The Great Piano Virtuosos of Our Time From Personal ...€¦ · F r a n z L i s z t A LL the great...

FR OM P E R SONA L A C ! U A I NT A NCE

3”

BY

W . VON LEN Z

Author qf“Beethoven et ses

‘

troie Styles,”

and “Beethoven,

NEW Y OR K

G . Sc h i r m e r

MDCCCXCIX

N o t e

first part (f the followingR ecollections of my musical life ap

peared in 1868 in the “N eue Berliner

Musilczeitung.

”

Tausig wished the articles

collected and published separately, and cor

responded with me on the suly'

ect. These

essays— to which I have added

A dolph H enselt— will now have a wider

circulation than would be possible

the columns of the “N eue

fi

Berliner Musik

zeitung.

T h e A u t h o r

F r a n z L i s z t

LL the great pianists of the first half of

A the century, were personally known to meField, Hummel, Moscheles

,Kalkbrenner.

From the school which we now already call “old”

(excluding Field, who went his own pecul iar way),a school which, if not founded by Hummel, wasat least essentially influenced by him, I came tothe new era of the pianoforte, to Liszt andChopin .

Liszt is a phenomenon of universal musica l virtuosity, such as had never before been known : notsimply a pian istic wonder. Liszt is a phenomenonspreading over the whole domain of musica l production, and creat ing a universal standard of comparison .

Liszt does not merely play piano ; he tells, at thepiano, the story of his own destiny, which is closelylinked to, and reflects, the progress of our time.Liszt is a latent history of the keyboard

,himself

its crown ing glory. To him the piano becomes anapproximate expression of his high mental cultivation, of his views, of his faith and being. Whatdoes piano-playing matter to him auf

[ 1 1

G r e a t P i a n o V i r t u o s o s

den Thurm, und siehe wie die Schlacht sich wendet

[“Climb the tower, and see how the battle goes ”]that is what one should say of him ; how far in

quiry has reached into the domain of science, howfar speculation has fathomed musical thought ; howit goes in the world of intellect—that is what onehas to learn from his playing (how else were suchplaying and to learn for thefirst time,for one . could never go so far alone.His wish to become a priest rose from the innermost core of his being. It was thematic . The manof the world in Liszt is but an episode from the

theme. To the priest alone are the portals of in

finity the home of the soul . Priest in continuationof Prophet ; and Liszt was ever a prophet fromthe beginning of his career.When Liszt thunders, l ightens, sighs on the pianothat “Song of Songs ” —the great Bflat major Sonata for Hammerklavier—by Beethoven, he coinscapital for mankind out of the ideas of the greatest musical thinker the world has ever known

,

who could have had no conception of such a rendering of his Hammerklavier music ; he wrote hislater piano-music (from Op . 100 on) for the transcendence (viewed through the spectroscope of his

[ 93 ]

F r a n z L i s z t

orchestral conceptions at the piano) of his musicalthought, not of his piano-thought.The pianist in Liszt is an apparition [Gespenst],not to be compressed within the bounds of thehouse drawn by schools and professors !The old proverb applies here “

! uod licet Jovi,non licetNothing could be more foolish than to attempt toimitate Liszt, or even to use him as a measure bywhich to criticise others . Where Liszt appears

,all

other pianists disappear ; there remains only the

piano, and that trembles in its whole body !Liszt is the past, the present, and the future of

the piano ; how, then, should he find time to bea professor and pattern besides ? He is the spirit ofthe matter ; he absorbs the conception . How can

that which is perishable hope to vie with the im

perishable P—This entire pianistic stronghold is the

material side of the matter ; it was never the spiritof the matter, however much spirit may have oc

cupied the guest-chamber. One cannot suspend aghost as a barometer in the sitting-room ! SoLiszt is no pattern, o nly the beginning, continuation

,and end ! Hence, in Liszt’s case, any com

parison of any given performance at the piano is[ 3 ]


a priori out of the question ; because he is the exc eption, because he is the prophet who has ceasedto be a plain citizen, in order to become a soldierof the spirit in his own church, his own ideas .Such a brain must be rated higher than a piano,and it is an accidental circumstance, of no importance, that Liszt plays the piano at all . Perhaps,in a higher sense (majore cultu), this is in factnot the case, the piano being merely visible, l ikethe tub in Mesmer’s case ! It is wholly uncriticalto say that Liszt does this or that differently fromsome one else ; do not imagine that Liszt does anything— he does nothing at all ; he thinks, and whathe thinks takes on this form . That is the process .Can this be called piano-playing? “Thee now thebody leaveth, and God the soul fornow everything leads upward, onward,— excelsior !Liszt, then, cannot be expected to practise scalesandfinger-exercises, as is the custom among schoolsand professors -Does the eagle practise flying ?he looks upwards, gazes towards the sun, um

folds his pinions,and soars towards its burning

light !Such is the relation of Liszt to the piano, and itis not given to every one to follow his flight,

[ 4 ]

F r a n z L i s z t

thereby forgetting the unhappy instrument,the

starting-pointI will relate the circumstances which brought meto Liszt, as one makes the acquaintance of such aspirit in no ordinary way ; one gains access tohim, or one does not . That is the whole matter,and signifies much in either case .In 1828 (forty-three years ago !) I was nineteenyears old, and had come to Paris to pursue mystudies (humaniores litterce) on a broader scale,above all to continue my work in French channels

,and to take piano-lessons (as people used to

say), but with Kalkbrenner. Kalkbrenner was a native of Berlin, of Jewish extraction ; in Paris he wasthe Joconde of the salon -piano, under Charles theTenth . He was a knight of the Legion of Honor,and farmer-general of all permissible pianistic ele

ganc ies. The beautiful Camille Mock, later Mm e .

Pleyel—to whose charms neither Liszt nor Chopinwas indifl

'

erent m was the favorite pupil of the irresistible Kalkbrenner. I heard her play from themanuscript, with Kalkbrenner and Onslow, the latter’s sea

'tuor. It was at the home of Baron Trémont

,a tame musical Maecenas of the t ime, in Paris .

She played the piano as one wears an elegant shoe[ 5 ]


when one is a pretty Parisian . Nevertheless, I wasin danger of becoming Kalkbrenner

’

s pupil, butLiszt and my good star ordered it otherwise. Onthe way to Kalkbrenner (who plays a note of his,

nowadaySP), as I was walking along the boulevards,I read among the theatre-posters of the day, whichexercised so powerful an attraction

,the notice of

an extra concert (it was already November) to begiven at the Conservatoire by Mr. Liszt, withBeethoven’s Eflat major P iano Concerto heading theprogramme.Beethoven was then (and not only in Paris) Paracelsus personified, in the concert-room . Of Beethoven,at that time, I knew only that I had been frightened by his ladder-like notes in the D major Trio,and in the Fantasia with chorus, which I had onceopened (and at once closed) in a music-store in mynative city, R iga, where more was doing in tradethan in music.How astonished I should have been if some one

had told me— as I innocently stood before theadvertising-column in Paris, and learned from thenotice that there were such things as piano-concertos by Beethoven— that some time in the fu~

ture I should write six volumes in German, and[ 6 ]

F r a n z L i s z t

two in French, about Beethoven ! I had heard ofthe septuor. In those days Beethoven was calledJ. N . Hummel .’

From the concert-notice, I concluded that any one

who could publicly play 3. Beethoven piano-concerto must be a remarkable pe rson, and of quitea different growth from Kalkbrenner, the composerof the Fantasia Efiusio Musica. That this Effusio was a trumpery piece, so much I alreadyunderstood, young and happy though I was .

It was in this manner—ou the fateful Paris boulevards—that I first saw the name of Liszt, whichwas to fill the world ;—ou the boulevards where onefancies one is contributing one’s part to the dailyhistory of Europe when one takes a walk !That concert-notic e was destined to have a lastinginfluence on my life . I can still see, after the lapseof so many years, the color of the fateful paper ;gigantic black letters on a bright yellow ground(la couleur distinguée of those days, in Paris).I drove straight to Schlesinger, whose place was atthat time the musical exchange of Paris, in theRue R ichelieu .

“Where does Mr. Liszt live ? ” I demanded, andpronounced it Litz, for the Parisians never got any

[ 7 ]


further with Liszt than Litz . That good German,Rudolf Kreutzer, who chanced at one time to betheir best violin-virtuoso, they called Kretch, wherefore the man to whom Beethoven dedicated hisgreat violin-sonata, Op . 47, had his cards engravedthus : Rodolph Kreutzer, prononcez Bertrand. TheParisians understood that ; Parisians are, after all,very “so,” as Falstaf says .Liszt’s address was Rue Montholon, far away, whereParis imagines that she can become a mountain !What has not Paris imagined—and what have weever refused to believe of her ? Mountain and valley,Heaven and Hell—all these has she imagined herself to be !They gave me Liszt’s address at Schlesinger’s without any hesitation, but when I asked Litz’s price,and made known my wish to study with Litz, theyall laughed at me, and the clerks behind the deskgiggled with them, and they all said at once : “He

has never given a lesson, he is nopiano-teac her!”

I felt that I must have said something very stupid !But the reply : “no piano-teacher,

” pleased me, nevertheless, and I made my way at once to Rue Mon

tholon .

Liszt was at home. That was a very unusual thing,[ 8 ]

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style, given his first and best piece, Henry I II et la

Cour, to the Theatre Francais, where the first performance was repressed by the ministry, becausethere was something in it about “Lilies .” Parispiqued herself upon possessing both the Classic andthe Romantic Schools, and these factions were at

swords’ po ints . During the reign of Charles X .,

there were masked balls at court, at which theDuchesse de Berry appeared as Maria Stuart, theDue de Chartres as Francis I . ; the Duchesse deBerry’s lovely foot was much talked of, and Salvandy said—at the Due d

’

Orle'

ans’ ball in the Palais

Royal “We are dancing on a volcano . GeorgeSand was not yet well known— Chopin not yet inParis . Marie Taglioni danced at the Grand Opéra,Habenek, a German master, conducted the EliteOrchestra at the Conservatoire—where the Parisians

,one year after Beethoven’s death, heard, for

the first time,some of his music . Malibran and

Sontag sang the “tourney” duet in Tancredi at theItal ian Opera. It was the winter of 1828—1829 ;Baillot played in quartets, and R ossini gave hisTell early in the New Year.In Liszt I found a pale, haggard young man, withunspeakably attractive features . He was reclining

[ 10 ]

F r a n z L i s z t

on a broad sofa, apparently lost in deep reflec tion,and smoking a long Turkish pipe . Three pianosstood near. He did not make the slightest motionwhen I entered— did not even seem to notice me.When I explained to him, in French—at that timeno one presumed to address him in any other language—that my family had sent me to Kalkbrenner,but that I came to him because he dared to play aBeethoven Concerto in public—he seemed to smile ;it was, however, like the glitter of a dagger in thesunlight .

“Play me something,” said he, with indescribablesarcasm, which, nevertheless, did not hurt my feelings—any more, for instance, than one feels insultedwhen it thunders .“I will play the Kalkbrenner Sonata for the lefthand,” said I, feeling that I had chosen well .“That I will not hear, I do not know it, and I donot care to know it !” he answered, with yet strongersarcasm and scarcely concealed scorn .

I felt that I was playing a pitiable role—perhapsI was expiating the sins of some one else, of someParisian . However, I said to myself, as I looked atthis young Parisian—for in appearance he was thoroughly Parisian—that he must surely be a genius ;

[ 11 ]


and thus,without further skirmishing, I did not

care to be driven from the field by any Parisian .

With modest, but firm step I approached the nearest piano .

“Not that one !” cried Liszt, without in the least

changing his half-recumbent position on the sofa,“there, at the other one !

”

I walked to the second piano . A t that t ime I was ahsorbed in the Invitation to the Dance ; I had marriedit out of pure love, two years before, and we werestill in our honeymoon . I came from R iga, where theunexampled success ofDer Freischu

‘

tz 2 had preparedthe way for Weber’s piano compositions, while inParis Der Freischutz was called Robin des bois,

and was embellished by Berlioz with recitat ive !I had studied with good masters . When I tried tostrike the three first A flats I found it quite impossible to make the instrument give forth a soundwhat was the matter ? I struck hard; the A flatsounded, but quite piano. I appeared very foolish, Ifelt sure of that, but without losing courage I wentbravely on to the entrance of the first chord—thenLiszt got up, came over to me, pulled my right handofl" the keyboard and asked : “What is that ? Thatbegins wel l !

12 l

F r a n z L i s z t"

I should think it did,” I answered,with the pride

ofa parish clerk for his pastor, “that is by Weber !”“Has he written for the piano, too ?” he asked, astounded.

“Here, we only know his Robin des bois !“Certainly he has written for the piano

,and more

beautiful ly than any one else,” was my equally surprised answer. “I carry in my trunk

,

” I continued,

two Polonaises, two R ondos, four Variation-Numbers,3 four Sonatas ; one of the Sonatas, which Istudied with Vehrstaedt in Geneva, contains thewhole of Switzerland, and is inexpressibly beautiful—in it all lovely women sm ile at once—it is inA flat major—you can’t imagine how beautiful itis, no one has written anything to compare with itfor the piano, believe m e .

”

I spoke from my heart, and s o convincingly thatLiszt was strongly impressed.

Presently he said in his most winning tone : “Pleasebring me everything you have in your trunk

,and

,

j b r thefirst time in my life, I will give lessons—toyou—because you have introduced me to Weber’s

piano-music, and because you did not allow yourselfto be discouraged by the hard action of this piano .

I ordered it myself; one scale played on such a pianois equal to ten on any other ; it is a completely im

[ 13 ]


possible piano. It was a mauvaise plaisanterie on mypart—but why did you speak of Kalkbrenner andhis Sonata for the left hand ? But now, play me yourpiece votre chose

’

) that begins so curiously. Thatpiano you first tried is one of the finest instrumentsin Paris .”

Then I played, most enthusiastically, the Invitation,but only the Cantilena, marked wiegend (swaying,rocking), in two parts . Liszt was charmed with thecomposition .

“You must bring me that, ” said he,“we will interpret it to each other !”

Thus the last letter of the alphabet came to thefirst.In our first lesson, Liszt could scarcely tear himselfaway from the piece. He played through the different parts again and again ; tried various reinforcements ; played the second part of the minormovement in octaves, and was inexhaustible in hispraise ofWeber. A nd what, indeed, did one find atthat t ime in the piano-repertory ? The bland masterj oiner Hummel Herz ; Kalkbrenner, and Moscheles ;

nothing plastic, dramatic, or speaking, for thepiano ; Beethoven was not yet understood ; of histhirty-two Sonatas, three were played the Ajiatmajor Sonata with the variations (Op . the

[ 14 ]

F r a n z L i s z t

C'

sharp m inor quasi Fantasia, and the Sonata in

F minor, wh ich a publisher’s fancy—not Beethovenchristened appassionata . The five last ones passed

for the monstrous abortions of a German idealistwho did not know how to write for piano . Peopleunderstood only Hummel and Co . ; Mozart was tooold-fashioned, and did not wri te such pas sages asHerz, Kalkbrenner, Moscheles,—to say nothing of

the lesser lights .In the midst of this “Flowery K ingdom ” dweltLiszt, and bne must take this into account, in orderto grasp the greatness of the man who discoveredWeber and his own genius at the piano, when hewas but twenty years old !Liszt was wholly enraptured with Weber’s AMmajor Sonata. I had studied it in Geneva, withVehrstaedt ,4 and expressed in my rendering thetrue spirit of the composition . Liszt proved this tome by the way he listened, by his gestures, by hisexclamations of approval . We were as one man , in

our adm iration forWeber.This great romantic poem for the piano begins witha tremolo in the bass, on A flat . No Sonata everbegan that way, before ! It is like the sunrise overan enchanted forest wherein the action takes place !

[ 15 ]


The uneas iness of my master over the first partof the First Al legro became so great that

,before

I came to the close, he shoved me as ide,saying :

Wait— wait ! what is that ? I must play that myself —I had never before heard anything like that !Think of a genius like Liszt, but twenty yearsold, coming into contact, for the first time

,with

such a capital composition— with the apparitionofthat Knight in Golden A rmor, Weber !He tried the first part over and over again invarious ways ; at the passage (in the dominant) inE flat at the close of the first part, he said : “It ismarked ligato there, would it not be better to makeit pp. staccato (pique) ? Leggermente is prescribedthere

,too .

” He experimented in every direction .

So I had the privilege of observing how one geniuslooks upon the work of another and turns it to hisown account ! So we learned some special lessonevery day

,from our two hours” soj ourn with Weber !

“Now, how is the second part of the first A l legro ? ”

asked Liszt, as he examined it . It seemed to mequite impossible that any one could read at sightthis part through which the theme is carried incrowded octaves several pag es long !“That is very hard,” said Liszt, “and the Coda is

[ 16 ]


that ; I can imagine how the piano-hussars chasethrough that ! I shall never forget that I becameacquainted with that Sonata through you. Well, youshall learn something from me ; I will tell you everything I know about our instrument .”

The thirty-second-note figure in the bass of theA ndante (thirty-fifth measure) one too often hearsplayed as a passage for the left hand ; the figureshould be expressed caressingly, it should be aV ioloncello solo amoroso .

’ So Liszt played it ; butlent terrible maj esty to the octave-irruption uponthe second theme in C, which Henselt calls theTen Commandments —a capital title.How can I begin to express what Liszt did with theMenuetto capriccioso and Rondo of the Sonata, thevery first time he saw these inspired compositions ?What was there not in his treatment of the clarinetsolo in the trio of the Menuetto, the modulation ofthat cry of longing, the winding ornamentation ofthe R ondoAfter considering the composer’s manner ofhandl ingthe piano, and of writing for it, one may confidentlysay of the Weber sonatas that—as an expression of

the Instrument,as specific piano-music they leave

the Beethoven sonatas behind (not as musical ideas[ 18 ]

F r a n z L i s z t

for which the piano is the medium of expression).The Mozart sonatas are cartoons for quartets, theBeethoven sonatas, symphonic rhapsodies ; but thenoble Weber sonatas—as such—are the happiestexpression of the piano, in its most happy mood .

The piano of Weber is quite innocent of quartet orsymphony ; it is self-dependent, self-suffic ient, conscious piano, and opened the door to the NewSchool,to the treatment of the instrument by Liszt andChopin .

A nd has there ever been manifested greater geniusin the handling of the piano, than is found inWeber

’

sfirst Sonata—the one in C maj or ?One is astounded at this work of the year 1813 (inwhich it was criticized by that great blindwoman,the A llgemeine musikalische Z eitung), a work whichmay have been composed still earlier, -that hademancipated itself in such a degree from the formscontrolling musical thought sixty years ago, andfrom all social and socio-political relations and conditions in life For in A rt we do not part the spiritfrom the form . The paternal home, the hearth, thehousehold altar, the hausliche Jahreszeit, are themotives of the Weber Sonata in C

’

; the youthfulsoul thus finds expression for its impulse towards

[ 19 ]


the unknown country which lies behind the narrowprecincts of his homely native town ! This longingsupplied Weber with words for his sonata-poem inC, a second Glocke.

Vom Miidchen reisst sich stolz der Knabe

is the clear meaning of the diminished chord at thebeginning, through which Weber’s poem rushes intolife .The Weber sonatas unite us to l ife ; Beethoven’srelation to l ife—at the piano—is that of the

preacher to the parish.

Of Liszt’s magnificent interpretat ion ofWeber, of

the A lexandrian triumphal processions he madethroughout Europe with Weber’s piano-compositions-J espec ially his Concertstiick—the world knows,and future generations will talk about it .

I now come to a thought, respected R eader, whichI fancy is original

,because no one else has spoken

it, and because it explains Liszt’s wonderful mannerof wri ting for the piano as arising from esotericcauses, and gives to his mechanical difficult ies anexternally art ificial appearance .I understand Liszt’s manner ofwriting for piano asa satire on the distinctions of rank, the conventionalities and absurdities of the early Parisian salons,

[ 20 ]

F r a n z L i s z t

which, in their pitiful puerility, through three dif~ferent forms of Parisian government, I had Opportu

nity to note . These weak pretens ions of every sort,constituted in those days the difference betweenFrance and Germany, and between France and thefreer atmosphere ofSt . Petersburg, where the A rtist,as the epitome of culture, is equal in rank to thehighest-born of the land ; there, the relation of theartist to the world about him , turns rather inthe Opposite extreme, and this condition of affairsis not always conducive to his own happinTh e difficulties of Liszt’s style are—so to speakvariations upon his own Parisian theme : “Stirb,

Vogel, oderfiiss ! ” 5Liszt tossed these technical difficulties in the facesof the P arisians z—“ I require no thanks, ladies,”

says he ; “ do this after me,” says he, “who andwhat are you ? ” he asks . He who did not live inParis, was not to be considered as l iving at all. Ofthis city Liszt was at once the scourge and the darl ing. His method, hard to describe, is an expressionofhis native, unparalleled pianistic technique, and itwould be a great mistake to imagine that any onecould ever approach such individuality, no matterhow thoroughly he might overcome the difficulties

9-1 l


of his piano-mechanism . It has been said : “Letall composers assemble, and let each instrumentthe simple chord of C maj or ; Beethoven’s chordwould be Beethoven !” That is the kernel of thewhole matter ! It is not o therwise with Liszt ; let allthe pianists come together and attack the Eflatmajor P iano Concerto by Beethoven (to take this asan example) ; Liszt’s first stroke wil l betray the factthat it is he and no other ! His phantasy (imagination) is imponderable ; it is disembodied ; all otherpianists are lost in the shadow cast by Liszt ; he isa doctor like Faust, and we are his Wagner !

The friendly reader of these leaves of remembrance,

has not my permission, after noting our criticism of

others, to ask : But Liszt .9

That is just my point : “That is the humour of it,”

says Pistol ; that was our meaning—Liszt is anapparitionSince one has to go to R ome in order to see Lisztto say nothing at all about hearing him —eversince Liszt turned his back upon the public, one

has only the right to speak of having heard him,

and must no longer call him a pianist—Liszt maybe likened to a dead man, who fortunately is stillalive—a pianist he is not. In his personal ity, he is

[ 22 ]

F r a n z L i s z t

an image of our day, in which more happens thanformerly took place in centuries ; apart from hismusical hegemony,6 Liszt is one of the great intellects ofthe century.

A s for the explanation and proper view of Liszt’sparticular manner of writing ; of himself, of hisfavored nature, I may say : Art i s the ideal Truthof earth ly l ife, she is the disembodied Truth . Shecan exhibit herself in diverse ways . The difficultiesin Liszt are nothing external— they are a key to hisinmost being. Were these difficulties but outwardlyrepresented— as one but too often experiencesthey would remain something outward and superfic ial—the clod would cling to them, and the spiritwould remain with the composer.

C h o p i n

UROP E, from Madrid to St . Petersburg, waslionizing Liszt, when, in 1842, we againfound ourselves in Paris, where Louis Phi

l ippe had become K ing. Twelve years had elapsedsince the year 1830, when the French nation hungupon the word of the Citizen King ; it was, nevertheless, a great and stirring time, a time of ideas,and Paris, through the influence she exercised on

manners and customs—but stil l more through thebelief

,universally shared, in her dictatorial suprem

acy— was the central Sun in the constellation of

Europe.Life had become elegantly frivolous ; under CharlesX . it had been simply corrupt . Then, Vice hadworn its l ivery ; now it was transformed into ademi-monde, with all sorts of socially authorizedtitles

,with the accepted grades of “Duchesse,”

“Camélia, ” etc. “Grisettes ” were promoted to “LOrettes

”— a cognomen which, if I ’m not mistaken,originated with Th iers, or some great politician of

the time,7 and was suggested by that pretty church,

Notre Dame de Lorette,in whose neighborhood

,in

the beau quartier of the city, this fraction of urban[ 27 ]


society was wont to dwell . A t that time Thiersl ived in the parish of the church ofNotre Dame deLorette

,P lace St .

-George, in the pleasant hotel ofhis mother-in-law, Madame Deaune, with a smallgarden next the street . He was, from time to time,minister to K ing Louis Philippe— which did notamount to much, and never lasted long. Thiers certainly did not then believe that a R evolution wouldfind it worth while to raze his house to the ground

,

or that he, the little A dvocate from Marseilles, wasdestined to rise on the ruins, as President of theFrench R epublic Impavidumj erient ruince .

’

A t that time— 1842—George Sand was an established fact . The whole range of Camélia literaturewas in full bloom ; Balzac thought that Parisbreathed an electric atmosphere ; Paris was a m ilieu,in which alone one could live.In this m ilieu l ived Chopin . Just now, however— inthe month ofA ugust— he was still in Touraine withGeorge Sand, l iving in a chateau of too dim inutiveproportions to be designated as a castle. In truth ,the spirit of this time, and of the Pleiades of A rt

and Literature which it produced, was manifestedin wishing to appear greater than one was, and tospend what one did not have at all The term “dis

[ 9 8 ]

C h o p i n

tinguished”

(le distingué) took the lead, and wentthrough the most kaleidoscopic gradations . To re

turn to Paris before the month of November ;above all, if one shut one’s self up in Paris throughthe summer, was not

“distinguished ” ! A nd Chopinwas very distinguished— not like dead-and-goneKalkbrenner, as a peac ock, or a silver pheasant(neither was he decorated with the smallest Legionof Honor ribbon), but as a gr eat artist, althougha good

,fashionable Parisian, was Chopin distin

guished. In his easy, well-bred reserve, in his manners

,in his whole outward appearance, he sought

to be,and was, distinguished .

This time I came from St. Petersburg to Paris,not from R iga, by way of Geneva. Since the Aflat

major Weber Sonata, I had passed fourteen yearsin St. Petersburg, quantum mutatus ab illo Lisztwas in Paris, fresh from his unexampled St. Petersburg triumph, where he— before four thousand people, alone, and without accompaniment—appearedin the Hall of the Nobility ; where women of thehighest rank awaited him on the steps of his hotel

,

with garlands of flowers ; where the greatest noblessecured a steamboat, with choruses of singers, inorderfittingly to accompany the great artist as far

[ 29 ]


as Kronstadt, and further—to the roadstead of

the Gulf of Finland, when he sailed for Germ any .

My first visit in Paris was to Liszt, who lived inRue Blanche, not far from our Rue Montholon of1828. The mother of the great artist again receivedme most kindly, but she did not tell me, as formerly, that I “wearied her Franz

,

” he was always“in a dreadful way” after I, with my Weber Sonatas

,had been to see him Her son did not attend

church so assiduous ly, he carried his church aboutin himself, and no longer desired to become a St .

Simonist .

Liszt himself received me right royally. His firstwords were : “I shall go to see you every day ;you l ive so conveniently near Schlesinger, where Igo so often ; I shall send you an Erard grand, and,at the instrument, we will l ive over again the goodold times, especially the Weber Sonatas ; I suppose you have them with you ? ”

In the same copy, with your notes, which I keepas a holy relic— but I should like some Chopin .

”

“We will study whatever you like, only don’t dareimagine that you are to pay me—for no price wouldI g ive lessons . I shall visit a friend ; all I ask is acup of coffee from the hotel . I will come every day

30 l

C h o p i n

promptly at two o’clock, and we will agree uponafternoon and evening, as you must spend the em

tire morning at the piano—I shall send you thevery best, I shall go myself to Erard’s and selectone .

”

Those were afternoons never to be forgotten ! Lisztseldom missed the hour— another mark of his un ,

fail ing politeness . I see him standing in the doorway of my hotel, his hat on his head, an elegantVerdier stick in his hand, his spiritual, speakingcountenance laughing up at me ! It made me feelas though I had been made king in Paris !Once I played his own arrangement of Schubert’sStiindchen to him .

“Give me a pencil, said he, and wrote in it : Commenaturaliste,parfait, with Franz Liszt, in his crookedsignature.“How naturaliste I obj ected, “when I have hadyou for a teac her ?

”

Well ; you play it very well ; heartily, very heartily, and quite faultlessly, but not l ike a virtuoso ;and only such an one—and how few among them

—can play the Coda as I wish ; it is diablementhard, not in the reading, but as a whole, and invirtuoso-like expression . That is what I mean .

”

[ 31 ]


We next came to Weber’s P olacca i n E major.

“There is more virtuoso work,” said he ; “you playit very well, but you have not sufficient strength,one must be possessed of a devil to play that .”

I played the Moonlight Trio.

You play that wel said Liszt , animatedly, “look

you, that is perfect— give me the pencil and hewrote in it : Ceci est parfait—

“do you see, thisis the antidote for the Schubert ! Where did youlearn that fingering ? that change from the thumbto the second finger, and back again [in the dottedmiddle part on b and e] ? That is not your owninvention ; it is good, but somewhat choppy, one

might come to a standstill— whose is thatfingering ? ”“It is by Moscheles in London ; in the time after

you— 18929

“Oh ! ho ! was he so learned in Weber ? Now, I willplay the Polacca to you, it will be better.

”

I always went as far as the court-yard with him,

and as he went down the winding stairs he re

peated several times : “That Trio was capitalcapital ! You had not practised it, had you ? It isvery difficult in this cantilena ; one does not getthat from one’s so-called strong pupils—here in

l 32 l


One morning Liszt said : “It is fine weather, letgo for a walk—but, what have you there for a

great-coat“A sort of tigerskin of brown velvet ; I got it inHamburg ; it fits snug, and suits me.”“That will make you conspicuous in Paris ! I amthe only man in Paris who can afford to give youhis arm, while you wear that Hanseatic pelt ; comeon. We will get some macaroni at Broschi’s, opposite the Grand Opera : R ossini goes there—we willsit at his table .As we walked along the Boulevards, and I noticedhow curiously the people looked after us, I understood Liszt’s remark—that he alone might dare toshow himself with any one wearing such a garment.Chopin would never have done it, it might havedispleased the Sand ! So strange, so affected, sosmall was—and ever will be—the great city ofParis !The Weber Ajlat major Sonata came post tot er

rores, in its turn .

“Very good, very good,” saidLiszt, to the Rondo among other things—“butstill too little of the little Countess B in St .Petersburg : the eloquent foot is wanting.

” Heplayed the foot . I studied, and went through the

[ 34 ]

C h o p i n

R ondo again under his hawk-eyes . “Now it isright

,

” said he,

“the foot is there, but where isthe shoe ?” He played the shoe. Thus he ‘alwayshad to say and do something, and he was alwaysright. It was the passage in the Rondo (twentyfourth and following measures) with the serpentinescal es in the bass in F minor. Liszt forgot it longago, in Rome. I shall remember it .In Chopin’s Bflat major and A minor Mazurkas,

Op . 7, I learned much about piano-playing in general from Liszt . In both pieces he noted importantlittle variants

,taking the matter very seriously, es

pec ially the apparently so easy bass in the Mag'

giore

of the A minor Mazurka. What pains he took withme there “Only an ass could think that was easy,”

said he “in these slurrings one recognizes the virtuoso ! Play it thus to Chopin, and he will noticesomething ; it will please him . These stupid Frencheditions bungle everything of his ; these slurs mustrun so in the bass“If you play that so to him he will give you lessons,only you must summon the courage to do it,” con

cluded Liszt.It was already October, and Ch opin still so distinguéthat he was not in Paris . With the most amiable

[ 35 ]


sympathy Liszt said to me one morning : “Now heis com ing, I feel sure of it, if the Sand will onlylet him go !” I said : “If he would only let Indianago !”

That he will not do,” Liszt replied, “ I know that .When he is here, I wil l bring him directly to you ;after all, you have the Erard ; and we shall play, asif by chance, the Onslow four-hand Sonata in F

minor that you are so fond of; we have alreadyplayed it once in Paris—in public ; curiously enoughChopin played the primo

,—that was my idea

,and

he ’l l be glad to do it again . You must have theSonata ; get it at Schlesinger’s, and try to secure theLeipzig edition - that is correct. In this way youwill most easily get lessons from him, it will arrangeitself— particularly now, in the beginning of theseason . You can’t imagine how difficult it is, becauseyou don’t know Paris yet. With me, for example,it is nothing, but hard, so hard with Chopin Howmany have j ourneyed all the way to Paris

,and have

not been able even to get a glimpse ofhimFrom the time I dared hope to hear Liszt and

Chopin play in my apartments, I walked on air inParis ; I was greeted in front of the music-shops ;they offered me a chair every time I went into

[ 36 ]

C h o p i n

Sc hlesinger’s— I had passed there with Liszt ! A tSchlesinger’s I met Berlioz ; he understood little ofpiano-mus ic, and looked—in his blue frock-coatwith brass buttons, and decorated with the wellearned Legion of Honor— like a musical R obertMacaire ; a character whom Fre

’

déric Lemaitre successfully exhibited at the Theatre of the Porte StMartin . Berlioz cal led Liszt le cher sublime, whichwas considered very spirituel

—people, in thosetimes, were regularly astonished if any one daredto clamber over the hedge of speech .

When I again met Berlioz, in St. Petersburg in1868, after the loss of his only son, his hope andhis j oy

,he looked like the Vicar ofWakefield at a

funeral ; it was no use then, to speak to him of

Liszt ; he had come to consider the Bflat majorSymphony of Beethoven the most beautiful of all !There lay the poor, suffering man (always on hisbac k) in the palace of the Grand-duchess Helena,where he lived . There, at his bedside, I read to himmy report of the concert directed by him , andgiven, under the patronage of the Grand-duchess,by the Russian Musical Society ; and there he gaveme, at parting, his daguerreotype with this inscription in his own hand : d l

’

homme gui a su aimer et

[ 37 ]


Son frere dévoué, Hector Berlioz . Berliozwas unhappier than K ing LearOctober was here, but still no Chopin !With trouble and some sacrifices

,I obtained an extension of

my leave of absence from St . Petersburg, waitedpatiently, and was as diligent as possible at myErard. I well remember how, in that cabrioletwhich I mounted at the risk of my neck, in orderto traverse the famous milieu “with the electricalatmosphere in all directions, and learn it thoroughly, I used continually to practise—on thewooden apron enclosing the seat—the volate thatLiszt had noted for me in the Chopin Bflat majorMazurka—so as to “keep my right hand in .

” Theparticular point was this, —instead of returning tothe theme

,from f to f (an octave lower), to go

two octaves higher, and then fall back into thelower octave, —that is, to take twelve f s in triplets, and by no chance to miss coming in on

time ! Under Liszt’s hands, this was a rocket withits returning shower of stars

,in the reprise of the

theme !I mention this in order to warn adepts never topresume to attempt anything like it. These na ivemistakes always mislead, and make one appear as

[ 38 ]

C h o p i n

ridiculous as is a German who tries to speak French—to quote Goethe.One evening Liszt came to see me with the excellent pianist, Hiller, and the well-known violin-virtuoso, Ernst. The good piano was at my lodgings,and plenty of music at hand. Liszt played withHiller the overt ure to Der Freischiitz, and Ernstfiddled with them with might and main . Th e ideahad come into these gentlemen’s heads that noon,and Ernst had brought h is violin along. It was aremarkable performance . They remained for theevening, and “made j okes of all kinds

,

” as Lisztexpressed it. “Where does Cramer live ? ” I asked .

“He has founded a Lancaster Pianoforte School,”

replied Liszt ; “you cannot see him, he is never inthe city—he lives in the suburb of BatignollesCramer, who had become a

!

millionaire in London,

speculated through a banker, and lost everything.

He became an Englishman in England , and hadnow come to Paris

,which did not suit him .

“Crameris a septuagenarian, leave him alone,” concludedLiszt ; “from him you can learn nothing, since youhave me .

”

I did not leave Cramer alone ; to me he was sanctified, venerabilis Beda ! I had heard him at a concert

39 l


at the A rgyle R ooms, in London, in 1829 he playedcapitally— the P iano-

quartet in Eflat by Mozart—with Lindley, the English violoncellist ; and FranzCramer

,brother of Jean Baptiste, played the violin .

In memory of this, I wrote Cramer a respectfulnote ; Count Wielhorsky had met him in R ome, andhad told me much about him . That was the con

nec ting-link . The author of the world-renowned

Etudes— that hymn-book of unconfirmed pianistsChurch-Father Cramer, answered me, and promisedto come. “Now, I said to myself, “order an Engl ish dinner—all the dishes served at one time, thebest port wine, and all his works upon the table !”

His complete works, a huge pile of music sent fromSchlesinger’s, must have been covered with a layerof dust a finger thick— but they were in goodcondition . They contained the history of a wholehuman lifeI drove about an entire day in order to procure afirst-class English meal and port wine . Such a singular place is Paris ; conscious only of itself.Unfortunately Liszt had already left Paris . Hewould not have refused to play Church-FatherCramer from the pile ! That would have been an

event, indeed

[ 40 ]


porto, in Paris . Some one told me of it, it is anA mericanfirm—strange city, this Paris, is it notI do not like it, I should have done better, had Igone to Germany, but the climate here agrees withme ; I have already been here some years, and amtoo old now to go further.

”

Cramer was sparing of words and answered alwaysquietly and deliberately—moderato. When I askedhim about Chopin, he said : “I do not understandhim, but he plays beautifully and correctly, oh verycorrectly ; he does not allow himself to becomecareless, l ike other young people, but I do notunderstand him ; Liszt is a phenomenon, neitherdoes he always play his own compositions. I do notunderstand this modern music .”

The atmosphere at table was depressing—why ?Cramer seemed to me to cling too closely to thepast

,for the present to have any interest for him .

I,sitting opposite to him, seemed so insignificant

and young—with my thirty-three years A fter dinner

,however, Cramer became more talkative ; I

made a diversion with the Erard, and asked him toallow me to play to him his first three studies. Hesat down by me, in the friendliest manner—and soI took

, defacto, lessons of J. B . Cramer ![ 42 ]

C h o p i n

I should never have allowed myself to dream ofsuch a thing in my young days ! Vehrstaedt of

Geneva played the Etudes as repertory-music ; withhim I had studied the third in D maj or, with theintricate fingering, all carefully slurred, with a ful lcantilena, as a prayer, as a slumber-song—what youwill . Cramer said : “From me you have nothing tolearn . Those are exercises ; do you play such thingsfor pleasure ?

”

“Indeed I do !” I opened the Etude in F with thetriplet-figure in eighth-notes . “See here ! What apastoral !” I spoke of Henselt in St . Petersburg,who played the Etude so wonderfully . It seemed toplease him .

A t my request, Cramer played the first threeEtudes. It was dry, wooden, harsh ; with no canti

lena in the third one, in D major, but rounded andmasterly. Th e impression I received was painful,extremely painful Was that Cramer ? Had the greatman lived so long, only to remain so far behind thetimes ? I did my be st to prevent the appearance ofany sign of my di sillus ion ; I had, however, entirelylost my bearings, and did not know what to say !I asked him if he did not think an absolutes Ligato

indicated in this th ird Etude ? He had cut short43


off the notes in the upper part, and had paid noattention whatever to binding the notes in the bas s— I could not believe my eyes and ears !We were not so particular,” answered Cramerwe did not consider that of great importance

,

these are only studies : I have not your modern as

cents and intentions . Clementi played his Gradusad P arnassum just so— it was good enough forus,and no one has ever sung more beautifully on thepiano than Field, who was a pupil of Clementi . Mypattern was Mozart, no one has ever composedbetter than he ! Now I am forgotten ; I ’m a poorteacher of the rudiments in a suburb of Paris, wherethey study the Bertini Etudes, I must exien teach

Bertini myself !You can hear it any time you will—eight pianos going at once !”

I spoke of Hummel, who dedicated to Cramer hisP ianoforte Trio in E major ; I said I thought thetheme of the first part fine, but nothing comes ofit, except smooth passages .“Next to Mozart, Hummel is the greatest composerfor piano,” said Cramer, “no one has surpassed him .

”

I knew that Cramer could not endure Beethoven,

much less Weber : I had removed all my music, sothat nothing remained in the room save only J. B .

[ 44 ]

C h o p i n

Cramer. I drew forth his four-hand Sonata in G

major (with the A dagio in C). I had loved to playit with my life-long friend Dinglestaedt, in thehappy days of my youth ! Cramer wondered that Ishould know it— he had to look it over again, himself

,then played the bass clumsily and roughly, so

that all that remained to me was the honor of having

’ sat next the composer ! I had never, but once,in my life, experienced so great a disenchantmentwith so famous an artist : Beethoven’s pupil, Ferdinand R ies, whom I heard in Frankfort-ou-Main, inthe summer of 1827 ; he was a woodchopper at thepiano .

Cramer ' had a thick-set figure, a full, ruddy countenance, and dark brown eyes ; he had the appearance of an Englishm an , and English manners .Considering his old age, he was extremely vigorous .“I am a good walker,” said he, “I walked all theway from Batignolles to Paris .” He stayed untillate in the evening, selecting one and another of hisoldest compositions, and playing parts of them .

“ I don’t remember that ! I don’t know thi s anymore,” were his words . I listened with the greatestreverenc e, but I could not be reconciled to histreatment of the piano . It was repulsive. On tak

[ 45 ]


ing leave,he said “R eceive the blessing of an

old man ; I owe you an evening such as I hadnever hoped to enj oy again . I wish sincerely thatit m ay bring you happiness . A nd so you say, I amnot quite forgotten ? ”“The great virtuoso Henselt plays your Etudes asrepertory

-music, in St. Petersburg ; in my nativecity, R iga, the Etudes l ie upon every piano—theywill never perish ; they alone rank with The Well

tempered Clavichord as a Book of Wisdom ; theyhave never been equalled, and, like Bac h’s work,can never be laid asideI spoke from my heart . That Cramer had visitedme, I could, and can still, scarcely believe.The worthy man died a few years after

,in pov

erty, and forgotten by all ! That would never havebeen the case had he lived in Germany ! Cramer isa poet in his Etudes.

In the meantime, Meyerbeer had come to Paris,and was at work on his new opera, the name of

which he refused to divulge . It was l’Africaine . Hisarrival was an event in Paris .Liszt had left his visiting-card with me

,with the

following words for Chopin written upon it : Laissez passer, Franz Liszt.

“Present this at Chopin’s,”

[ 46 ]

C h o p i n

he told me ; you might never succeed in seeinghim at all without a laissez-passer ; that is thecustom among authors and artists of the first rank,we cannot afford to lose our time. A bout twoo’clock, go to the Cité d’Orléans, where he liveswhere, also, l ive the Sand, the Viardot, and Dan

tan”

[the famous caricaturist, who drew a picture of Liszt playing the piano with four hands] .In the evening, these people assemble at the house

ofa Spanish countess, who is a political refugee. Perhaps Chopin will take you there ; but do not ask himto present you to the Sand, he is very mistrustful“He has not your courage

,then ? ”

No, he has not,pauvre Frederic !”

A t last I could go to ChopinThe Cite’ d’Orléans was a new structure of largeproportions, with a spacious court,—thefirst undertaking of th is description ; a collection of apartments, with numbers, and a name is alwayspopular with Parisians .The Cité lay behind the Rue de Provence, in thefashionable quarter of Paris . It looked aristocraticand that was and is the end and aim of every

thing there

[ 47 ]


I gave Liszt’s card to the servant in the anterooma man-servant is an article of luxury in Paris

,a

rarissima avis in the home of an artist.The servant said that M. Chopin was not in Paris .I did not allow myself to be put out, and repeatedDeliver this card, I will attend to the rest .” ChOpinsoon came out to me, the card in his hand ; a youngman

,of middle height, s l im, haggard, with a sad,

though very expressive countenance, and elegantParisian bearing— stood before me . I have seldom

,

if ever,met with an apparition so entirely enga

ging. He did not press me to sit down ; I stoodbefore him as before a monarch .

“What do youwish ? A re you a pupil of Liszt, an artist ? ” “A

friend of Liszt . I wish to have the privilege of

studying with you your Mazurkas, which I regardas a Literature ; I have already studied several ofthem with Liszt — I felt that I had been incantious, but it was too late.“ So ? ” said Chopin, deliberately, but in his mostamiable tone

,

“why,then, do you need me ? Play

to me,please

,those you have played with Liszt ; I

have still a few minutes”—he drew an elegantlittle watch from his pocket ; “ I was going outI had forbidden the door to any one, pardon me

[ 48 ]


I will give you lessons—but only twice a week,that is the most I ever give ; it will be difficultfor me to find three-quarters of an hour.” Helooked again at the watch . What are you reading ? With what do you occupy yourself in general That was a question I was well preparedto answer : I prefer George Sand, and JeanJacques, to all other writers,” said I, too quickly—he laughed : he was beautiful at that moment .Liszt told you to say that—I see, you

tiated—so much the better. Only be punctual,everything goes by clockwork with me, my houseis like a dove-cote (pigeonnier). I see already thatwe shall be congenial ; a recommendation fromLiszt means something ; you are thefirst pupilhe has recommended to me—we are fri ends, weshall be comrades .”

I always went to him long before my hour, andwaited. One lady after another came out, eachmore beautiful than the others ; once it was Mlle.Laure Duperre, the A dmiral ’s daughter ; Chopinalways accompanied her to the stairs— she was amost lovely woman

,tall and straight

,l ike a palm

tree. To her Chopin dedicated two of his most important Nocturnes (C minor and F sharp minor, Op .

50 l

Ch o p i n

she was, at that time, his favorite pupil . Inthe anteroom I often encountered little Filtsch,who

,unfortunately, died young. He was then but

thirteen years old— a Hungarian genius. He understood

, he played Chopin ! A t a soirée at the houseof the Duchesse d’Agoult, Liszt said, of Filtsch, inmy presence : When the little one goes on theroad

,I shall shut up shop . I was j ealous of

Filtsch, Chopin had eyes only for him . He gavehim the Scherzo in Bflat minor (Op . he had

' forbidden me to touch the piece, saying that itwas too diflicult— he was right, too— but he perm itted me to stay when they played it, so I haveoften heard this charmingwork in its highest perfection . Filtsch also played the E minor Concerto ;

Chopin accompanied at a second piano, and insisted that the little fellow played it better thanhimself ; I did not believe it ! But such was he ;he had little physical strength, but no one couldapproach him in grace and elegance, and if heembellished, it was always the apotheosis of goodtaste . Only in his earlier years had Chopin givenconcerts, and won a place in Paris beside Liszt .That is saying much ! Now he played only once ayear, semi-publicly, to a select circle of his pupils

[ 51 ]


and adh erents, among the flower of the highestsociety

,who took the tickets in advance, and

divided them among themselves, as he told me.Do you practise on the day of the concert ? ” I

asked him .

“It is a terrible time for me ; I do not like public ity, but it is a duty I owe my position . For twoweeks I shut myself up, and play Bach . That is mypreparation ; I do not practise my own compositions .”

Chopin was the Phoenix of intimacy with the piano .

In his Nocturnes and Mazurkas he is unrivalled,downright fabulous . His Mazurkas were HeinrichHeine’s songs on the piano ! When I told him so

,

he played abstractedly with the chain of his littlewatch, which he always kept on the piano duringlessons so as not to overstep the three-quarter hour,which passed so quickly“Yes, you understand me, said he . “I listen withpleasure, when you play something of mine for thefirst time, for then you give me ideas ; if you prepare yourself, it is not at all the same—it is thenmediocre.”“Liszt said the same thing to me

,escaped me.

Then I do not wonder that you agree with me,[ 59 ]

C h o p i n

was his piquant and piqued rej oinder. W ith Liszt,as with Chopin, one had to be extremely cautious,for

,in point of sensibility, they were ultra French .

“Of the Mazurkas, Liszt said one must harness anew pianist ofthe first rank to each one ofthem .

”

“Liszt is always right,” answered Chopin ; “do youthink that I am satisfied with my own interpretation of the Mazurkas ? A few times I have beensatisfied— in those yearly Concerts, when I havebeen uplifted by the appreciative atmosphere of

the hall . Only there must I be heard, once in theyear—the rest of the time is for work ! Th ere isthat Valse mélancolique -you will never in your lifebe able to play it, but because you understand thepiec e, I will write something in it for you .

” 8

Chopin’s autographs are rare ; he wrote no letters,no notes : “George Sand,” he was heard to say,“writes so beautifully, that no one else has anyneed to write !” He went as far as that ! that washis way ! How prone is Genius to be deluded bywoman ! How far higher Chopin stood ! Chopin willbe played when not a line by George Sand will beread . What has this woman, so overrated in France,ever written , of an imperishable nature ? But Chopin’s Pindaric Hymns of Vic tory, the P olac ca in

5s


Aflat major (to mention this alone), are immortal ;they will always belong to the best literature of thepiano

,but the works of Sand picture the decline of

morals,and thus are the reverse of good literature .

Chopin was dazzled, prepossessed from the first forthe poisonous plant, perhaps because but one sideof his l iterary taste had been cultivated, not all

sides, as was the case with Liszt. It is often so,and the English judge was right, who in everycriminal case put the question : “Where is thewoman ? I don’t see the womanI managed with Chopin as one would with a woman,whom one wished, above all things, to please. WithLiszt I did not manage at all, he managed me, andjust exactly as he pleased . Chopin said to me, inone of his confidential moods : “I have but one

fault to find with you ; that you are a RussianLiszt would never have said that ; it was one-sided,narrow— but it was a key to his nature. He oftenmade indirect excuses to me ; once he said : “Yes.when one understands Beethoven and Weber so ;—no Frenchman ever can !”

When I asked him if we might not go to see Duperre, he answered : “A h—she pleased you ! I introduce no one ! You have nothing to learn from

[ 54 ]

C h o p i n

her, you play my things in Weber style, and havelearned something from Liszt .” Liszt would nothave answered so, he would have said : “When doyou wish to go ? ” To be sure Chopin added, by wayof excuse : “In a few days I must play the Aflat

major Sonata of Beethoven (Op . 26) to some Russian ladies ; I promised to do so . I pray you, comewith me

,it will be pleasant for me to have you . The

ladi es will send their carriage for me, and we shalldrive en princes.

Carriages played an important part in the life of

this strange city—even in this circle !The Russian ladies were the ideally beautiful Baroness Kriidn er, and her charming friend, the CountessSchére

’

m etjew ; I had been well known to them inSt . Petersburg ; they never failed to be present at

the Sundav matinées at Hensélt’

s, and at all othermusicales at the home of Count Wielhorski.A s we drove along the Boulevards, I spoke to Chopin of Henselt .

“He would be glad to hear you !”

I no less glad to hear him !” answered Chopin,heartily.

“W ill he not come here sometime ?” Onemust always come—the Parisians never went !The Baroness’ talented daughter was a pupil ofChopin’s

,also the young Princess Tchernischow,

[ 55 ]


daughter of the Russian Minister ofWar. Chopindedicated his P relude in C sharp minor, Op . 45, toher.As we rolled over the Boulevards in the luxuriousinterior of a St . Petersburg caleche, with liveriedservants to whom Chopin called my attention

,I

thought : “It will not soon happen again,that the

first and last letters of the musical alphabet will sitside by side in the brilliant sunlight of beautifulParis !”

Chopin had been sent for, to play the BeethovenSonata— the Variation movement.How did Chopin play Beethoven’s Op . 26 ? Heplayed it well, but not so well as his own composit ions ; neatly, but with no contrasts— not like aromance, mount ing from variation to variation .

His mezzo voce was a whisper, but he was unapproachable in his cantilena, endlessly finished incoherency of construction— ideally beautiful

,but

womanish ! Beethoven is a man, and never ceasesto be a man ! Chopin played on a Pleyel—at one

time he would never give a lesson on any other instrument ; one had to have a Pleyel Every one wascharmed ; I, too, was charmed— but only by his tone ,by his touch, by his elegance and grace, by his abso

56 l


about it ; and that it must be played with passion,is signified in the coda of the last variation

,where

the B flats are only an accompaniment to the Aspiration, are no longer dotted, and are played in themiddle . But what do you not do with the groups oftriplets in the last variation ? If I could only learnthat of you ! But that would be impossible, that isa part of your nature

,and belongs to your pecu

liar management of the instrument !”

W e talked much of Beethoven, for the first t ime .He never cared very much for Beethoven ; heonly knew his great compositions

,nothing at all

of his last works . That was in the air of Paris !The Symphonies were known there ; the ! uartetsbut little— the later ones

, not at all . The Morin

! uartet Soc iety was formed later ; Paris was al

ways decades behind Germany .

