Franz Liszt Part 3

But, Liszt lost, the piano would lose its most das.h.i.+ng cavalier; while his freedom, fantasy, and fire are admirable correctives of the plat.i.tudes of the Hummel-Czerny-Mendelssohn school. Liszt won from his instrument an orchestral quality. He advanced by great wing-strokes toward perfection, and deprived of his music we should miss colour, sonority, richness of tinting, and dramatic and dynamic contrasts. He has had a great following. Tausig was the first to feel his influence, and if he had lived longer would have beaten out a personal style of his own. Of the two we prefer Liszt's version of the Paganini studies to Schumann's. The Campanella is a favourite of well equipped virtuosi.

In my study of Chopin reference is made to Chopin's obligations to Liszt. I prefer now to quote a famous authority on the subject, no less a critic than Professor Frederick Niecks, whose biography of Chopin is, thus far, the superior of all. He writes: "As at one time all ameliorations in the theory and practice of music were ascribed to Guido of Arezzo, so it is nowadays the fas.h.i.+on to ascribe all improvements and extensions of the pianoforte technique to Liszt, who, more than any other pianist, drew upon himself the admiration of the world, and through his pupils continued to make his presence felt even after the close of his career as a virtuoso. But the cause of this false opinion is to be sought not so much in the fact that the brilliancy of his artistic personality threw all his contemporaries into the shade, as in that other fact, that he gathered up into one web the many threads new and old which he found floating about during the years of his development. The difference between Liszt and Chopin lies in this, that the basis of the former's art is universality, that of the latter's, individuality. Of the fingering of the one we may say that it is a system, of that of the other that it is a manner. Probably we have here also touched on the cause of Liszt's success and Chopin's want of success as a teacher."

Niecks does not deny that Liszt influenced Chopin. In volume 1 of his Frederick Chopin, he declares that "The artist who contributed the largest quotum of force to this impulse was probably Liszt, whose fiery pa.s.sions, indomitable energy, soaring enthusiasm, universal tastes and capacity of a.s.similation, mark him out as the opposite of Chopin. But, although the latter was undoubtedly stimulated by Liszt's style of playing the piano and of writing for this instrument, it is not so certain as Miss L. Ramann, Liszt's biographer, thinks, that this master's influence can be discovered in many pa.s.sages of Chopin's music which are distinguished by a fiery and pa.s.sionate expression, and resemble rather a strong, swelling torrent than a gently gliding rivulet. She instances Nos. 9 and 12 of Douze Etudes, Op. 10; Nos. 11 and 12 of Douze Etudes, Op. 25; No. 24 of Vingt Quatre Preludes, Op. 28; Premier Scherzo, Op. 20; Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 32. All these compositions, we are told, exhibit Liszt's style and mode of feeling.

Now the works composed by Chopin before he came to Paris and got acquainted with Liszt, comprise not only a sonata, a trio, two concertos, variations, polonaises, waltzes, mazurkas, one or more nocturnes, etc., but also--and this is for the question under consideration of great importance--most of, if not all, the studies of Op. 10 (Sowinski says that Chopin brought with him to Paris the MS. of the first book of his studies) and some of Op. 25; and these works prove decisively the inconclusiveness of the lady's argument. The twelfth study of Opus 10 (composed in September, 1831) invalidates all she says about fire, pa.s.sion, and rus.h.i.+ng torrents. In fact, no cogent reason can be given why the works mentioned by her should not be the outcome of unaided development. [That is to say, development not aided in the way indicated by Miss Ramann.] The first Scherzo alone might make us pause and ask whether the new features that present themselves in it ought not to be fathered on Liszt. But seeing that Chopin evolved so much, why should he not also have evolved this? Moreover, we must keep in mind that Liszt had, up to 1831, composed almost nothing of what in after years was considered either by him or others of much moment, and that his pianoforte style had first to pa.s.s through the state of fermentation into which Paganini's playing had precipitated it (in the spring of 1831) before it was formed; on the other hand, Chopin arrived in Paris with his portfolios full of masterpieces, and in possession of a style of his own as a player of his instrument as well as a writer for it.

That both learned from each other cannot be doubted; but the exact gain of each is less easily determinable. Nevertheless, I think I may venture to a.s.sert that whatever may be the extent of Chopin's indebtedness to Liszt, the latter's indebtedness to the former is greater. The tracing of an influence in the works of a man of genius, who, of course, neither slavishly imitates nor flagrantly appropriates, is one of the most difficult tasks. If Miss Ramann had first noted the works produced by the two composers in question before their acquaintance began, and had carefully examined Chopin's early productions with a view to ascertain his capability of growth, she would have come to another conclusion, or, at least have spoken less confidently."

To the above no exception may be taken except the reference to the B-minor Scherzo as possibly having been suggested by Liszt. For me it is most characteristic of Chopin in its perverse, even morbid, ironical humour, its original figuration; who but Chopin could have conceived that lyrical episode! Liszt, doubtless, was the first who introduced interlocking octaves instead of the chromatic scale at the close; Tausig followed his example. But there the matter ended. Once when Chopin heard that Liszt intended to write an account of his concerts for the _Gazette Musicale_, he said: "He will give me a little kingdom in his empire."

This remark casts much illumination on the relations of the two men.

Liszt was the broader minded of the two; Chopin, as Niecks points out, forgave but never forgot.

IV

AT ROME, WEIMAR, BUDAPEST

I

ROME

The Roman candle has attracted many spiritual moths. Goethe, Humboldt, Platen, Winckelmann, Thorwaldsen, Gregorovius and Liszt--to mention only the first at hand--fluttered to Rome and ascribe to it much of their finer productivity. For Franz Liszt it was a loadstone of double power--the ideality of the place attracted him and its religion anch.o.r.ed his spiritual restlessness.

Liszt liked a broad soul-margin to his life. Heine touched on this side of Liszt's character when he wrote of him: "Speculation has the greatest fascination for him; and still more than with the interests of his art is he engrossed with all manner of rival philosophical investigations which are occupied with the solution of all great questions of heaven and earth. For long he was an ardent upholder of the beautiful Saint-Simonian idea of the world. Later the spiritualistic or rather vaporous thoughts of Ballanche enveloped him in their midst; now he is enthusiastic over the Republican-Catholic dogmas of a Lamennais who has hoisted his Jacobin cap on the cross.... Heaven knows in what mental stall he will find his next hobby-horse!" This was written in 1837, and only two years afterward Liszt paid his first visit to Rome.

Based on letters and diaries of Liszt, Gregorovius, Ad. Stahr, f.a.n.n.y Lewald, W. Allmers, Cardinal Wiseman, Jul. Schnorr von Carolsfeld, and Eugen Segnitz, a study of Franz Liszt in Rome may be made.

The time spent in the Eternal City was unquestionably an important one in Liszt's life and worthy of the detailed attention given it. Rome in 1839 presented a contradictory picture. Contrasted to the pomp of the Vatican were the unprincipled conditions of the city itself. Bands of robbers infested it and the surroundings, making it as unsafe as an English highway during the glorious but rather frisky times of Jonathan Wild and his agile confreres. So, for instance, Ma.s.socia and his band kidnapped the pupils of the seminary in Albano, and when the demanded ransom was not forthcoming defiantly strung up these innocents on trees flanking the gateways of Rome. So, too, the political freedom of the city found a concession in the privilege of Cardinal Consalvi, who permitted foreign papers of every political party to be read openly; while the papal edict declared null and void all contracts closed between Christian and Hebrew.

In matters of art things were not much better. The censor swung his axe in a most irresponsible and, now to us, laughable manner. Overbeck's Holy Family was condemned because the feet of the Madonna in it were too bare; Thorwaldsen's Day and Night was offensive in its nudeness; Raphael's art was an eyesore, and the same discriminating mind, Padre Piazza, would have liked to consign to the flames all philosophical books.

The musical taste and standard was not elevating at this time. Piccini, Paisiello, Cimarosa, Sacchini, Anfossi, Sarti, Righini, Paer, and Rossini wrote purely for the sensual enjoyment of the people.

