Memories of a Musical Life Part 5

FIRST LONDON CONCERT

In January, 1853, my stay in Frankfort was brought to an end by a letter from Sir Julias Benedict, asking me to come to London to play at one of the concerts of the Harmonic Union at Exeter Hall. I accepted the engagement, and made my first appearance in London under Benedict's conductors.h.i.+p, playing Weber's "Concertstuck." An account having been published in a London paper of the very delightful celebration, in 1899, of my seventieth birthday by my pupils, past and present, and by many of my friends, I received an inquiry from a lady living in London, asking whether I was the same William Mason whom she had heard in Exeter Hall nearly half a century ago!

I accepted only one other engagement to play in public, though I remained near London for more than two months, just to look about.

I was much impressed with the extent to which Mendelssohn's influence prevailed in English matters musical. I met a great many excellent musicians there, especially several fine organists; but a large majority, both in their ideas and in their style of playing and composition, were nothing but Mendelssohns in "half-tone," and to some extent this is still true of England.

WITH LISZT IN WEIMAR

After my London visit I was obliged to return to Leipsic to transact some business, and I decided to call on Liszt in Weimar en route. My intention was to make another effort to be received by him as a pupil, my idea being, if he declined, to go to Paris and study under some French master.

I reached Weimar on the 14th of April, 1853, and put up at the Hotel zum Erbprinzen. At that time Liszt occupied a house on the Altenburg belonging to the grand duke. The old grand duke, under whose patronage Goethe had made Weimar famous, was still living. I think his idea was to make Weimar as famous musically through Liszt as it had been in literature in Goethe's time.

Having secured my room at the Erbprinzen, I set out for the Altenburg.

The butler who opened the door mistook me for a wine-merchant whom he had been expecting. I explained that I was not that person. "This is my card," I said. "I have come here from London to see Liszt." He took the card, and returned almost immediately with the request for me to enter the dining-room.

I found Liszt at the table with another man. They were drinking their after-dinner coffee and cognac. The moment Liszt saw me he exclaimed, "Nun, Mason, Sie la.s.sen lange auf sich warten!" ("Well, Mason, you let people wait for you a long time!") I suppose he saw my surprised look, for he added, "Ich habe Sie schon vor vier Jahren erwartet" ("I have been expecting you for four years"). Then it struck me that I had probably wholly misinterpreted his first letter to me and what he said when I called on him during the Goethe festival. But nothing was said about my remaining, and though he was most affable, I began to doubt whether I would accomplish the object of my visit.

ACCEPTED BY LISZT

When we rose from the table and went into the drawing-room, Liszt said: "I have a new piano from erard of Paris. Try it, and see how you like it." He asked me to pardon him if he moved about the room, for he had to get together some papers which it was necessary to take with him, as he was going to the palace of the grand duke. "As the palace is on the way to the hotel, we can walk as far as that together," he added.

I felt intuitively that my opportunity had come. I sat down at the piano with the idea that I would not endeavor to show Liszt how to play, but would play as simply as if I were alone. I played "Amitie pour Amitie,"

a little piece of my own which had just been published by Hofmeister of Leipsic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LISZT IN MIDDLE LIFE]

"That's one of your own?" asked Liszt when I had finished. "Well, it's a charming little piece." Still nothing was said about my being accepted as a pupil. But when we left the Altenburg, he said casually, "You say you are going to Leipsic for a few days on business? While there you had better select your piano and have it sent here. Meanwhile I will tell Klindworth to look up rooms for you. Indeed, there is a vacant room in the house in which he lives, which is pleasantly situated just outside the limits of the ducal park."

I can still recall the thrill of joy which pa.s.sed through me when Liszt spoke these words. They left no doubt in my mind. I was accepted as his pupil. We walked down the hill toward the town, Liszt leaving me when we arrived at the palace, telling me, however, that he would call later at the hotel and introduce me to my fellow-pupils. About eight o'clock that evening he came.

After smoking a cigar and chatting with me for half an hour, Liszt proposed going down to the cafe, saying, "The gentlemen are probably there, as this is about their regular hour for supper." Proceeding to the dining-room, we found Messrs. Raff, Pruckner, and Klindworth, to whom I was presented in due form, and who received me in a very friendly manner.