I told Chopin, among other things : In the F minor

! uartet Beethoven had divined Mendelssohn, Schumann

,and him [Chopin] ; the Scherzo prepared one

for his Mazurka Fantasias ; this did not mean, inthe least

,that he had borrowed from Beethoven ;

Beethoven embraced all within himself—a universal genius l ike that, anticipates future epochs inthis way.

9

[ 58 ]

C h o p i n

Bring me that ! uartet,” said Chopin, “ I do notknow it .” I brought it . He thanked me repeatedly.

I also brought Weber. He did not appreciate him ;he spoke of “Opera,” of “

unklavierma'

ssig”

[bad

piano-style] - In general, Chopin was far fromcomprehending the German spirit in music, thoughI often heard him say : “There is but one School,the German .

”The build ofhis compositions is Ger

man, not French ; he hears Bach in mind . Of manyexamples, let us consider the C sharp minor Ma

zurka, Op . 50, and the C sharp minor Mazurka,

Op . 4 : they begin as though written for the or

gan, and end in an exclusive salon ; they are inimitative style . They do him much credit . Theyare more fully worked out than usual they aresonnets

,as were none of the others —Chopin was

much pleased when I told him that, in the con

struction of Mazurka Op . 50, the passage fromE maj or to F maj or was the same as that in theAga tha A ria of Robin des bois (compare, in theC major Sonata of Weber, the Trio of the Menu

etto in E major, eight measures before the close).“ I do not know the A ria, though I have heardit— show it to me.” When I brought him the A riaand Sonata he said : “ I did not know that any

[ 59 ]


thing like this had ever been written !” “A nd

think how long ago Weber wrote them,

” I an

swered,“ the Sonata in 1813, the Freischutz in

1820

I tormented Chopin most, with the famous Nocturne

in E flat maj or, Op . 9 , dedicated to the lovely Camille Pleyel . He, l ike Liszt, was very sensible tothe charms of women .

Dear cogs vivaient enpair , unepoule survint

E t voilé la guerre al lumée.

Amour tuperdis Troie

The Nocturne is simply a perfected Field, graftedon a more interesting bass ; in 1842 it was in thefull bloom of fashion ; now it is superseded by thelater

,the higher forms in Chopin—more especially

by the Duperre Nocturnes, Op . 48 (C minor andF sharp minor).When Chopin was pleased with a scholar, he, witha small

,well-sharpened pencil, made a cross under

the composition . I had received one, in the N0 0

turne (premier chevron) ; next time I came, I gotanother. I came still another time . “Do please letme alone

,

” said Chopin, “I do not like the piece at[ 60 ]

C h o p i n

all [b ecause he had already soared beyond it] ; there,you have another cross, more than three I never give.You cannot do it any better“You play it so beautifully, I ventured, “can noone else ?” “Liszt can,” said Chopin, drily, and playedit to me no more. He had noted in it some very important little changes for me ; his notes were clean,small, and sharp, l ike English diamond type.In the Cité d’

Orléans, where Chopin lived , l ived alsoDantan, George Sand, and Paul ine Viardot . Theyassembled in the evening, in the same house, in theapartment of an old Spanish countess

,a political

émigrée. A ll of which Liszt had told me. Chopintook me with him once. On the stairs he said : “Youmust play something, but nothing of mine— playyour Weber piece ” (the Invitation).George Sand said not a word when Chopin introduced me. That was uncivil . For that reason, I immediately sat down close to her. Chopin hoveredround like a frightened bird in a cage, he saw thatsomething was coming. Was there ever a time whenhe was without apprehension in her presence ? A tthe first pause in the conversation, which was con

ducted by Sand’s fri end, Madame Viardot (I was tobecome well acquainted with this great singer, later,

[ 61 ]


in St. Petersburg), Chopin took me by the arm ,and

led me to the piano . R eader ! If you play the piano,you can picture to yourself how sorely I stood inneed of courage ! It was a P leyel upright, which, inParis, passed for a pianoforte ! I played “The Invitation

” fragmentarily ; Chopin shook me by thehand ; George Sand did not say a word . I sat downby her, again, and followed my purpose openly.

Chopin regarded us apprehensively, across the table,on which the inevitable carcel was burning.

“Will you not come to St. Petersburg sometime ? ”

said I, in my politest manner, to George Sand,“where you are read so much

,and so highly re

spected .

” “I will never lower myself, by visiting acountry where slavery exists

,

” she answered shortly .

(Je ne m’

abaisserai jamais jusgu’

d un pays d’

es

This was indecent, after she had been discourteous .“A fter all, you may be right, not to come,” I re

plied, in the same tone : “you might find the doorclosed against you ! I just thought of Kaiser Nikolaus .” George Sand looked at me, astounded ; Ilooked steadily back

,into her beautiful , big, brown

cow-eyes . ChOpin did not seem displeased . I understood every motion of his head.

[ 62 ]

C h o p i n

Instead of answering, George Sand rose, and strodelike a man across the room to the glowing fire .I followed at her heels

,and sat down, ready primed ,

next her— for the third time .She had to say something

,at last .

She drew an enormous ly thick Trabucco cigar fromher apron-pocket, and called back, into the drawingroom :

“Frederie, unfidibusI felt insulted in him—my great lord and master ; Iunderstood Liszt’s remark : P auvre Frederie in allits bearings .Chopin obediently brought afidibus .

After the first abominable whiff of smoke, GeorgeSand favored me with a question : “I suppose Icould not even smoke a cigar in a drawing-roomin St. Petersburg“In no drawing-room, Madame have I ever seen acigar smoked,” I answered, not without emphas is,with a bow !

She looked at me sharply,the thrust had struck

home ! I looked quietly around at the fine picturesin the salon

,each one of which was lighted up by

a separate lamp . Chopin had probably not overheard us

,he had returned to the table, where our

hostess sat.[ 63 ]


P auvre Frédéric !— how sorry I was for him—thegreat artist !The next day, M. A rmand, the portier of my hotel,said to me : “A gentleman and lady have been here— I told them you were not at home,— you didnot say you wished to receive visitors . The gentleman had no card, but left his name.” I read : Chopinet Madame George Sand. I quarrelled every day fortwo months, with M. A rmand.

Such are the Parisians ; one must know beforehand,if one is to have Visitors— and it nearly always happens, that visitors come at such inconvenient times,that one has to be denied to them !That truly would have been an interesting visit !Chopin might even have played with me ! I shouldhave made him .

Chopin said to me,during my lesson : “George Sand

[Mme Dudevant was always so called] went withme to see you—what a pity you were not at home !I regretted it very much . She felt that she had beenrude to you You would have seen how amiable shecan be ; you pleased her very much !

”

The Spanish countess probably had a hand in thatvisit ; she was a woman of distinction, and she mayhave reproved George Sand for her rudeness to me

[ 64 ]


I have already touched on the altogether charmingbut not great— style ofChopin’s playing ; quite

inimitable,for example, in his so-called Waltzes

,

which waltzes are enchanted rondos, of a kind un

known before . Once Meyerbeer came in while I wastaking my lesson with Chopin . I had never seen himbefore. Meyerbeer was not announced ; he was aking. I was just playing the Mazurka in C, Op . 38

— ou only one page,which contains so many hun

dreds ; I named it the “Epitaph of the Idea ”—so

full of gri ef and sorrow is this composition—theweary fl ight of an eagleMeyerbeer had seated himself ; Chopin let me play on .

That is two-four time,” said Meyerbeer.For reply, Chopin made me repeat, and kept t imeby tapping loudly upon the instrument with hispencil ; his eyes glowed .

Two-four,” Meyerbeer repeated quietly.

I never but once saw Chopin angry ; it was at thistime ! A delicate flush colored his pale cheeks

,and

he looked very handsome .It is three-four,” he said loudly, he, who alwaysspoke so softly“G ive it me, for a ballet for my opera (Z’Afiicaine,then kept a secret), I will show you, then !”

66 l

C h o p i n“I t is three-four,” almost screamed Chopin, andplayed it himself. He played it several times,c'ounted aloud, and stamped the time with his foot—he was beside himself! It was of no use, Meyerbeer insisted it was two-four, and they parted inill humor. It was anything but agreeable to me tohave witnessed this little scene. Chopin disappearedinto his cabinet without saying a word—the wholething had lasted but a couple of minutes. I introduced myself to Meyerbeer, as the friend of hisfriend, Count Wielhorski in St . Petersburg.

“May

I take you home ? ” he kindly asked, as he stoodon the platform in the court, where his coupéawaited him . We were hardly seated, when he began : “I had not seen Chopin in a long time, I lovehim dearly ! I know no pianist like him, no composerfor piano like him ! The piano is intended for delicate shading, for the cantilena, it is an instrumentfor close intimacy. I also was a pianist, once, andthere was a time when I aspired to be a virtuoso ;come and see me, when you come to Berlin—weare now comrades ; when people meet under theroof of such a great man, it is for l ife.” Meyerbeer spoke German, and so heartily ! He pleasedme far more than the Parisians ; but Chopin was

[ 67 ]


right. Though the third beat in the compositionreferred to is slurred over, it no less exists, but Itook good care not to press this point against thecomposer of Les Huguenots.

E t adhuc subjudice lis est !

When I m et Meyerbeer in Berlin, twenty years later,the first thing he saidwas : Do you still remember ?It was during your lesson that I interrupted .

”

You hurt his feelings ! What must Chopin havefelt, when you denied the triple rhythm to a compositiou which is substantially founded on that rhythm—and then consider his irr itabilityI did not intend to be unkind,” said the great man,

good-naturedly, I thought he wished it soThat which part icularly characterized Chopin’s playing was his rubato, whereby the rhythm and timethrough the whole remained accurate . The lefthand,” I often heard him say, “ is the conductor, itmust not waver, or lose ground ; do with the righthand what you will and can .

” He taught : “Supposing that a piece lasts a given number ofminutes itmay take just so long to perform the whole

,but in

the details deviations may occurBut I heard Chopin’s rubato better defined, by Liszt,at W eimar in 1871— as I heard from his distin

[ 68 ]

Ch o p i n

guished pupil, the capital Russian pianist Neilissow.

“Do you see those trees ? ” Liszt said to Neilissow;“The wind plays in the leaves, Life unfolds and

develops beneath them ; but the tree remains the

same—that is the Chopin rubato!”

In the fluctuation of the tempo, in this “Hangenund Bangen ” -in the rubato of his conception,Chopin was ravish ing ; every note stood on the highest degree oftaste, in the noblest sense ofthat term .

When he embellished—which he rarely did—it wasalways a species of miracle of good taste. In hisentire make-up, Chopin was not fitted to interpretBeethoven or Weber, who paint along great lineswith great brushes . Chopin was a painter ofpastels,but an unrivalled one . Contrasted with Liszt hemight stand on an honorable equality with him— ashis wife. The grand Bfla t major ofBeethoven, Op.

106, and Chopin, are mutually exclusive.A bout this time there lived in Paris a pianist by thename ofGutmann ; a rough fellow at the piano, butwith robust health, and a herculean frame. Throughthese physical endowments, he impressed Chopinthe Sand also extended to him her protection . Chopin praised Gutmann as the pianist whose interpretation ofhis compositions was most grateful to him !

[ 69 ]


That was strong ! He said “he had taught himself.”

That was stronger, he, a giant ! The Scherzo in C

sharp m inor, Op . 39 , is dedicated to Gutmann, andChopin certainly had his prize-fighter fist in mind,when he composed it, for no left hand can take thechord in the bass (sixth measure, d sharp,f sharp, g'

,

d sharp,f sharp), least of all Chopin’s hand, which

arpeggio’

d over the easy-running, narrow-keyedPleyel . Only Gutmann could “knock a hole in atable” with that chord ! I heard him at Chopin’s ; heplayed like a porter ; so does Genius allow itself tobe deluded, when its own weaknesses sit in judgment !To the little P iltsch, and me, Gutmann was ahorror ; we derided him ; he learned absolutely nothing of Chopin

,though Chopin took so much

trouble to try and carve a toothpick out of this log !That was sufficient to blindfold him . Nothing morewas ever heard of this Gutmann— he was a disc overy of Chopin’s .Chopin died of a broken heart, not of consumption ;he died at the same age as Mozart and Raphael .Liszt wrote a delightful book— Frederic Chopin, by

Franz Liszt, it is called ; a speaking title. It waspublished in 1845 by Escudier

,in Paris

,and the

entire edition was sold out . I was unable to procure[ 70 ]

C h o p i n

a copy, either in Berlin, Leipzig, or St. Petersburg,whither a great number of them had been shipped1—1 had to read it by snatches, in the library of

Count W ielhorski. It has been repeatedly asked forin Paris, but always in vain .

George Sand speaks of Chopin in her book,

“Un

hiver au midi de l’

Europe ;” it is a description of

her soj ourn in Minorca, with Chopin, whom theParisian doctors had sent to the Balearics, he beingalready dangerously ill with consumption . She doesnot mention his name, she speaks of him as l’A rtiste.

That is singularly secret ! It is not depreciating, but,for so great an artist, neither is it sufficiently appre

c iative ; it is simply,foolishly P arisian ! How coulda French nature understand Chopin ? A Sand couldnever take a loftier flight in music than : “Jouezmoi quelque chose, Frédéric ! un—jidibus, Frede

’

ric !” etc.

L’

A rtiste was caught in a web, to wh ich the spiderwas not lacking !The compositions of Chopin Opened a new era forthe pianoforte . They run the risk, through lack of

knowledge of the master’s style of playing, of his

intentions, ofhis views concerning the pianoforte, ofremaining misunderstood ; because there is infinitelymore in the playing of them than appears on the

[ 71 ]


printed page . In expressing the inner soul of the instrument, and in their treatment of the same, theymust be ranked above Weber. They went a stepfurther. They maintain afirst place in piano-l iterature. They occupy the plane of ideas of a Novalis, aHeine. They cannot be “arranged ” for any otherinstrument ; they are the Soul of the Piano . Theyare less in touch with general musical ideas thanwith piano-ideas . They are often great works insmall frames —they are elegiac— lyric— ou thestandpoint of their creator’s nat lonality ; yet theyare ideal, they are imperishable in the history of

musical thought .It is not my purpose to discuss the compositions ofChopin ; it would be impossible to do so, within thesmall compass of these pages . A pamphlet is not abook . Only a book would suffice to give a completepicture of such great personalities as those ofLisztand Chopin, those Dioscuri of the modern pianoforte. Such a picture would necessarily include acomplete historical V iew of art and literature as itwas in the thirties and forties . The writers of thatday were Balzac and Hugo

,Dumas and Sue

, Guizotand Villemain ; the painters, A ry Scheffer and Delacroix ; the composers, Cherubini, R ossini

,Hale'vy

[ 72 ]


Weber ! What cannot one say about his style of

writing,his harmony, his modulation, his treatment

of the piano in general, and especially of the lefthand ? "0

Chopin’s tone-color is like that ofRaphael ! He isthe Raphael of the piano—though one must notseek his Madonnas in the churches— but in Life !

C a r l T a u s i g

ELDOM has a death excited such universalsympathy as did that ofCarl Tausig, cut off,like Chopin, at the very height of his artistic

career,in the strongest period ofhis musical develop

ment !People who formed no part in the mus ical world,who had never heard Tausig, but had only heard of

him,felt the loss which all experienced

,who hon

ored in Tausig not alone the artist, but the man .

In St. Petersburg, where Tausig had appeared butonce

,every one spoke of the sad death in Leipsic, as

though it were one of their own near and dear oneswho had entered the spiritual l ife. How much moremust this have been the case in Germany !There was but one opinion ofTausig, even amongthe envious —un fortunately there are such amongus musicians, whether we scratch paper with pens,or play piano, or scrape, or blow ; only the thumper(Timpani !) is harmless— and not even he, in Vienna,where he is a piano-virtuoso to boot !There are men who, upon their first appearanceamong us

,make a lasting impression . To these few

belonged Tausig.

77 l


In the late autumn of 1868 I was on my waytowards Europe’s stronghold of R eason, Berlinwith the purpose of hearing Tausig. I was leavingbehind me that charming butterfly-casket, Dresden,where one finds everything— as in a surgeon’s case—excepting caliber.I had had in Dresden such a variety of thoughtsconcerning the greatness of the composer of Der

Freischiitz in the theatre, and at the piano, that Iwas too preoccupied in arranging them to take precautionary measures against the harvest-wind blowing across the stubble, and felt il l by the time wereached the lines of lamps which told me that wewere nearing Berlin ; in contrast to the dimness ofthe Saxon nights

,these lights appeared like an illu

mination in honor of some royal event ! Berlin’s cal iber already began to assert itself.My artistic friend, the General-Intendant, Herr vonHiilsen, had prom ised to give, that evening— at myrequest—Der Freischutz, from which I had not beenseparated for the past forty years . He wished to notice my little polemic concerning the performance ofthis manifestation ofGerman Mind, so he had givenorders that my observations should be considered ;he particularly

O

asked : “We surely have not four[ 78 ]

C a r l T au s ig

trombones in Der Freisch iltz ?”

A t Dresden, the introduc tion of the tuba in Weber’s music struck melike a cuckoo’s egg— quite anti-Weber in effect. Notuba

,mirum spargens sonum, but with the sugges

tion,not the real introduction of the wind-instru

ments,as in Mozart’s R equiem .

“

Herr von Hulsen had kindly offered me his box,and

the fatality which attends a traveller brought methere long before the time. I raised the green screenand looked down into the orchestra, where but twopeople appeared in the semi-darkness, a viola and aclarinet. Said the viola to the clarinet : “Look sharpnow! draw back well on the dominant in the Overture

,as we have been told ; he is already here”

pointing out my hiding-place behind the screen .