Even the behaviour of the ma.s.ses in theatres was defined by an edict issued by Leo XII. Any poor devil caught wearing his hat in the theatre was shown the door; if an actor interpolated either gesture or word not provided for in the prompt-book he was sent to the galleys for five years; the carrying of weapons in places of amus.e.m.e.nt was punishable with life sentence in the galleys, and wounding another during a row earned a death verdict for the unfortunate one; applause and hisses were rewarded by a prison term from two months to half a year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Countess Marie d'Agoult]

Liszt's first visit to Rome occurred in 1839, and in company with the Countess d'Agoult. A strange mating this had been. Her salon was the meeting-place where enthusiastic persons foregathered--aesthetes, artists, and politicians. Liszt became a member of this circle, and the impressionable young man of twenty-three was as so much wax in the hands of this sensation-mongering woman six years his senior. Against Liszt's wishes she had followed him to Berne, and there is plenty of evidence at hand that he a.s.sumed the inevitable responsibilities with good grace and treated her as his wife, but evidently not entirely to her satisfaction. She fancied herself the muse of the young genius; but the wings of the young eagle she had patronized soon out-stripped her.

Their years of wandering were noteworthy. From Paris to Berne and Geneva; then two trips back to Paris, where Liszt fought his keyboard duel with Thalberg. They rested awhile at Nohant, entertained by George Sand, which they forsook for Lake Como, some flying trips to Milan and eventually Venice. It happened to be the year of the Danube flood--1837--and the call for help sent Liszt to Vienna where he gave benefit concerts for the sufferers. This accomplished, the pair returned to Venice and threaded their way to Rome by way of Lugano, Genoa, and Florence.

Originally Liszt had no intention of concertising on this trip; but he excused his appearances on the concert platforms in the Italian cities: "I did not wish to forget my trade entirely."

The condition of music of the day in Italy held out no inducements or illusions to him. He writes Berlioz that he wished to make the acquaintance of the princ.i.p.al Italian cities and really could hope for no benefiting influence from these flighty stops. But there was another reason why he was so little influenced, and it was simply that Italy of the day had nothing of great musical interest to offer Liszt.

His first public appearance in Rome was in January, 1839. Francilla Pixis-Gohringer, adopted daughter of his friend Pixis and pupil of Sonntag and Malibran, gave a concert at this time, and it was here that Liszt a.s.sisted. After that the Romans did what ever so many had done before them--threw wide their doors to the artist Liszt. Thus encouraged he dared give serious recitals in face of all the Roman musical flippancy. He defied public taste and craving and gave a series of what he called in a letter to the Princess Belgiojoso "soliloques musicaux"; in these he a.s.sumed the role of a musical Louis XIV, and politely said: "le concert c'est moi!" He quotes one of his programmes:

1. Overture to William Tell, performed by Mr. Liszt.

2. Fantaisie on reminiscences of Puritani, composed and performed by the above named.

3. Studies and Fragments, composed and performed by the same.

4. Improvisation on a given theme--still by the same. That is all.

This was really nothing more than a forerunner of the present piano-recital. Liszt was the first one who ventured an evening of piano compositions without fearing the disgust of an audience. From his accounts they behaved very well indeed, and applauded and chatted only at the proper time.

Liszt, realising that he had nothing to learn from the living Italians, turned to their dead; and for such studies his first visit to Rome was especially propitious. Gregory XIV, had opened the Etruscan Museum but two years before and was stocking it with the treasures which were being unearthed in the old cities of Etruria. The same pope also enlarged the Vatican library and took active interest in the mural decorations of these newly added ten rooms. The painters Overbeck, Cornelius, and Veit were kept actively employed in this city, and the influence of their work was not a trifling one on the painter colony. The diplomat Von Bunsen and the Cardinals Mezzofanti and Mai exerted their influences to spread general culture.