I had no idea then, neither have I now, what Liszt's means were, but I learned soon after my arrival at Weimar that he never took pay from his pupils, neither would he bind himself to give regular lessons at stated periods. He wished to avoid obligations as far as possible, and to feel free to leave Weimar for short periods when so inclined--in other words, to go and come as he liked. His idea was that the pupils whom he accepted should all be far enough advanced to practise and prepare themselves without routine instruction, and he expected them to be ready whenever he gave them an opportunity to play. The musical opportunities of Weimar were such as to afford ample encouragement to any serious-minded young student. Many distinguished musicians, poets, and literary men were constantly coming to visit Liszt. He was fond of entertaining, and liked to have his pupils at hand so that they might join him in entertaining and paying attention to his guests. He had only three pupils at the time of which I write, namely, Karl Klindworth from Hanover, Dionys Pruckner from Munich, and the American whose musical memories are here presented. Joachim Raff, however, we regarded as one of us, for although not at the time a pupil of Liszt, he had been in former years, and was now constantly in a.s.sociation with the master, acting frequently in the capacity of private secretary. Hans von Bulow had left Weimar not long before my arrival, and was then on his first regular concert-tour. Later he returned occasionally for short visits, and I became well acquainted with him. We const.i.tuted, as it were, a family, for while we had our own apartments in the city, we all enjoyed the freedom of the two lower rooms in Liszt's home, and were at liberty to come and go as we liked. Regularly on every Sunday at eleven o'clock, with rare exceptions, the famous Weimar String Quartet played for an hour and a half or so in these rooms, and Liszt frequently joined them in concerted music, old and new. Occasionally one of the boys would take the pianoforte part. The quartet-players were Laub, first violin; Storr, second violin; Walbruhl, viola; and Cossmann, violoncello. Before Laub's time Joachim had been concertmeister, but he left Weimar in 1853 and went to Hanover, where he occupied a similar position. He occasionally visited Weimar, however, and would then at times play with the quartet. Henri Wieniawski, who spent some months in Weimar, would occasionally take the first violin. My favorite as a quartet-player was Ferdinand Laub, with whom I was intimately acquainted, and I find that the greatest violinists of the present time hold him in high estimation, many of them regarding him as the greatest of all quartet-players. We were always quite at our ease in those lower rooms, but on ceremonial occasions we were invited up-stairs to the drawing-room, where Liszt had his favorite erard. We were thus enjoying the best music, played by the best artists. In addition to this there were the symphony concerts and the opera, with occasional attendance at rehearsal. Liszt took it for granted that his pupils would appreciate these remarkable advantages and opportunities and their usefulness, and I think we did.

THE ALTENBURG

Liszt's private studio, where he wrote and composed, was at the back of the main building in a lower wing, and may easily be distinguished in the picture by the awnings over the windows. I was not in this room more than half a dozen times during my stay in Weimar, and one of these I remember as the occasion of Liszt's playing the Beethoven "Kreutzer Sonata" with Remenyi, the Hungarian violinist, and giving him a lesson in conception and style of performance. Remenyi was a violinist of fine musical talent, but not a cla.s.sicist, his style being after the fas.h.i.+on of the cla.s.s represented by Ole Bull. He was, as is well known, a genuine Hungarian, thoroughly at home in the musical characteristics of his native country. He was unconsciously disposed to color and mark the music of all composers with Hungarian peculiarities, and this habit gave rise to a story that sometimes he added to the concluding strain of the theme in the slow movement of the "Kreutzer Sonata" the peculiar Hungarian termination as a final ornament. This story probably originated in a spirit of fun. It was, nevertheless, so characteristic of Remenyi that it obtained wide circulation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Musical notation]

The picture gives a very good view of the house as it appeared in 1853-54. In the nearest corner of the building were the two large rooms on the ground floor to which reference has already been made, of which we boys had the freedom at all times, and where strangers were unceremoniously received. The Furstin Sayn-Wittgenstein had apartments, I think, on the _bel etage_ with her daughter, the Prinzessin Marie.

Any one who was to be honored with an introduction to them was taken to a reception-room up-stairs; adjoining this was the dining-room. This print is from a water-color painted for me by my friend Mr. Thomas Allen of Boston. It is copied from a photograph of the original,--a water-color by Carl Hoffman,--which Mr. Hoffman painted expressly for his friend Mr. James M. Tracy, a former pupil of Liszt, who is now a professional pianist and teacher in Denver, Colorado, and to whom I am indebted for permission to publish it here. Mr. Tracy writes me that it has been published before, but without his permission.