That was caliber : the consideration of a possibletruth which he had not grasped .

I was soon quite ill, and obliged to keep my room .

I wrote Tausig, whom I did not personal ly know, tosay how much I regretted my inability to call uponhim . In but a few hours a young man, somewhatunder middle height and delightfully unaffectedstood before me. “I am Tausig; as you were unableto come to me, I came to you— I will come twiceevery day

,if I can . You are ofLiszt ’s household, so

[ 79 ]


am I—we are comrades and I am at your commandwhile you are in Berlin . Chopin did not receive mein this manner ; this was Berlin, not Paris !That wasGerman cordiality, no conventional iciness aboutthat— and yet Tausig occupied the same positionin Berlin, as did Chopin in Paris . 12“Shall I send you a piano ? ” he asked .

“I have somevery good ones .”

I was soon able to visit him in the Taubenstrasse,where he lived . The first time I went he was not athome. I told the m aid I would await her master, andmade my way directly to the bookcase in the firstroom . On the handsome bindings in the first rowI read the names of the great German philoso

phers. I was less astounded, than pleasantly surprised .

I had to wait a long while,so I exam ined one book

after another until I came to A rthur Schopenhauer,when Tausig laid his hand on my shoulder saying“Good books

,are they no t ? They are my favorites

—and they are not for show, I read them often !Down here are my ‘naturals ’—(he spoke j estinglyof the natural histories) -but vour book is alsohere ; do you not believe me - here it is .”

Have you read it — trulyHe hesitated a moment

,then looked me frankly in

[ 80 ]


it,I shall ask : ‘Is your room hung with black, noth

ing but black ? NotIn this

,my first visit, the piano played no part, I

avoided it purposely . Tausig said : “Well, we havealways known each other, and you shall come everyday. If you should hear a piano-racket when youcome in, that ’s the pupils ! Escape into my studythere stands my best piano, there you will findscores, the newspapers and, I think, the best cigarsin Berlin . If you still hear the din, you must playagainst it ; that is what I do, for other people g ivelessons at my house— I am collective, you see ; butI can’t stand it long ; only one more lustrum, andI ’m off to the University to amuse myself with thestudy ofphilosophy and natural history

,and to l ive

,

as far as possible— without a piano . Will you comewith me ? What do you think ofHeidelberg ? Berlinis wearing, have you not yet noticed that ? But Iam very fond ofBerlin—still— only five more yearsof this ‘collective ’ business

,and I shall say : ‘Jo

hanna geht, und nimmer kehrt sie Thatwas characteristic ofTausig— how far removed fromthe brazen bonds offashion in P aris !A t my second visit, Tausig played me the A majorSonata, Op . 101—as I had never before heard it ;

82 l

C a r l T au s ig

the first movement became an idyl ; his handling ofthe finale with the fugue

,was a revelation .

“The

second theme, in the finale just before the fugue,you divide between two wind-instruments ; I heard— so to speak— the oboe,” I observed .

How glad I am ! that, in fact, is my intentionbut I never told any one.”

The nuance in touch tells it, I replied .

He seemed pleased .

“The first movement may be given quasi chitarra,”

I remarked .

Two guitars, or four, if you like !” He played themovement so that I could hear the guitars, and said :“But our legato is better, let us keep to the grandstyle— Beethoven was no painter of genre-pictures

- I will now play you Chopin’s Aflat major P olona ise— it is a little specialty ofmine !”

I never heard this triumphal, stupendous ly difficultpiece in such perfection

,played with such easy mas

tery over, or rather, with such complete obliviousness to, the mechanical difficulties . The Trio, in descending octaves for the left hand, aroused an astonishm ent to which I gave unstinted expression :“That is beyond everything !” I cried, “how can youplay those octaves so evenly

,so sonorously—in that

[ 83 ]


furious tempo ? Murmuring pianissimo, thunderousfortissimo“I told you that it is a specialty ! Look, my hand issmall, and I hold it still closer together ; my lefthand is so formed that it runs by itself over the fourdegrees, e, d sharp, c sharp, b

— it ’s a kind of lususnatures

”

(smiling); “I can do it as long as you like— it does not tire me ; that was written for me.Strike these four octaves with both hands ; youcan’t play them so loud .

” I tried it. “See ! see ! verygood, but not as loud as mine, and after a couple ofmeasures you are tired —and so are the octaves ! Ido not think any one else can play this passage justas I do—but how few understand it ! It is thetramp ofthe horses in the Polish Light Cavalry !”

To me, the supreme artistic moment was the exposition of the principal motive, at every entrance .It was the Poles

,drunk with victory, sweeping away

their beautiful partners in the dance !“ I have heard three scales played , in my lifetime ;Tausig in this P olonaise, Liszt in Beethoven’sScherzo, Op . 106, and Henselt in Chopin’s A m inor

Etude ; these are the Amazon streams of the piano,they overspread its entire extent, and are inim i

table !”

84

C a r l T au s ig

Tausig answered : “No mortal can vie with Liszt ; hedwells upon a solitary height !”“Do you also play Weber I asked .

“I do not like to . I do not care to expose my inmost self to the public

,and that is what Weber

demands, does he not ? I play for the sake of A rt,

and I be lieve that when I have satisfied her I havealso satisfied mankind ! The Concertstu‘ck, however,I have often played, but it is not within my province, like Beethoven’s E flat major Conc erto—thatis my specialty ; I shall play that at my début in St.Petersburg. The Philharmonics have written for me—who are they ? I shall play at their concert

,and

wil l give my own self.”“Th e Philharmonics, as you call them,

are a society,

an old society, of St . Petersburg musicians who givetwo concerts yearly, in the Hall of the Nobles, forthe benefit of their widows and orphans .”“I will come, that is ‘taken care of I must see St.Petersburg. Do you play Beethoven much ? ”

Not oftener than I go to church (Taus ig smiledslyly): Which one ordinarily does in moderation .

One reads Beethoven,has read him often, wil l read

him again and again . The ac tual Beethoven livesin the orchestra .

”

[ 85 ]

Gr e a t P i a n o V i r t u o s o s

A bout Weber,” said Tausig, “I have designs onthe Invitation ; I wish to work on it, and should liketo talk with you about it. A t my house we shouldbe often disturbed. I frequently can find a free hourin the midst of my business, if you would wait forme ? there are suitable meeting-places .”

I proposed the Maison Dorée on Unter den Linden .

There we met and talked undisturbed . I admiredthe modesty of the great artist ; his eagerness tohear about Chopin, whose acquaintance he had neverhad the opportun ity to make, and yet whose workshe interpreted as no other could !I told Tausig ofChopin’s peculiar treatment ofthatinnocent Nocturne in Eflat, Op . 9 , No . 2.

“That is interesting, said Tausig, “I will playthrough the bass with both hands, myself; that isthe place for the guitar— that shall be ‘taken care

But he was most interested in the fact of Chopinbeing so critical and hard to please in the first fourmeasures of the great C minor Nocturne (Op . 48,

No . 1, Lento) —apparently so simple . In the secondmeasure occurs the sixteenth-note figure d, e flat, j ;g. The point was

,to glide from this g to c , in the

third measure. Chopin was never satisfied with this .[ 86 ]

C a r l T au s ig

He said to me : “It is possible for you to do this,

so you must do it.” A t last I was able to satisfy him,

but it took a long while— sometimes the g was tooshort

,and changed to the 0 too quickly— some

times it was jus t the other way .

“There is a meaning in it,” Chopin said. It was just as difficul t toplease with the l ifting of the 0 before the eighthnote rest in the sixteenth-note group e flat, c , inthe fourth measure ; the c was always too short or

too long ! I found a way out by drawing my fingeralong the key until I came to the end

,and then

drawing it off at the sharp corner ; at last hewas satisfied ! But it was nothing when comparedto the manner in which Chopin played both thesepassages !I quite understand him , remarked Tausig,

“Ishall take care of ’ that .”“Chopin intended the passage from g to c as aquestion ; c gave the answer.”

So I understood it,” said Tausig.

Just as rarely was Chopin satisfied with the firstmeasure in the C minor No

'

cturne ; the quarter-notesg, a flat, should be prominent, being thematic, butthey were always too forte or too piano . Chopinalways used a Pleyel , an instrument with light

[ 87 ]


action, on which one can do such shading muchmore easily than on one of mellower, fuller tone .During the next few days, Tausig played me bothNocturnes in the most finished manner, in fact, j ustas Chopin played them . He was pleased himself, andsaid : “I ought to have known Him !” Never was acomposer so lovingly cherished by a virtuoso, as wasChopin by Tausig.

One day Tausig appeared at my rooms early in themorning : “The Baroness Schweinitz invites you toa soirée at her house ; she is my best pupil— indeed,I can scarcely call her a pupil, she is an artist, anda charming woman . You will meet interesting people there. The Baroness sends her excuses that theBaron has not called on you.

“I do not stand upon ceremony, and consider myself honored by the invitation,” was my reply.

“Then I will be here this evening at eight sharp,and we will drive to the Commandant’s house.”

A s we went through the vestibule into the large,half-lit stuccoed hall

,I said : “We have such halls

in St . Petersburg, but not many .

“I have often played here,” said Tausig; we givecharity concerts here

,in which the Baroness takes

the lead .

”

[ 88 ]


A s we drove home, Tausig said : “You have givenme un common pleasure ! You sat at the piano justas He does .”“You cannot believe that it ever occurred to meto imitate Liszt ? ” I was somewhat disconcertedwhat could Tausig mean ?“You do not understand me ; I am in earnest ; thereis no imitation about it, only an affinity in the spiri tOf the matter, understood by myself alone ;—not

at all the way you sat there—something to whichyou gave no thought in your intercourse with thepiano ; it was He, as he lives and moves, I tell you,and I could think only ofH im the whole evening !”

Seldom is a master so lovingly reverenced by a pupil,

as Liszt by Tausig! He had such a true, loyal, loving heart ! Such an amiable nature should neverhave been wounded in its inner life, in the mostsensitive spot . In Tausig

’

s character humanism wasprominent, l ike the artistic height on which he stood .

Dark clouds seemed to have gathered early over hislife ; the artist took refuge from them in his A rt,

his virtuosity was a veil behind which the artistsought to conceal the man—in other words, tomould his art obj ectively. In his daily life he re

garded as a simple human duty, what others call[ 90 ]

C a r l T au s ig

worshipping God. Not with any desire to shine,but with an earnest purpose, did Tausig take upthe study of philosophy ; he was far from caringfor ostentation, he never courted applause—it wasquite indifferent to him : a fact I had good Oppor

tunity to observe at his triumphs in St . Petersburg. Melancholy, a certain profundity of meditation, which caused him to appear absent-minded,while his thoughts were but too vividly actual,dominated him ; he tri ed to conceal the underlyingvein of sadness, but it was clearly evident, and thedash of humor in his conversation was also theflight of his spirit before the gloomy spectre

,the

atra cura ofHorace ! I found a key to his artisticnature in the manner in which he approached theBarcarole of Chopin .

“Do you know the Barcarole ?” he asked me.“NO !

”

I will play it to you on Sunday ; but come early, before the hour my fri ends,Messrs . Davidsohn and C . F.

Weitzm ann, and some on the staffofKladderadatsch, ‘4usually drop in . This is between ourselves ; it is aninterpretation which must not be attempted before more than two people ; I will disc lose myselfto you

—I love the piece, but I seldom play it .

”

[ 9 1 ]

G r e a t P i a n o V i r t u o s os

That same day I read the Barcarole through carefully, at a music-store. The piece did not pleaseme at all ; a long composition in nocturne-style,bombastic in tonality (Fsharp maj or) and modulation ; a tower of figuration reared on an insecurefoundation ! A nd the greatest mechanical difficulties into the bargain—well, the latter were Tausig

’

s

affair !How sadly was I at fault !Tausig explained the piece, which, as an exception,he did not play by heart z—“This tells of two persons, of a love-scene in a secret gondola ; we mightcall this mise en scene symbolic of lover’s meet ingsin general . That is expressed in the thirds andsixths ; the dual character of two notes (persons)runs through the whole— it is all two-voiced

,or

two-souled . In this modulation into C sharp maj or(marked dolce sfogato) one recognizes a kiss and anembrace—that is plain enough ! When, after threemeasures of introduction, this bass solo—an easyrocking theme— enters in the fourth, and this themeis,nevertheless

,employed only as an accompaniment

throughout the entire composition ; on this lies thecantilena in two voices, and we have a sweet and

long dialogue. From the chain of double trills on,

9 9 l


How thankless undertakings of this sort usually are !How grateful we should be to Tausig for takingsuch an initiative with regard to Chopin, whosepianistic importance is by far too lightly estimated . Tausig also impressed me deeply in hisinterpretation of Chopin’s Ballade in F minor. Ithas three requirements : “The comprehension Of theprogramme as a whole - for Chopin writes accordingto programme

, to the situations in life best knownto, and understood by, himself; the exposition ofthe motives in detail, and in an adequate manner ; the conquest of the stupendous difficulties incomplicated figures

,winding harmonies and formi

dable pas sages.”

Tausig fulfilled these requirements, presenting anembodiment of the signification and the feeling of

the work . The Ballade (andante con moto, six-eighths)begins in the minor key of the dominant ; theseventh measure comes to a stand before afirmata

on C major. The easy handling Of these sevenmeasures Tausig interpreted thus : “The piece hasnot yet begun ;

” in his firmer, nobly expressive exposition Of the principal theme, free from sentimen

tality (to which one might easily yield), the “grandstyle” found due scope.

[ 9 4 ]

C a r l T au s ig

A n essential requirement in an instrumenta l vir

tuoso is that he should understand how to breathe,and how to allow his hearers to take breath—givingthem opportunity to arrive at a better understanding. By thi s I mean a well-chosen incision , the CLE

sura, and a lingering (“letting in air,”

Tausig eleverly call ed it) which in no way impairs rhythm andtime, but rather brings them into stronger rel ief;a lingering which our signs of notation cannot ade

quately express, ’5 because it is made up of atomict ime-values . Rub the bloom from a peach or froma butterfly ; that which remains will belong to thekitchen, to natural history !—It is not otherwisewi th Chopin ; the bloom consisted in Tausig

’

s treatment ofthe Ballade.He came to the first passage,— as one would ordinarily say ; the mot ive from among blossoms andleaves

,as one must say for Chopin— a figurated

recurrence Of the principal theme is in the innerparts— its polyphonic variant . A l ittle thread con

nects this with the chorale-l ike introduction of thesecond theme. The theme is strongly and abruptlymodulated, perhaps a little too much so. Tausig

tied the little thread to a doppio movimento in twofour t im e, but thereby resulted sextolets, which

[ 9 5 ]


threw the Chorale into yet bolder relief. Then followed a passage a tempo, in which the principaltheme played hide-and-go-seek.

How clear it all became, as Tausig played it ! Oftechnical difficulties he knew literally noth ing ; theintricate and evasive parts were as easy as theeasiest—I might say, easier !I admired the short trills in the left hand; whichwere trilled out quite independently, as if by a second player ; the gliding ease of the cadence markeddolcissimo . It swung itself into the higher register,where it came to a stop before A maj or, just as theintroduction stopped before C maj or. Then, after thetheme has once more presented itself in a modifiedform (variation), it comes under the pestle of anextremelyfigurate coda, which demands the studyof an art ist, the strength of a robust man—themost vigorous pianistic health, in a word !Tausig overcame this threatening group of terrificdifficulties

,whose appearance in the piece is well

explained by the programme, without the slightesteffort . The coda, in modulated harp-tones, came toa stop before afermata which corresponded to thosebefore mentioned

,in order to cast anchor in the

haven of the dominant, finishing with a witches ’

[ 9 6 ]


moulded—Tausig would have charmed Chopin,whose perfect ease in overcoming mechanical difficulties he possessed, though paired with far superiorstrength and power.Before I left Berlin, I discussed with Tausig Liszt

’sFantasia on the Don Juan motive, which calls forthe highest powers of the piano-virtuoso . Tausig

said, with noble modesty : “For a long time I couldnot conquer this piece ; not until I had returned toBach and the last Beethoven Sonatas, and studiedthem again and again, would it surrender to me .You raise no obj ection to my interpretation of theDon Juan Fantasia ? Well, I tell myself that I havenot yet conquered the difficulties, I have only at

tacked them . He only is superior to them—onlyHe! This is the secret of the impression He makes !You said in your French book : ‘He is the Paganiniof the piano ’ ; that is true, and it pleased him,

butit says far too little. Liszt exhibits in himself anabsolute mastery over the entire realm of musicalart, he is a predestined composer in the largestforms—in all ! Out Of his great diversity of gifts

,

arises his virtuosity ; Paganini never soared as highas Liszt, he stopped at virtuosity !”

In fact, Liszt’s piano-technique has been understood[ 9 8 ]

C a r l T au s ig

as a spiritualized technique, a thing apart ;— as a

new train of ideas , as a thread spun on from Bachand Beethoven to us , reaching to the compositionsofLiszt, as to the latest expression of the possibilities Ofthe piano !The great piano-Virtuosos Of the century may becompared with continents and countries .Liszt, Chopin, and Henselt are continents ; Tausig,Rubinstein, and B

’

ulow are countries .Thalberg was only the correct “gentleman-rider” of

the piano, during the forty years which seem to liea whole century behind our days !A rider, no matterhow well he sits his horse, must get Off sometimes !Thalberg rode perpetually. He called it Fantaisiethe one ou Moses, for instance ; he made music, likethe trumpeter in Kaufmann’s Museum in Dresdenblown through the air, not through the soul. Thalberg was the well-groomed piano ; who saddles a noteofhis now-a-days ? Only one of his lucubrations hasmusical promise—and that only in the beginning,the trot—his second Caprice (E flat maj or), in whichthe motive is charmingly bridled, and, at the endof the interminable performance (as the English callmusica l productions), sets off on a steeplechase andclears the fence in octave-leaps of two oc taves !