An interesting one of Liszt's friends.h.i.+ps, dating from this time, is that with Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, director of the French Academie. Strolling under the oaks of the Villa Medici, Ingres would disentangle for his younger friend the confusion of impressions gathered in his wanderings among Rome's art treasures. Himself a music lover and a musician--he played the violin in the theatre orchestra of his native place, Montauban, at some performances of Gluck's operas--Ingres admired Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and above all Gluck, upon whom he looked as the musical successor to aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Under such sympathetic and intelligent guidance Liszt's admiration for the other arts became ordered. After a day among the forest of statues he would coax his friend to take up the violin, and Liszt writes almost enthusiastically of his Beethoven interpretations.

It is entirely within reason to argue that we owe to this new viewpoint such of Liszt's compositions as were inspired by works of the other arts. Such, to name a few, were the Sposalizio and Il Penseroso--by Raphael and Michelangelo--Die Hunnenschlacht--Kaulbach--and Danse Macabre--after Andrea Orcagna. That Liszt was susceptible to such impressions, even before, is proven by his essay Die Heilige Cacelia by Raphael, written earlier than this Roman trip; but under Ingres' hints his width of vision was extended, and he began to find alluring parallels between the fine arts--his comprehension of Mozart and Beethoven grew with his acquaintance of the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. He compared Giovanni da Pisa, Fra Beato, and Francia with Allegri, Marcello, and Palestrina; t.i.tian with Rossini!

What attracted Liszt princ.i.p.ally during his first stay at Rome was the religion of art, as it had attracted Goethe before him. Segnitz quotes against this att.i.tude the one of Berlioz, whom the ruins of Rome touched slightly, as did Palestrina's church music. He found the latter devoid of religious sentiment, and in this verdict he was joined by none less than Mendelssohn.

The surroundings, the atmosphere of Rome, appealed to Liszt, and under them his individuality thrived and a.s.serted itself. The scattered and often hurried impressions of this first visit ordered themselves gradually, but the composite whole deflected his life's currents into the one steady and broad stream of art. Like Goethe, he might have regarded his first day at Rome as the one of his second birth, as the one on which his true self came to light. The Via Sacra by which he left Rome led him into the forum of the art world.

In June, 1839, after a stay of five months, Liszt, accompanied by the Countess d'Agoult, left Rome for the baths at Lucca. The elusive peace he was tracking escaped him here, and he wandered to the little fis.h.i.+ng village San Rossore. In November of the same year he parted company with Italy--and also with the countess. The D'Agoult had romantic ideas of their union, in which the inevitable responsibilities of this sort of thing played no part. Segnitz regards the entire affair as having been a most unfortunate one for Liszt, and believes that the latter only saved himself and his entire artistic future by separating from the countess.

The years of contact had formed no spiritual ties between them and the rupture was inevitable.

With her three children d'Agoult started for Paris there to visit Liszt's mother; later, through Liszt's intervention, a complete reconciliation with her family was effected. Although after the death of her mother the countess inherited a fortune, Liszt continued to support the children.

Leaving San Rossore the artist began his public life in earnest. It was the beginning of his virtuoso period and Vienna was the starting-point of his triumphal tournee across Europe. This period was an important one for development of piano playing, placing the latter on a much higher artistic plane than it had been; in it Liszt also inaugurated a new phase of the possibilities of concert giving. It was the time in which he fought both friend and enemy, fought without quarter for the cause of art.

As a composer Liszt, during his first stay in Italy, 1837-40, was far from active. The Fantaisie quasi Sonata apres une lecture de Dante and the twelve Etudes d'execution transcendante both came to life at Lake Como. There were besides the Chromatic Galop and the pieces Sposalizio, Il Penseroso and Tre Sonetti di Petrarca, which became part of the Annees de Pelerinage (Italie). His first song, with piano accompaniment, Angiolin dal biondo crin, dates from these days. The balance of this time was devoted to making arrangements of melodies by Mercadante, Donizetti, and Rossini, and to finis.h.i.+ng the piano transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies. These and a few others about cover his list of compositions and arrangements.