We boys saw little of the Wittgensteins, and I remember dining with them only once. I sat next to the Princess Marie, who spoke English very well, and it may have been due to her desire to exercise in the language that I was honored with a seat next to her. Rubinstein met her when he was at Weimar (I shall have more to tell of his visit later), and composed a nocturne which he dedicated to her. When he came to this country in 1873 he told me that he had met her again some years later at the palace in Vienna, but that she had become haughty, and had not been inclined to pay much attention to him. There are many Wittgensteins in Russia. When I was in Wiesbaden in 1879-80 I saw half a dozen Russian princes of that name. There was but one Rubinstein.

Liszt had the pick of all the young musicians in Europe for his pupils, and I attribute his acceptance of me somewhat to the fact that I came all the way from America, something more of an undertaking in those days than it is now. I became very well acquainted with those whom I have mentioned, especially with Klindworth and Raff, and before many days we were all "Dutzbruder."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ALTENBURG, LISZT'S HOUSE AT WEIMAR]

The first evening Raff, whom I had previously never heard of, struck me as being rather conceited; but when I grew to know him better, and realized how talented he was, I was quite ready to make allowance for his little touch of self-esteem. We became warm friends, dining together every day at the table d'hote, and after dinner walking for an hour or so in the park. Nineteen years later I went abroad again and visited Raff at the Conservatory in Frankfort. He interrupted his lessons the moment that he heard I was there, came running down-stairs, threw his arms around my neck, and was so overjoyed at seeing me that I felt as if we were boys once more at Weimar. Of the pupils and of the many musicians who came to Weimar to visit Liszt at that time,--"die goldene Zeit" (the Golden Age), as it is still called at Weimar,--I think Klindworth and I are the only survivors. Klindworth is one of the most distinguished teachers in Europe, and taught for many years at the Conservatory in Moscow. He is now in Potsdam.

HOW LISZT TAUGHT

What I had heard in regard to Liszt's method of teaching proved to be absolutely correct. He never taught in the ordinary sense of the word.

During the entire time that I was with him I did not see him give a regular lesson in the pedagogical sense. He would notify us to come up to the Altenburg. For instance, he would say to me, "Tell the boys to come up to-night at half-past six or seven." We would go there, and he would call on us to play. I remember very well the first time I played to him after I had been accepted as a pupil. I began with the "Ballade"

of Chopin in A flat major; then I played a fugue by Handel in E minor.

After I was well started he began to get excited. He made audible suggestions, inciting me to put more enthusiasm into my playing, and occasionally he would push me gently off the chair and sit down at the piano and play a phrase or two himself by way of ill.u.s.tration. He gradually got me worked up to such a pitch of enthusiasm that I put all the grit that was in me into my playing.

I found at this first lesson that he was very fond of strong accents in order to mark off periods and phrases, and he talked so much about strong accentuation that one might have supposed that he would abuse it, but he never did. When he wrote to me later about my own piano method, he expressed the strongest approval of the exercises on accentuation.

"PLAY IT LIKE THIS"

While I was playing to him for the first time, he said on one of the occasions when he pushed me from the chair: "Don't play it that way.

Play it like this." Evidently I had been playing ahead in a steady, uniform way. He sat down, and gave the same phrases with an accentuated, elastic movement, which let in a flood of light upon me. From that one experience I learned to bring out the same effect, where it was appropriate, in almost every piece that I played. It eradicated much that was mechanical, stilted, and unmusical in my playing, and developed an elasticity of touch which has lasted all my life, and which I have always tried to impart to my pupils.

At this first lesson I must have played for two or three hours. For some reason or other Raff was not present, but Klindworth and Pruckner were there. They lounged on a sofa and smoked, and I remember wondering if they appreciated the nice time they were having at my ordeal. However, not many days afterward came my opportunity to light a cigar and lounge about the room while Liszt put them through their paces.

Two or three hours is not a long time for a professional musician to practise, and I had often spent many more hours at the piano, but never under such strong incitement. I was exceedingly tired afterward, and actually felt stiff the next day, as if I had performed some very arduous physical work. Liszt heard of this, and turned it into a joke, telling people that at the time set for the next lesson I appeared at the Altenburg with my hand in a sling, and said that I had strained my wrist while hunting, and would be unable to play. I think this is _non e ver e ben trovato_, as I have no recollection of it.

LISZT IN 1854