[ 9 9 ]


Thalberg said that he would undertake to play sideby side with Liszt, but that Liszt must sit behinda screen

,and must not be seen while he was at it !

Just there, and for the first t ime, Thalberg wouldhave been thrown, for Liszt’s soul would not havestayed behind the screen ! “You resemble the spiritwhich you comprehend, not me !

” Liszt might havetold him .

Thalberg was a finished man Of the world at thepiano ; the thumb of his right hand was his groom,

whom he had elevated to the exalted position ofconductor Of the melody !The shifting of the ac com

paniment to the middle range of the piano was not

the invention of Thalberg, but was introduced byBeethoven 16 in his first P iano-concerto in C major,Op . 15, Largo, which appeared in 1801 ° then againby W eber in the A ndante of his D m inor Sonata,

in his Invitation, and in the R ondo ofhis Eflat

jor Concerto.

A n oft-spoken Opinion is to the effect, that thepiano has reached its climax in Liszt and Chopin .

Every period has its raison d’

etre ; virtuosity hadhers

,and Tausig is the best evidence of this fact.

It is the same with creative work . Life being dividedbetween Church and Theatre— between the things

100


piano, never to return—they are lost in the infinitude of the Idea !Even his quartets are abbreviated symphonies, despite their quartet-like equipment .

Tausig understood how to discriminate in Beethoven ,as well as in Weber, at the piano . He played Beethoven’s A major Sonata, Op . 101, with the most charming piano-coloring ; the powerful Orchestra Fantasiain the F minorSonata, Op . 57—which is called appassionata (as though all Beethoven’s Sonatas were notappassionate !

—he performed orchestrally. He gavethe Aflat major Sonata with Pompeian coloring ;and the last Sonata, Op . 111, was colossal!Nothing is more important to the virtuoso than aproper comprehension of the tone-poet whom heundertakes to interpret. In this relation Tausig

’

s

lofty general education stood him in good stead,and his fine taste, largely the result of scientificresearch, in all things .One may say what one will, but as an authoritativemusical critic, Tausig takes an exceptional position ;our great master Liszt will, for all time, be takenas the highest standard of musical criticism .

Before I speak of my meeting with Tausig in St .

Petersburg, I must relate one more reminiscence[ 102 ]

C a r l T au s ig

of Berl in , Of that late autumn of 1868, ever-memorable by reason ofthe artist’s genial kindliness .Once when we were quite alone, Tausig made mesit at his piano, and said : “Play the highest part ofthis ; the piece cannot be known to you .

”

It was a set of short, expressive compositions forfour hands, by Schum ann .

“There, you played that exactly as He would !”

I looked up at him , confused ; on the one hand, Icould not suppose that he was quizzing me ; on theother, I appeared very foolish to myself.“I am in earnest,” he continued, “I repeat it, youplayed it just as He would !”

But there is nothing toplay, only to understand.

”

That is just it—one does not teach that to one’slady-pupils ! It quite astonished me ; those are theJourneys

—your foot-tours in Switzerland !” (He wasst ill humorous in 1868 ; when I saw him in St .Petersburg, in 1870, that phase of his character hadquite disappeared .) In a few days I appear ed withtwo books of music in my hand.

“Ah,” said he, “now you are going to take revenge

for my examination ; yes, I admit that it was anexamination . I wished to see— never mind, tel l mein what I am to be examined ? ”

103


You see : ‘Sonates progressives et agréables. Tausig laughed most heartily and asked : “What is thatto us ? ”“To give pleasure

,was my answer ; “these are little

operas in disguise,by W eber ; j ust play the bass and

listen attentively. The original is for piano andviolin ; this arrangement is by Czerny—as Cranz,the publisher in Hamburg, told me when I went tosee him about it. Sonate 1, rectius Sonatine, F maj or, A llegro ; Bafore the Gate, W

'

hitsuntide ; Larghetto ; Grandmother’s Story at the F ireplace, Bm aj or ; R ondo, amabile, F maj or, The P osthorn.

There is nothing ofall this in the music, but I willbring it out,” I said, confidently.

Tausig:“Let us begin with the fireplace.”

“Yes ! That is really very interesting ! Once more !(begged Tausig)you seem to know it very well .

”

“Twenty years offaithful wedlock !”“A nd still in love ? Well, let us go before the Gate,”

laughed Tausig.

“A lso very interest ing,” he admitted .

“But the A mabile,the Posthorn story, is nothing !”

But the little eight-measure minore ? ” I asked .

Yes ! That is by a master again !”

Sonate 2, Moderato, carattere espagnuolo, G major

, A German in Seville. A dagio, C minor, From[ 104 ]


There is one in the bass that is more important, thewhole orchestra enters there I have not neglected mypart—I shall stay below !” answered Tausig.

We played the R ondo three t imes . It is not long, onlyeighty-four measures altogether, yet howmuch thereis in it An unmortgaged country

-seat, with elves !”

Will you not have the restYes, I want the rest Of it at once,” urged Tausig.

Sonate 4, E flat maj or, Sunday, Game of Skittles.

Sunflowers by the bowling-alley . What fine,honest

folk these be, we find in measure nine and the following. R ondo V ivace, modestly illuminated garden,but stillTausig :

“But still How charmingly he accentedthe idea, beloved brethren“ Sonate 5, In the theatre. A maj or, A ndante con

moto, theme from the opera Sylvana, four-four.”

Tausig : Well now, are you ready ? ”

Very —DO you know what that is ? Weber musthave loved this theme ; he worked it into variationsfor solo clarinet accompanied by almost solo pianoforte ; that set is Op . 33, in B maj or ; this set, in A ,

is Op . 10 ; there are'

more Of the clarinet-variations ;which is the earlier work ? ”“Bara

‘

ber streiten die Stadle”

[When doctors dis106

C a r l T au s ig

agree], aptly quoted Tausig ; according to all goodmethodology, the completer work is the last, I think .

“Yes, but in our Op . 10 we have this devilishmarch-variation, Marcia Maestoso ; only the mostfinished master could write that ! The Finale sici

liano is also charmingTausig :

“This No. 5 is really too pretty !Do youknow, I have an idea ! One could arrange thesethings as a Weber Fantasia, for drawing-room purposes . I shall do it sometime !” (A thought whichshould be utilized ; one must love Weber ; Rubinstein loved him“The 6th Sonatalet is insignificant, the closingPolonaise is weak, but there ’s a pretty V ioloncellosolo, or would you call it a bas soon ? ”

Tausig :“ I should say cornet apistons !

” So scher

zoso was heSO we passed every day— unfortunately but six weeksTwo years passed ; the news that, before Easter,Tausig was coming for a concert-season, raised thegreatest interest in the compact group which formedthe musical contingent Of St . Petersburg. It was inMarch, 1870. I went directly to Tausig in the HotelDemuth, where he was staying. He greeted mekindly, but I saw that he was a changed man . A

107


cloud lay on his features ; he was no longer cheerful“You forgive me, as I see,” he said, tactfully, “because I did not go to you— I make no visits ; Ileave the hotel only to go to my concerts

,and then

not until everything is quite ready and I can seatmyself at the piano, as soon as I arrive.” He handedme a cigar. “They are the same !

” he said, with asorrowful smile. I talked directly of indifferent matters—it seemed the best course to pursue, althoughI was not yet certain of the reason . He must havethought so

, too, as he rose quickly and said : “ Imust play you your Invitation.

” He played only thepassage to which, in his arrangement of the piece,is added a motu contrario for the left hand. I wasfairly astonished at this virtuosity soaring freely,as it were

,into Space, even in a domain where I felt

so thoroughly at homeIf it amuses you

,

” he said, I can do it faster.”

This time he played the double passage pp, in afabulous prestissimo tempo, smiled, and rose.This del ivery was not natural , it was scurrilous, asMaster Hoffmann (Kreissler) was wont to say. Theartist must have been

.

grieving A t my request, however

,he played me the entire piece with his A ra

besques (the distinguishing title ofhis arrangement).108


I told him so . His answer was : “ It is pleasant that

you should praise my reading throughout, when all

your life you have played it differently !Shall youwrite about it ? ”

Certainly ! about your A rabesques in the I nvitation, I will write j ust what I now tell you . Pers onally

,and for the best ofreasons, I shall remain faith

ful to my Weber text.”

He laughed in the old manner. “Yes, it is devilishhard ! see, here, where the motus contrarias in thepassage touches minor, and yet the polished floorof the ball-room must remain as smooth and mirror-like as ever ! I have Often thought Of you,when I played it—but I shall play it much betterthis evening ; my wings grow when I play in public .You will see . A nd now, good-bye—and, like a goodfellow, don’t come here again, for I have become aninsupportable companion !” There was a touch Of

his Old Berlin humorI always go early to concerts and Opera on specialoccasions . I like to see the tribe of double-bassesgradually stretch out their long necks ; to see thewind-players fumble in their cases ; to see trumpetsand kettle-drums making ready ; the violins in conference ! What thoughts arise the while ! There is

110

C a r l T au s ig

something grand about an orchestra ! It is the Dee

mos, whence everything proceeds, and whither everything returns ; that is the cosmic idea, and the orchestra is the Church of Instrumentalism .

Such an important fraction of the civil ized populaceshould never be invited to an improvised meal, butonly to a symposium !This time Beethoven’s Eflat major Concerto was on

the programme—a worthy banquet !The fate that compels the traveller (for in largecities one always travels) brought me there one hourbefore the time. The vast interior of the Hall of theNobles in St. Petersburg (Dvorcenskaje Sobranie)usually resembles a dimly lighted crypt, at suchtimes. The hall itself was but half-l it, but alreadycompletely filled . I had not seen such a sight forforty years ! I hastened to the artists’ room in orderto tell Tausig about it ; he was not there, however,and appeared at each concert only just in time toplay.

This hall has, for the past forty years, been theOfficial meeting-place of the nobility, and is one ofthe most beautiful—if not the most beautiful —inEurope. The roof is supported on either side byrows of twelve Corinthian columns of polished white

[ 111 ]


stucco, in two stories (with gallery); there are threepillared doorways at each end

,through which one

descends into the hall by a few steps . Between thepillars hang twenty-eight great chandel iers ; fromthe ceiling hang eight more, of colossal size . Ofcourse the acoustics, amid such surroundings, arenot all that could be desired, but they are good,nevertheless . The hall is frequently used for festivals,balls

,and court ceremonies . The orchestra-platform

is built out into the hall .With this orchestra have appeared all the great music ians of Europe. Here : Franz Liszt ! Here, thegreat singers : Pasta, Viardot, Sontag (CountessRossi). Here : Vieuxtemps, Ernst, Sivori, Ole Bull .Here sang Rubini ! Here took place all the grandfunctions of musical life in St. Petersburg ; while thetwo Counts W ielhorski were leaders in taste, tendency, and a right appreciation, by virtue of theirartistic superiority— morally, not by force, andhence with the more enduring results ; for these twopatrons and artists, unique in the musical annals ofEurope

,never occupied an Oflic ial station in music.

Their followers were drawn to them organically, bynatural selection.

Rubinstein, who belonged to this great musica l pe

[ 112 ]


arrival ofthe artist. Yet, after his return from Mos

cow to St. Petersburg, he could not be induced togive one more concert .

Well, Tausig appeared upon the platform, and seated

himself before the piano, which he had brought fromBerlin . He was greeted with a storm of applause

,

such as an art ist returning home after long absence,might scarcely hope to receive.Now the Eflat major Concerto struck up !The artist was wholly oblivious of self—I saw itinstantly— that he might fully recognize the swayof his imperial mistress, Art, in one of her noblestworks !His club-strokes, meeting the onset of the orchestra,were fearful ! These were his answers to the rigorsoflife, as they affect the artistic soul !Tausig played the Concerto by heart, as he playedall his programmes . He was a rhapsodist, drunkwith the passion ofthe immortal poet !The passageswere like toys in his grasp ! I never heard a morefiery, a more manly exposition of the flame of theR ondo .

A nd how uniquely this R ondo rushed into the hall !In the delicate second theme Tausig seemed to say“It is nothing to me now ! all is over !”

114

C a r l T au s ig

In the leaps in C (in the modulation) which werelike electric sparks, he said : “This is I It was theepitome of delicacy, the most perfect elegance. Ithought ofwhat he had said in Berlin : “That concerto is my specialty .

”

He played up to that programme of the workwhich the press (Kblnische Z eitung, at thetime of the secular celebration at Bonn, expressedfar better than I could do : 18“This Concerto is a truly noble tone-poem !A ll itrequires, in order to appear in the full splendor ofits steel panoply, is a knightly player,—not one

who would strip Off its armor, and take away itsweapons

,to bring it forth clothed in a silken jacket

and soft shoes !” Tausig was this knightly player inSt. Petersburg, and the plac e of honor could scarcehave been wrested from h im in Bonn ! There hewould have playedpro GermaniaHis solo playing in St. Petersburg extended over theentire répertoire : from Bach and Scarlatti to Mo

zart and Beethoven ; from Field to Chopin ; throughWeber and Schumann

,to Liszt . A ll styles were

simple, to him ; he united in himself the characteristics of the most diverse naturesLet us sum up the attributes of the artist now torn

115


from our midst : His command of all musical resources was so great, that in this command residedthe poetry of a conqueror holding sovereign swayover material and machinery, —a poetry pecul iarand apart. His talent for the strict style (fugue, theim itative style) was unique . He played fugues, andthe like

,with the charm ofthe most charming treat

ment of the free style ; as was once said of him : Hisneatness in every part, the nuances Of his touch,made this domain popular

,generally intelligible,

universally interesting. In the fugue we confrontthe letter, into which we are to breathe the spirit ofA rt , not a subjective personality ; an artistic sub

jec tivity, in a narrow sense. Tausig possessed, ina high degree

, the power of subordinating his own

nature to the necessity of his art, so that in thefugue he was peculiarly at home. He commandedthe entire arsenal of the utmost possibilities of thepiano as expressed in the compositions Of Liszt, andwas a finished interpreter ofChopin .

In a word, he was one of the most prominent virtuosos the world has ever known, an infaillibler triumphator at the piano .

Have, animapia ! Te! amicissimum sodalem

moriturus salutat!

[ 116 ]

A d o l ph H e n s e l t

SCHOPENHAUER, who appre

hends the world, in his philosophy, asWilland Conception, once said : “The greatest

good fortune is never to have been born .

”

Never to have written may also be regarded as afairly acceptable piece of good fortune ! Th e ditticulty of writing is, that you must not only talkyou must say something ; by writing you alwaysmake more enemies than fri ends, and your gain isbut a symbolIn the Berliner Musikzeitung, Nos. 37—39 , 1868

appeared a series Of articles comprising Liszt, Chopin, and Tausig, and holding out a promise Of acontinuation, more especially because a halt wasmade before the most unique‘ phenomenon of thiscentury on the keyboard— A dolph Henselt . If wespeak of Henselt as the most un ique phenomenonon the keyboard, we now have to justify this designation by means Of internal evidence .In absolute power over every resource of the piano,and, therefore, over every style, Liszt is to be understood as cosmic— i. e ., universal . Tausig, who treatedthe apparatus, the medium, as an art in itself, leaned

[ 119 ]

G r e a t P i a no V i r t u o s o s

thereby more towards universality, than individuality. Chopin was too individual in production, to beable to express his entire individuality in reproduc

t ion , as an art ist deficient in physical command Ofthe medium . We say, his entire individuality ; for indetails of interpretation, in a natural elegance all

his own—springing from feeling, not artific ial—inthe taste and fervency of all his conceptions

,the

pianist Chopin likewise discovered incomparableindividuality of its kind, —a Polish (Sarmatian)individuality with French breeding, French manners

,with the advantages and disadvantages ofboth

nationalities .By reason of his lack Of physical power, he com

posed everything in song-style ; every detail of hiswork conforms to this style— in this art he was apastel-painter, wie noch Keiner war.

” His Ma

zurkas are the j ournal of his spiritual j ourneys intothe socio-political domain of the Sarmatian dreamworld ! There his powers Of reproduction were at

home,there dwelt the individuality of Chopin the

pianist . He represented his dream-land, Poland, inthe Parisian salons, and even dared, in the time of

Louis Philippe,to predict for his beloved country

a far-reaching political independence. Chopin was[ 120 ]


stands Henselt, a primitive German phenomenon, aGermania at the piano. Henselt is German in everything, in production and in reproduction . German

is, for us, synonymous with faithful, honest, real !A ll that is true and upright in the world, all thatlies deep

, all the deepest and noblest qualities whichlive in the human breast, may safely be called German ! But Henselt is not only German, he is, in thebest and broadest sense ofthe term, student-German ;

in his indestructible youthfulness of spirit,in his

entire exemption from social and conventional constraint, both in art and life, in his Utopian views ofl ife—the reality of which exists in the ideal ! Student-l ife is a German institution which—l ike ahappy island in the midst of the sea Of ordinarysociety—symbolizes the youth of the world (juventus mundi), as Gladstone said ofGreece This elementis a token Of true German feeling, and on thesegrounds we make an analogous application to Henselt.Therefore, when we say that, against Liszt and Chopin

,Henselt stands out as a student-German phe

nomenon such as never was before, we Obtainanother key to a better understanding of his manner. Our aim is to discriminate, to characterize.

122

A d o l p h H e n se l t

Commonplaces Of acknowledgment,— qualificationsfitting similar phenomena, will not do ; for by suchmeans neither characteristic traits nor well-groundedcomprehension can be realized ; and these alone areavailable for criticism, because they establish facts .In order to solve our problem we had to determineupon a standpoint from which to view Henselt .

We found the Germanic standpoint. We shall, therefore, first submit a small, general portion of ourobservations ; then descri be the great artist by descriptions of some of his compositions (as withWeber and Chopin) ; and close with a sketch of theartist as a man . For the life of an artist is a totalitywh ich he can abandon only in episodes

,and to which

his best impulses must ever be true—if he be agenuine artist.For the past thirty-two years 2°Henselt has lived inSt . Petersburg, where he never appears in public.Twice every year he visits Germany, but even therehe is heard only by a chosen few. Therefore it m ay

be agreeable to German readers to hear about anartist who belongs to the artistic fame of the German fatherland in such a high degree

,that if one

dared calculate and classify, one might name Henselt as the only art ist among the great pianists who

123 l


is Liszt’s equal—although in the specifically sub

jec tive domain he belongs to a more specializedsphere. Henselt alone has, first of all, the samecommand over the resources, in ful lness of tone andthe same finish Of execution ; this execution is umapproachable—above all comparison (omni creep

tione major). We do not care for comparisons,how

ever, but will criticise each of these phenomenaapart

,upon its own ground.

In his creation, in his style, in his entire personality Henselt is German, thoroughly German, withoutgeneral polish . He has his own peculiar polish, hisown peculiar finish ; he is a law and an end untohimself. By this law he departs from the good old

school,but arrives at very individual results . He

was once a pupil of Hummel— that is, if one canspeak of him as being any one’s pupil! However,every one must begin, therefore it is necessary tomention that the foundation ofHenselt

’

s executionis a very solid one . We should call it classic , had notthe term been so stupidly misused, were it not

odious to us, and did we not rather confine its application to the Greek and Roman authors according asone or the other treats his mother-tongue well or ill .We shall call Henselt

’

s mode of expression, taken as[ 124 ]


astonishment and rapture Of his chosen audience, hewould play it over, and even over again, as thoughat the command of some higher power, quite unconscious of his surroundings ! These were moments ofsupreme ecstasy, Of entire isolation from the outerworld— in which the man is no longer master of

himself, in which the artistic soul alone is active ;moments in which the artist approaches nearer tohis ideal

,which he longs with such passionate yearn

ing to reach that the outer world, his own self, andthe impression made upon his auditors, are quiteforgotten !Had he, at such moments, had a suspicionof any audience, he would gladly have had themthrown out of the window ! Such is the result ofmyobservations of the past thirty-two years !Such unconscious, rhapsodic reprises of this kindusually ran on in accelerated motion, with m odifications of form

,in a concentration of expression upon

some darling passage which was to him his R ezia,his A gatha, to whom, over hill and dale, throughfire and water

,he works his way, that with his be

loved he may sacrifice himself upon the altar of thepurest enthusiasm ! One does not experience mereenj oyment in hearing Henselt, one is intoxicatedand elevated at the same moment . A nother dis

126


tinct ive trait in Hense lt is that, in the midst of

compositions—wherever his enthusiasm seizes him,

when he soars towards his idea], he doubles thesinging melody that quite fills his heart, by humming it himself! The artist’s voice is anything butlovely, and injures the effect, as he knows right wellwhen he is told that he has been singing again ; forhe himself does not know it, or suspect it ! Never,

never have I heard such a magical cantilena flow

from the pianoforte,as in those moments when

Henselt’

s voice j oined his playing ! But even thenhe is never satisfied

,he was never happy for even

a moment . Never does Henselt say, or fee l, or th ink,with the romantic poet

A lle Wu’

nsche, alle Traume

Waren herrlich nun gestillt!

Das Verlangen war erfullt.

Fr'

o'

hlich rauschten gru'

ne Baume!

Henseltfirst appeared in St . P etersburg in the concert-season of 1838

,and since then has left us only

occasionally . I happened to be at Count W ielhorSki’s when Henselt first called there . I shall neverforget the extraordinary impression he m ade by theinterpretation of his F sharp Major Etude . It was

K aiser Oktavianus .

[ 197 ]


like an o lian harp hidden beneath garlands ofsweetest flowers ! A n intoxicating perfume was

crushed from the blossoms under his hands—soft,

l ike falling rose-leaves, the alternating sixths, which,in one and the same octave, pursued, teazed, embraced, and enraptured ! Such a charm ofrich fullnessof tone in pianissimo had never before been heardon the piano ! Aft er the delicate whisper in theprincipal theme, the Minore entered energetically,mounting from one degree of power to another

,

taking the instrument by storm—to lose itselfagain in a magic dialogue in sixths ! Thirty-twoyears have passed since then, but the enchantingpicture still l ives before the inner eye .Henselt must have perceived how enraptured wewere with his performance, for as soon as he hadfinished the piece, be commenced again at the mosttouching part of his poem,

and played it throughonce again, with modified gradations of expression .

It was like gleaning after a harvest of j oy ! Hemust have been satisfied with himself, and haverej oiced to read his instant triumph in the eyes ofconnoisseurs of such high standing as the CountsWielhorski.

In quite a different style, flowing more quietly,

”28


the old literature, which was represented in St.Petersburg by Charles Mayer,

l who in his way wasa finished, swift-fingered, smooth, but very drypianiste

-compositeur and by R einhardt,who had

studied with Field in Moscow, but resembled hismaster only in the outward part of piano ornam en

tation, not in the spirit ofhis interpretations . Mayerhimself swore by Field, and posed as his best pupil ;both these musicians understood little ofBeethovennothing at all ofWeber. Mayer had had the presumption to go over to Hummel, whose compositionspassed for the highest kind of piano-music

,in the

twenties and thirties ! Now, Hummel was but astarting-point for Henselt, through whose compositions, aside from their unparalleled interpretationby the author, a new era began : the era of lyricpersonality

,subj ective dramatic intention

,plastic

execution,bearing internal evidence of a real human

right to be. This tendency, this new salon -literature,had its origin in the good old school and belongedfrom a technical standpoint, to a straight guild ;now,

however, it had nothing more to do withschools and pedants, with pattern and routine, butturned its doctrinary ideas to account for humanity,in audience and adepts .

[ 130 ]

A d o l p h H e n s e l t:

Henselt’

s compositions seek to express emotion, and

not speculative musical ideas ; wherefore they shouldnot be judged merely from reading, but must beplayed, or heard .

The abstract idea so powerful in Schumann, forexample, is foreign to Henselt ; but nowhere in hiscompositions do we find the voids which

,in Hum

mel, hide behind passages and endless tinklings .Henselt paints pictures of deep feeling within smallframes, and his mastery of the medium enables him—through polyphony in composition, through positions, stretches, and turning to account every possibility of the piano, to give interest to compositionsin which the original idea was of slight value. It isthe most fru itful treatment of the piano, beyondwhich Liszt and Chopin were able to pass only indetails, not in essent ials . It is, rather, the same domain occupied by the Olympian piano of our day,which dom inates publicity, influences privacy, andcannot well lend itself to simplified expression ; forsuch simplicity, to receive vitality of form,

must bepaired with a proportionally greater and more primitive creative gift—one on a par with the greatestmasters of composition

,ay ! overpassing them,

afterthe delirious revel of our days in outward effect ! In

131


these days we seem to rely more upon form and out

ward appearance than on the deep musical product ion—the idea.

Time is generally the most righteous judge ofworth .

Henselt’

s compositions have held their own in thepiano-repertory for forty years . That is saying agreat deal ; that is a proof that they embody livingthought which must survive fashion and the influence of the auspicious moment— that they are, ina word

, vital thoughts— which cannot be said of

many of their contemporaries . It is not merely thefundamental expression of love-yearning, temperedby strong dash of romanticism, in Henselt

’

s compositions, but, no whit less, their tragi-dramatic aim,

which gives them value and importance. In theEtudes Eroica and Dankgebet nach Sturm , there isan amount of energy

,earnestness, and a dramatic

note,which

,before his time

,were not to be found

on the piano . Henselt is, altogether, a phenomenonunexcelled by any other of our day ; a phenomenon,in its place and period, ofequal rank with Liszt, i. e. ,

overmastering,epoch-making in art . Henselt is not

a music-spirit pure and simple,apart from the piano

forte ; he is a spirit of piano-music— belongingessentially to the piano and indissolubly bound to

132


minor, with the minor ninth (b), and the full dominant harmony (a, c sharp, e, g), whereby the en

tire diatonic minor scale of D is heard at once. A ta dinner in St. Petersburg, which Henselt gave inhonor of Berlioz, the latter spoke of this chord asa “monster” which he could not unders tand . Henselt rose from the table, opened a piano and seatedhimself— not without some irritation—on the keys

,

with the words : “It sounds something like this !” 22

Henselt says that Bach can never grow old— andthat is very true ; but the reason lies in the natureof the fugue as a conventional form, not in the superiority of the thought. Such a study of Bach asHenselt made, every day ofhis life, has never beforebeen heard of He played the fugues most diligentlyon a piano so muffled with feather quills that theonly sound heard was the dry beat of the hammersagainst the muffled strings ; it was like the bones ofa skeleton rattled by the wind ! In this manner theartist spared his ears and his nerves, for he reads, atthe same time, on the music-rack, a very thick, goodbook—the Bible— truly the most appropriate c ompanion for Bach . After he has played Bach and theBible quite through, he begins over again . The fewpeople whom Henselt allows to approach him in

[ 134 ]

A d o l p h H e n s e l t

those late hallowed evening hours, he requests tocontinue their conversation, —that does not disturbhim in the least —but the rattle of the skeleton inthe piano disturbs them, and tortures their nervesinstead of quieting them . Seated at a dumb pianowith Bach and the Bible for company, the composerofmany love-songs, of the P oé'me d’amour, the mostkeen-eared tone-reveller among virtuosi, earned hisdaily art istic bread ! One might meditate much on

this ; it is a long leap— a salto mortale— from theProphets to Theocritus and Tibul lus !Such a strange phenomenon is this artist ! - and inthese traits, to which much might be added, he is,so to speak, a second Faust-Wagner : “In truth Iknow much, but I would know all,” without contradict ing his genuine artist-nature, but confirming itin genuine German fashion .

The effect Henselt produced in St . Petersburg wasso great, that he became all at once the all-engrossing topic of conversation at the pianoforte ; beconcentrated, in his own person, the function of

instructor in all the most influential circles and atCourt, where the Empress immediately appointedhim Court Pianist . He kept Open house

,gave no

more concerts, and lim ited his consuming ac tivity[ 135 ]


to composition and to teaching— his lessons hemanaged with almost unheard-of punctuality andenergy.

His P iano Concerto in F mi nor dates from this time ;we should call it the last possible three-part Concerto —also his Trio in A minor

,which

,by reason

of the contemporary movement, stands in the constellation ofMendelssohn .

In order to hear Henselt, one had either to becomehis pupil, which was not easy, or to belong to hiscircle of intimate acquaintances— which was stillmore difficult . To the latter he played

,as he said

,

on Sunday mornings in winter for several hours,

occasions of most solemn gatherings of the faithful.These matinées at Henselt

’

s, as they were called,were most extraordinary ; the artist played one pieceafter another without halt or rest

,— often without

any interruption . He thought little about his audience, unless the foremost beauties of the city happened to be present . He appeared to regard theperformance in the light of exercises of a loftierscope—com mpopulo

— for he was always playingexercises ; for years he always had a dumb piano onhis knees, on which he uninterruptedly punished hisfingers, in company or by himself—for instance, at

[ 136 ]


price he could reasonably demand if without anyfurther trouble he would only sit down at the pianoand play, the speculator taking whatever remainedof the receipts over and above the price which heshould see fit to demand —but Henselt absolutelyrefused .

It is quite as impossible to induce him to attend aconcert given by another, or the opera ; he devoteshimself entirely to his art, to his scholars, to theCourt, to Bach and the Bible . Before Bach comes,however

,he still pursues his course of bodily health

gymnastics every evening ; forcing, in the sweatof his brow, and in spite of every fatigue and all

opposition,his hands and feet to perform all sorts

of difficult evolutions on a horizontal bar !He hadonce got a notion that it was beneficial

,and Henselt

never changes his oplnlon . These gymnastics of hishave a not uninteresting point ofdeparture.In the days of Emperor Nicholas hygienic gymnastics came into fashion through the performances ofa Swedish gymnast whose influence reached thehighest social circles . For several winters the Em

peror visited, early each morning, the manege in thepalace ofthe Prince of Oldenburg, where he, in company with the Grand Duke, the Prince, and the

138 1


Duke of Leuchtenberg, practised gymnastics . In thisHenselt, as a friend of royalty, took part . Manyyears have passed since then, and of all who metthere Henselt alone continues the exercises—a striking example ofthe persistence ofthe German nature.For the same hygienic reasons, the artist walks endless distances every day in St . Petersburg, sometimesletting his carriage accompany him , but oftener preferring to do without it .Henselt is General Inspector of the music-classesin the royal educational institutions in St. Petersburg and Moscow wh ich are under the managementof the Prince of Oldenburg. In dark Winter evenings Henselt walks quite alone from the SmolnaMonastery— one of the largest—through a peculiarly lonely part ofthe town back to his own house .No remonstrance has any effect. We told him hemight be waylaid .

“That would not be easy,” washis only answer. I am agile, I do gym nastics—andI have this life-preserver pointing to his stick .

So it will always be ; for a yielding Henselt, at anyage, is unimaginable —In those institutions Henselt

teaches whole generations of well-trained instruotresses, thus assuring generations a respectable l ivelihood for which they have not ceased to be grateful .

139


Henselt’

s great Etudes are to be considered as

poems,

“Songs without Words,” and he would surelyhave named them so had this title, brought intovogue by Mendelssohn, not already appeared. Theexpression Etude is not in thi s case to be understood—as are Cramer’s— in the sense of exercises forpiano-instruction . Everything in life is study, praetice ; we shal l never reach the end ofpractising andlearning ! But these inspirations [Henselt

’

s Etudes]assume previously finished study ; they are of thefirst rank in the mass of literature which has ap

peared under the title ofEtudes, in which Chopinculminates.Henselt

’

s Etudes are not inferior to those ofChopin,but present an essentially different emotional realm ;they move in a different social sphere, with differentforms of intercourse. If we seek to comprehend thesedifferences, we shall fathom the character of bothartist-natures and shall discover another criterionfor a proper estimate ofHenselt .

Henselt, in common with Chopin, acts with directeffect ; the effect which speculative musical thoughtdoes not need

,and which is most effective on the

piano . He shares with Chopin the peculiarity of

directing the whole power of the apparatus to the140


On the other hand, take a novel by A uerbach,Spielhagen, or any ofour best German authors . Perhaps you will not find such accomplished people asoccupy the French scene, and the forms of intercourse will not prove so charming ; the languagewill hardly be m odelled on the patterns which re

c eive French sanction ; but the characters will belongto ideality, a loftier expression of life, and not to amaterial point of view masquerading in the venaldraperies ofthe latest fashion . It is j ust so with Henselt

,who reaches his idea] from life itself— a true

German procedure. Chopin and the French exalt alife

,justified solely by convention and example, to

an ideal in which they live, and for this reason recognize therein their own artistic justification ! Thistendency is unwholesome, pathological . Howevergreat the charm which its procedures possess, whenall is told it is but a poisoning with refined poisons,a poisoning, let us say, by burning perfumed tapers,whoseflame alone is an emblem ofreal lifeThis refined and effeminate character of modernFrench literature— which is reflected , as it were, inChopin

,finds exceptions in his P olona ises, which are

(for him) the higher, more obj ective form (his Odes),and his Ballades, which are pictures in small frames

[ 14a ]


(sonnets— to which his Nocturnes, especially, be

long). Such exceptions in no wise alter the characterof the phenomenon as a whole ; one can find depths ,and genuine pearls

,even in Balzac and his epigones .

Not unconditionally, not without reservations, dowe classify either phenomenon as higher than theother ; we would only discriminate.

H . von Grimm 23 called Chopin a Weltschmerzler.

Chopin may pass for a lyric epicure ; any depreciative epithets are out of place where a noble spiri tlike Chopin is concerned, who, like Balzac, like al lthose Parisian exotics, moved in a self-constructed,self-imagined milieu (as they were wont to say), yetstill bore the unmistakable mark ofgenius .Chopin is, with few exceptions, a charming watercolor painter ; Henselt paints alfresco even whenhis subj ect appears to exclude the broader style.In the difference of their natures, in the irreconc ilable divergence between French and German civilization (guia tetem a inter ea est lies thenatural reason why Henselt does not play Chopinas that master ought to be played ; and we can

but agree with the great virtuoso, that, when one

is a Henselt, one has a right to play as one likes ,as we once heard him remark.

[ 143 ]


We spoke of Henselt’

s interpretation of Chopin,

only because the question How do you understand Chopin ? ” is one of the gravest one can putto a representative of the modern piano . In Henselt’s interpretation of the Mazurkas and the Nocturnes Chopin (and I say it from my personal aoquaintance with this rare nature) would have feltas little at home as would a Parisian in the midstof German society, because a certain free-and-easymanner is found in th is society even in its highestcircles

,and may be ascribed to the effect of German

university life, which permeates and influences allgrades of German social l ife.Henselt

’

s magnificent ly powerful art of playingshowed to advantage in Chopin’s ornamental pieces

-which are in Pompeian,not colossal style

,and

therefore refractory to a Titanic conception . W ith a

certain pleasurable consciousness of strength confronted with weakness, Henselt lets the time takethe leading part in the Mazurkas ; he uses his heavybrush for fullness of tone, where the whole fabricis crocheted and woven ; his rubato is not the Chopinrubato, it is a shifting of the tempo, not a generaldislocation of the visual angle for the phenomenonas a whole, l ike the effect of a scene viewed through

[ 144 ]


is any one performance in which the artist’s consum ing impulse for perfection was realized I believeit is this—and my opinion is the result ofyears ofobservation .

Some of Henselt’

s principal compositions are hisConcerto in F minor and the great Duo in a movement for piano and horn, in B minor. The Concertois the climax of the most brill iant concert-bravura,allied

,however, to a good musical content. What

one might be tempted to regard as passage-work,is solid thought infigurate style ; but the executionis so diflicult, that the artist was never satisfied withhis own rendering, and never publicly played thework in St . Petersburg. Neither was he ever quitesatisfied with an accompaniment . He often playedthe Concerto at his own home, and such a colossalsubj ection of the greatest difficulties (difficultieswhich have, however, a purpose) laid claim to thegreatest musical interest. The Duo l ikewise requireda master-pianist to interpret it . In our opinion it isthe most interesting in this entire l iterature

,as an

exponent of pianoforte-bravura in combination witha second instrument, with a scope gratifying to theinterest in the idea . Neither of these works is aswidely known

, as it deserves to be—but this is not[ 146 ]


caused by their technical difficulties alone ; his re sidence be ing so far removed from Germany, and hisstrong obj ection to publicity, may have had something to do with it. Hans von Bi'ilow played theConcerto in St . Petersburg, and esteemed it veryhighly. It is like an apotheosis of the old school inthe new era

,a task for the well-intentioned bravura

pianist .When Liszt came to St . Petersburg, I, with boththe Counts Wielhorski, accompanied him to Henselt’s ; we found the artist awaiting us and ready tocomply with Liszt’s particular request that he shouldplay for him . Henselt gave us first his own readingof the Weber P olac ca in E . I watched Liszt ; hisfeatures expressed a certa in astonishment. A fterHenselt had finished Liszt said : “ I could have hadvelvet paws too, if I had wished (

“J’

auraispu me

donner cespattes de velours, sij’

avais voulu !

Liszt’s approval was so unconditional that when—upon his second visit to St . Petersburg— I re

marked that Henselt had made great progress, hereplied : “Learn that an art ist such as Henselt doesnot makeprogress.

”

(“Apprenez, gu

’

un artiste, comme

Henselt, nefait pas des It was a reproof,—but it was a reproof from Liszt

[ 147 ]


Henselt’

s execution of Weber’s P olac ca is a phenom enon . It is a union of the grandest power andstrength with the greatest tenderness, in the interpretation of the poetic thought. With the very firstmeasure (trill) under Henselt

’

s hands, arises a visionof a brill iantly lighted Walhalla ; kings walk therewith fair women to whom they whisper words oflove ;—and then the Trio - Henselt published hisVariations to this inspiration of the knightly tonepoet, to this foremother of Polonaises, in St . Petersburg. There are not alone reinforcements ; innerparts

,more sonorous registers, double passages in

stead of mere threads, elevate the piece upon theshield of the Olympian present-day pianoforte, leaving to the original a certain feeling of tonal empti

ness, which, in its time, wasfullness of tone . But thethought

,the creation, of Weber, still l ives immor

tal -What Henselt has woven into the work, it islike the j ournal of his soul

,in the enj oyment of its

intercourse with Weber ! It is no improvement, noeditio emendatior, but the homage of our modernp iano— after fifty years of development— to itsemancipator. One of Henselt

’

s specialties is his interpretation ofWeber, to whom, after all, he standsin closest human affinity . But Henselt discriminates

[ 148 ]


play Weber obj ect ively, and probably no composeryields more readily to a subj ective interpretationthan Weber— whose work we understand as redeeming the sensual through the ideal. Weber is loveflirtations, French or other, are foreign to his nature If it were possible to lose Germany, weshould find her again in Der Freischiitz f—As

Weber is in Der Freischiltz, so is he in his pianomusic. Weber is the last of the knights ; he is theIdeal, ushered by the A rtist into the prosy monotony of everyday life,—that image ofWomanhood

,

which even the prosiest man of affairs, in the sackcloth and ashes of debit and credit, will not wave

Thus Henselt, his most faithful shield-bearer, inter

prets him . Henselt’

s most important interpretationsofWeber are his P olacca in E ; the Afiat majorSonata ; the Rondo of the D m inor Sonata, wherethe episode in G (with the trills in the song-figurein the bass) is expressed in a manner which I hadnot believed among the possibil ities of the pianoit always sounded to me like an unspeakably lovelyspring song —These interpretations ofWeber culm inated in the Concertstu‘ck ; to hear Henselt playthis is an event, the memory of which one carries

[ 150 ]

A d o lp h H e n s e l t

through life ! He gives it the happiest reading ; ittakes on quite a different appearance— it seems toprophesy the future of the piano as foreseen fromthe date of its composition, in the early twenties .A nd this subversion of all Hummel’s ideas of pianoplaying was accomplished by a pupil of Hummel,quantum mutatus ab illo .

’ In order to render thecontrast between then and now still more striking- to give to the affair a still more fateful appearance than it bore atfirst glance— let us add, thatHenselt has by no means ceased to be a goodHummel pupil ; that the artist does his best by thewell-known sonatas dedicated to Father Haydn,the Fantasia in Efla t (Op . the ! uintet, andthe Trios by Hummel ; yet 24 these works, fromWeber’s height, are like the toys of childhood .

Thus wonderfully is Henselt’

s nature divided between the doctrines of the good old school

,and the

acquisitions of the new He arranged the Concertstilck to be played without accompaniment— that’

is, he so successfully altered the poem that one doesnot miss the orchestra, but is carried away withadmiration of the composition . Of this

,but one

example. Before the entrance of the March pp (thereturn of the warrior— in the distance) where the

151


alluring magic of the bassoon-tone, and the hushedvibration of the stringed instruments (tremolo pp),prepare for the Marcia which ranks alone in thehistory of music,—Henselt introduces volate, shortbut magnificent forerunners of the closing presto insix-eight, which are strikingly effective and quite inthe spirit of the situation, for they foreshadow the

prestofigure— in which the lady of the castle j oyfully embraces her returning lord—Weber himselfleft us the programme of this piece (in the biography by his son).Henselt

’

s arrangements for two hands (one shouldhave at least four to play them) are epoch-makingin arrangement -literature : the three opera-overtures by Weber, several song-numbers from Der

Freischu’

tz, Oberon, and Euryanthe and the Coriolanus Overture by Beethoven . No orchestra wouldbe able to render the Oberon overture with the finenuances, with the flowingly blended euphony, withthe intricate meaning, with which Henselt imbuesthis instrumental tale ! Perfection of this kind ispossible only to Unity in the Executant, not toany group of fac tors, despite the advantage ofdissimilar tone-colors in the orchestra. This interpretation is, indeed , wholly incomparable.

152


obtains a unity and fullness of tone, and a generaleffect, by which the work gains in a high degree.The artist carries this second part in his heart—henever wrote it down . He also accompanied severalof his great Etudes on a second piano, and in St.Petersburg he had a second part to the CramerEtudes engraved . The artist considers the Etudesby Church-Father Cramer

,which contras t so strongly

with the Weber Muse, such great works of art, thathe produces them in St . Petersburg, where his predilection is well known, on two pianos as fullfledged concert-pieces ; and the secondo part so skillfully adapted to the primo (the unaltered original),that one can hardly believe they were ever playedotherwise . To us these productions of Cramer’sEtudes appear, viewed as repertory-pieces, l ike thecomments ofa philologist on a classic author. Theyare a culmen in the pedagogic fruit-garden ; froman art istic standpoint, I never enj oyed them—can

didus imperli. But how old Church-Father Cramer(Beda venerabilis) would have rej oiced to find himself so honored after a lapse of seventy years ! Howdelicately and tastefully Henselt handled them ; toinvent a second part to the polyphonic compositionsof Cramer—always so complete in themselves— is

154


a problem for the connoisseur . It is a far greaterac hievement than that of Gounod, who composeda second part to the well-known Bach prelude.Think of the variety of form and rhythm, ofexpression and conception, contained ln the CramerEtudes ! It was an opus desparatum ; the thoughtof such a work could have occurred only to a German mind—and only the greatest love for the composition and the pleasure of solving such a difficultproblem could have induced him to attempt it.On several of the celebrated Moscheles Etudes (thatin A flat, for instance), Henselt has also bestowed theblessing of the modern ‘piano, and paid the greatestcompliment to Moscheles by playing these variations to him in Leipzig. How astounded the neatl ittle man must have been (we knew him very well)to see Henselt hurl his A chi l les spear into the midstofhis compositionsThe great German artist to whom this sketch isdevoted despised ostentation and avoided publicity

,

yet he won renown in the German fatherland, andwe be lieve these hints of his experiences in a foreignland wil l— to the Germ an reader— form a welcomecontribution to the history of the piano of our day .

The compass of a book is necessary for a detailed155


description of such an important artist as A dolfHenselt .

Therefore we do not pretend to have exhausted oursubj ect, and I can but assure the friendly readerthat, to the best of our ability, we have endeavoredto draw in outlines (as the English say) one of themost remarkable artistic phenomena ofthis century.

In closing, let us glance for a moment at the out

ward appearance ofi

the artist—which is oftenermistaken for an exponent of the inner man, thanone m ight think .

When Henselt first came to St . Petersburg, he wasa perfect example ofthe German youth, of the Hun,the Germanic hero confident of success, withoutforeign polish . There was a suggestion ofSiegfried

in his character ; one could read something of theNibelungen in his deep, speaking eyes—young menand maidens have been intoxicated by reading thelegend

,both here and yonder ! Throughout Ger

many one finds many portraits of the artist takenat this period . In one especially (which is taken fullface) he looks you frankly in the eyes and you discern the romantic trait which is so prominent inhis character— the never-satisfied soul continuallystriving to reach the ideal of absolute perfection .

156


German heart, which is sufficient unto itself,courts nothing foreign ; as the romantic poetrt

Uberwunden von der Schonheit,

Will ich ewig nach dir ziehen.

Henselt’

s nature suggests an indestructible sense ofyouthfulness ; such a nature cannot grow old, itmust be and remain like itself alone. In Germanyone sees among gray-haired statesmen a like youthfulness of thought ; it is a legacy of the Germanacademic life with them, but with our art ist it isthe German soul

in dem die Welt sich,

D ie Ewige spiegelt !

Kaiser Octavianus .

[ 158 ]


ing to th e duet at the piano ; “konnt ’ ich das zu hoffenwagen ? sang every contented one

“Samiel hilf!”

was an entertaining little society cry ; “Bei den P fortender Holle

,the confirmation of every promise ; not a

nail was hammered in without : “Schelm,halt’ fest . ”

Women,who in no wise doubted th e possibility that

even an unloaded gun might go off,stood their ground

bravely for three shots in Der Freischiitz . Der Freischiitz

travelled even into the country (rus evolavit) ; everytree-trunk transformed itself at evening into the hunter“der im Dunkeln wacht. Such a union of all forces

,

all classes, all professions,as never before ! A ll had a

personal interest in Weber’s music, and the roles distributed as follows : every proprietor of an estate

,was

Ottolcar, who led in the hunt ; every forester was Kuno ;every lover of the god Bacchus was Kaspar; each and

every lover, with or without a gun ,impersonatedMac ;

the entire feminine population, were either Annche nsor Agathes without tertium comparationis. Such was our

Robin des bois ! How much of that could a Frenchmanappreciate P

Note 3

V ien qua, Dorina bella ; Theme russe ; Theme original ;and the Joseph Variations.

Note 4See Lenz : Beethoven cl ses trois styles, Sonata Op.

[ 162 ]

PJo t e s

9 6, where I endeavored to give a sketch of this curiouspianist.Note 5

Die,bird

,or eat ! [Root, hog, or die

Note 6

Supremacy.

Note 7

The term Lorette is two or three centuries old ; it hascome into vogue latterly through Alphonse Karr.Translator

’

s Note.

Note 8

Valse me’

lancolique (A minor). In the eighth measure,highe st part

,occur th e notes d (quart er) d gsharp

(quarter)over the first d ; by taking gsharp and 0,but

b to g and d sharp,a close results (one part). It has a

fine efle c t to repeat the passage at th e reprise.

See Lenz : Beethoven, eine Kunststudie,P art iv

,at Op .

9 5, p. 266.

Note 10

Compare,in this regard

,Op. 10, No. 12 ; Op. 25

,No.

7 ; Op . 34,No . 2 ; Op . 51 ; Op . 64

,No . 3 , in the Mazur

kas,—among others, Op. 33, No . 4, B minor, where the

left hand has an unaccompanied solo.Note 11

See the Signale for the Musical World (1868, Nos. 37


to wherein my musical conscience called upon m e

to take up th e cudgels forWeber.

Note 12

Humor,

a devotional,

artistic wantonness,distin

guish es the Germ an from the Southron. Of this specificracial difference the Times once wrote : “The Frenchhave no humor. That poor

,pitiful stuff of theirs

,called

wit,is nothing but thin

,sour

,blue-colored claret— a

very different th ing from the full rich port-wine flavored growth, dear to Englishmen.

Note 13

In the Neuefreie P resse of Sept. 1, 1871, in a supplement devoted to th e Bonn celebration

,Dr. Nohl c ol

le c ted, with praiseworthy zeal, some communications ofHolz

,the second violin of the Schuppanzigh ! uartet,

in the time of Beethoven,whose amanuensis h e was

,

and to whom the master revealed much. I carried on a

diligent correspondence with Holz ; h e copied for m e,

out ofh is musical diary,all the information Beethoven

had given h im relating to the lastfive quart ets—and

in these Holz had played the second violin and had,

therefore,stood next the composer. These letters

which Holz wrote m e,being a valuable source of infor

mation,I turned over to the Imperial P ublic Library

in St . P etersburg ; but the contents are given word forword in the sixth volume of my book Beethoven,

164


dent ofV ienna and P esth. My immature, but well-intentioned first book about Beethoven

,published in the

French language : Beethoven et ses trois styles (St. P etersburg

,1852

,Bernard

,2 vols. ; two pirated editions

Stapleaua'

,Brussels

,1854 ; Lavinée, P aris, was in

such demand in 1852,that through th e Austrian Em

bassy in St. P etersburg I rece ived from Frau Lingbauera Beethoven trophy— one of those ingeniously photographed groups of Beethoven relics, consisting of th e

be st bust ofBeethoven,h is Lic hnowski violin and th e

lithograph of the master at work upon his Missa Solemnis

,an autograph from the last quart ets

,and a portrait

of our good Holz . This photograph of the Beethovenrelics, so oft en copied, was one of two original largequarto photographs, and I presented it to the libraryof th e Imperial Hofsangerkapelle in St. P etersburg.

A s to th e data of Dr. Nohl which appeared in the

Neue freie P resse, I m ay say : first— that we ought atlast to leave off writing— according to Schindler and

Holz— “ l’

muvre le plus accompli,

”

as Beethoven calledtheMass in D in a letter to Cherubini

,since it should be

called la plus accomplie and here there is no reasonfor the diplomatic conservation of a grammatical error.

Secondly,- th e TenthSymphony was not, asDr. Nohl said

,

in C minor ; it was ske tched in E flat major (th e Sc herzoin C minor and C major). Holz sent m e a copy of the

166

N o t e s

sketches for it, and since the beginning of the worldthere has not been a greater intellectual loss to deplore than that of th e Tenth Symphony. Thirdly,

— the

slow middle movement in the F minor ! uartet is no extraordinary Adagio, as Dr. Nohl writes

,but an extraor

dinary A llegretto ma non troppo), and this sign ofBeethoven’s is specific

,and important to th e proper reading

of the composition. That which Dr. Nohl says furtheron : “A t night

,when th e heavens were alight with m il

lions of stars,Beethoven walked across th e fields at

Baden ; his glance swept questioningly and longinglyinto endless space ” — is more important and significantthan anything which has hitherto appeared about theimmortal quart ets ; and these communications of Dr.

Nohl are,altogether

,ofhigh value. But

,in comparison

to Beethoven’s own utterances,we all— who have la

bored with endless toil in the se sphere s—are but as

dust !

Note 14The title of a satirical publication printed in Berlin.

Note 15

Meyerbeer said : “Can one reduce women to notation ? They would breed mischief

,were they emane i

pated from the measure ! See No. 37 of the Neue

Berliner Musih-Z eitung, 1871 (“Berliner Bekannstschaf

[ 167 ]


Note 16

A fact which I think I was the first to point out (in

Beethoven,eine Kunststudie

,vol. iii ., p. 152, touching Op .

Note 17

A Russian coin,value about 77 cents.

Note 18

See Beethoven, eine Kunststudie,P art 4

,pp. 159 c l

seq. an entire little monograph—yet not so much,

after all !“In seiner Wer/cstatt traume sich der Kunstler

Z um Bildner einer schonern Welt 1"

Note 19

Schiller : Was die Mode strenggetheilt.

Note 20

These essays were written about 1868. Translator’

s

Note.

Note 31

For a proper appreciation of Henselt’

s triumph,and

of th e peculiar situation in St. P etersburg,it must be

observed,that for thirty years Charles Mayer had held

the first place in St. P etersburg, and did not lack sup

porters,and ye t was never able to play even once

before the Court (the height ofh is ambition); he finallyleft St. P e tersburg and went to Dresden

,where he

died.

168

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