II

Immediately after Liszt's separation from the Countess d'Agoult began a period of restless activity for him. The eight nomadic years during which he wandered up and down Europe, playing constantly in public, are the ones in which his virtuosity flourished. To-day we are inclined to mock at the mere mention of Liszt the virtuoso--we have heard far too much of his achievements, achievements behind which the real Liszt has become a warped and unrecognizable personality. But it was a remarkable tour nevertheless, and so wholesale a lesson in musical interpretation as Europe had never had before. Whenever and wherever he smote the keyboard the old-fas.h.i.+oned clay idols of piano playing were shattered, and however much it was attempted to patch them the pieces would not quite fit. Liszt struck the death-blow to unemotional playing, but he destroyed only to create anew: he erected ideals of interpretation which are still honored.

When he accepted the Weimar post of Hofkapellmeister in 1847--he had _en pa.s.sant_ in a term, lasting from December, 1843, to February of the following year, conducted eight successful concerts in Weimar--it looked as if his wild spirit of travel had dissipated itself: _ausgetobt_, as the Germans say.

With scarcely any time modulation this versatile genius began his career of Hofkapellmeister, in which he topsy-turvied traditions and roused Weimar from the lethargy into which it had fallen with the fading of that wonderful Goethe circle. At this point the influence of woman is again made manifest.

Gregorovius, the great antiquarian, gives us a few glimpses of her in his Romischen Tagebuchern. He admits that her personality was repulsive to him, but that she fairly sputtered spirituality. Also that she wrote an article about the Sixtine Chapel for the _Revue du Monde Catholique_--"a brilliant article: all fireworks, like her speech"; finally, that "she is writing an essay on friends.h.i.+p."

When the possibility of marriage with the Princess went up into thin air Liszt began contemplating a permanent residence in Rome. Here he could live more independently and privately than in Germany, and this was desirable, since he still had some musical problems to solve. First of all, he turned to his legend of the Holy Elizabeth, completing that; then Der Sonnen-Hymnus des heiligen Franziskus von a.s.sisi was written, to say nothing of a composition for organ and trombone composed for one of his Weimar adherents. Frequent excursions and work so consumed his hours that soon we find him complaining as bitterly about the lack of time in Rome as in Weimar.

Rome of this time was still "outside of Italy": the reverse side of the Papal medallions showed Daniel in the lion's den and Pope Pio Nono immersed in mysticism. The social features were important. Segnitz mentions "die Kolnische Patrizierin Frau Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen, Peter Cornelius, die Dame Schopenhauer," the Ottilie of Goethe. Besides the artists Catel and Nerenz there was Frau von Schwarz, who attracted Liszt. She boasted friends.h.i.+p with Garibaldi, and her salon was a meeting-place of the intellectual mult.i.tude. Liszt seems to have been king pin everywhere, and it is refres.h.i.+ng to read the curt, unsentimental impression of him retailed by Gregorovius: "I have met Liszt," wrote the latter; "remarkable, demoniac appearance; tall, slender, long hair. Frau von Schwarz believes he is burned out, that only the walls of him remain, wherein a small ghostly flame flits." To add to the list of notables: the painter Lindemann-Frommel; the Prussian representatives, Graf Arnim and Kurt von Schlozer; King Louis I, of Bavaria, and the artists Riedel, Schweinfurt, Pa.s.sini, and Feuerbach the philosopher.

Naturally Liszt partic.i.p.ated in the prominent church festivals and was affected by their glamour; it even roused him to sentimental utterance.

Germany and the thoughts of it could not lure him away from Rome, nor could the summer heat drive him out. The Holy Elizabeth was completed by August 10, 1862, and with it he had finished the greater part of his work as composer. Never did he lose interest in German art movements, and was ever ready with advice and suggestions.

A severe shock, one which sent him to bed, came to him about the middle of September of this year, when his youngest daughter, Blandine Ollivier, the wife of Louis Napoleon's war minister, Emile Ollivier, died. Liszt turned to religion and to his art for consolation; he slaved away at the Christus oratorio and wrote two psalms and the instrumental Evocatio in der Sixtinischen Kapelle. Invitations from London, Weimar, and Budapest could not budge him from Rome; deeper and deeper he became interested in the wonders and beauties of his religion.