaginable. It was the first
time I ever heard Liszt really talk, for he contents
himself mostly with making little jests. He is full of
esprit. Another evening I was there about twilight and
Liszt sat at the piano looking through a new oratorio
which had just come out in Paris, upon " Christus."
He asked me to turn for him, and evidently was not
interested, for he would skip whole pages and begin
again, here and there. There was only a single lamp,
and that a rather dim one, so that the room was all in
shadow, and Liszt wore his Merlin-like aspect. I asked
him to tell me how he produced a certain effect he
makes in his arrangement of the ballad in Wagner's
" Flying Dutchman." He looked very " fin " as the
French say, but did not reply. He never gives a direct
answer to a direct question. "Ah," said I, you won't
tell." He smiled and then immediately played the
217
FRANZ LISZT
passage. It was a long arpeggio, and the effect he made
was, as I had supposed, a pedal effect. He kept the
pedal down throughout, and played the beginning of the
passage in a grand sort of manner, and then all the rest
of it with a very pianissimo touch, and so lightly, that
the continuity of the arpeggios was destroyed, and the
notes seemed to be just strewn in, as if you broke a
wreath of flowers and scattered them according to your
fancy. It is a most striking and beautiful effect, and I
told him I did n't see how he ever thought of it. " Oh,
I Ve invented a great many things," said he, indif-
ferently " this, for instance " and he began playing
a double roll of octaves in chromatics in the bass of the
piano. It was very grand and made the room reverberate.
*J " Magnificent," said I.
" Did you ever hear me do a storm? " said he.
XT
No.
"Ah, you ought to hear me do a storm! Storms are my
forte! 33 53
Then to himself between his teeth, while a weird look
came into his eyes as if he could indeed rule the blast,
' Then crash the trees! "
How ardently I wished that he would " play a storm,"
but of course he did n't, and he presently began to
trifle over the keys in a blase style. I suppose he could n't
quite work himself up to the effort, but that look and
tone told how Liszt would do it. Alas, that we poor
mortals here below should share so often the fate of
Moses, and have only a glimpse of the Promised Land,
and that without the consolation of being Moses! But
perhaps, after all, the vision is better than the reality.
We see the whole land, even if but from afar, instead
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FRANZ LISZT
of being limited merely to the spot where our foot
treads 33 33
Once again I saw Liszt in a similar mood, though his
expression was this time comfortably rather than wildly
destructive. It was when Fraulein Remmertz was
playing his " E flat concerto " to him. There were two
grand pianos in the room; she was sitting at one, and
he at the other, accompanying and interpolating as he
felt disposed. Finally they came to a place where there
was a series of passages beginning with both hands in
the middle of the piano, and going in opposite directions
to the ends of the keyboard, ending each time with a
short, sharp chord. " Pitch everything out of the
window! " cried he, and began playing these passages
and giving every chord a whack as if he were splitting
everything up and flinging it out, and that with such
enjoyment that you felt as if you 'd like to bear a hand,
too, in the work of demolition ! But I never shall forget
Liszt's look as he so lazily proposed to '* pitch every-
thing out of the window." It reminded me of the expres-
sion of a big tabby-cat as it sits by the fire and purrs
away, blinking its eyes and seemingly half-asleep, when
suddenly ! ! out it strikes with both its claws, and
woe to whatever is within its reach!
219
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Melody has by Beethoven been freed from the influence
of Fashion and changing Taste, and raised to an ever-
valid, purely human type. Beethoven's music will be
understood to all time, while that of his predecessors
will, for the most part, only remain intelligible to us
through the medium of reflection on the history of Art.
Richard Wagner
BEETHOVEN
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
US 1C is the youngest of the arts.
Modern music dates back about
four hundred years. It is not so old
as the invention of printing. As an
art it began with the work of the
priests of the Roman Catholic
Church in endeavoring to arrange
a liturgy.
The medieval chant and the popular folk-song came
together, and the science of music was born. Sculpture
reached perfection in Greece, painting in Italy, por-
traiture in Holland ; but Germany, the land of thought,
has given us nearly all the great musicians and nine-
tenths of all our valuable musical compositions.
Holland has taken a very important part in every line
of art and handicraft, and in way of all-round develop-
ment has set the pace for civilization.
Art follows in the wake of commerce, for without com-
merce there is neither surplus wealth nor leisure. The
artist is paid from what is left after men have bought
food and clothing; and the time to enjoy comes only
after the struggle for existence.
When Venice was not only Queen of the Adriatic but of
the maritime world as well, Art came and established
there her Court of Beauty. It was Venice that moth-
ered Giorgione, Titian, the Bellinis, and the men who
223
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
wrought in iron and silver and gold, and those masterful
bookmakers; it was beautiful Venice that gave sus-
tenance and encouragement to Stradivari (who made
violins as well as he could) up at Cremona, only a few
miles away.
But there came a day when all those seventy book-
makers of Venice ceased to print, and the music of the
anvils was stilled, and all the painters were dead, and
Venice became but a monument of things that were, as
she is today; for Commerce is King, and his capital has
been moved far away.
So Venice sits sad and solitary a pale and beautiful
ruin, pathetic beyond speech, infested by noisy shop-
keepers and petty pilferers, the degenerate sons of the
robbers who once roamed the sea and enthroned her on
her hundred isles.
All that Venice knew was absorbed by Holland. The
Elzevirs and the Plantins took over the business of the
seventy bookmakers, and the art-schools of Amsterdam,
Leyden and Antwerp reproduced every picture of note
that had been done in Venice. The great churches of
Holland are replicas of the churches of Venice. And the
Cathedral at Antwerp, where the sweet bells have
chimed each quarter of an hour for three centuries,
through peace and plenty, through lurid war and
sudden death there where hangs Rubens' masterpiece
that Cathedral is but an enlarged " Santa Maria de'
Frari," where for two hundred years hung ' The
224
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Assumption," by Titian. <I In these churches of Holland
were placed splendid organs, and the priests formed
choirs, and offered prizes for the best singing and the
best compositions. Music and painting developed hand
in hand; for at the last, all of the arts are one each
being but a division of labor.
The world owes a great debt to the Dutch. It was Hol-
land taught England how to paint and how to print, and
England taught us: so our knowledge of printing and
painting came to us by way of the apostolic succession
of the Dutch.
The march of civilization follows a simple trail, well
defined beyond dispute. Viewed in retrospect it begins
in a hazy thread stretching from Assyria into Egypt,
from Egypt into Greece, from Greece to Rome
widening throughout Italy and Spain, then centering in
Venice, and tracing clear and deep to Amsterdam
widening again into Germany and across to England,
thence carried in " Mayflowers " to America.
That remark of Charles Dudley Warner, once near
neighbor to Mark Twain, that there is no culture west
of Buffalo, was indelicate if not unkind ; and residents of
Omaha aver that it is open to argument. But the fact
stands beyond cavil that what art we possess is traceable
to our masters, the Dutch.
It must be admitted that the art of printing was first
practised at Mayence on the Rhine, leaving the Chinese
out of the equation; but it had to travel around down
225
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
through Italy before it reached perfection. And its
universality and usefulness were not fully developed
until it had swung around to Holland and was given by
the Dutch back to Germany and the world. And as with
printing, so with music. Germany has specialized on
music. She has succeeded, but it is because Holland
gave her lessons.
226
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN