Part 11 (1/2)

IV

In the autumn of 1840 Liszt went fro for some time, to the north of Germany, where he at first found the people colder than he had been wont to experience But this soon disappeared before the ers, notorious for a callous, bovine teave wild demonstrations of pleasure at his concerts He specially pleased the worthy citizens by his willingness to play off-hand, without notes, any hich they called for, a feat justly regarded as a stupendous exercise of ave nine concerts in a fortnight, and storlish public as he had already conquered the heart of Continental Europe

While in London a calaent in whom he implicitly trusted disappeared with the proceeds of three hundred concerts, an enor Liszt bore this reverse with cheerful spirits and scorned the condolences hich his friends sought to coain, that his wealth was not ins were nearly without ceasing His restless journeying carried him from Italy to Denmark, and from the British Islands to Russia, and everywhere the art and social world bowed at his feet in recognition of a genius which in its way could only be designated by the term ”colossal” It seems cumbersome and monotonous to repeat the details of successive triumphs; but some of them are attended by features of peculiar interest He offered, in the suive the proceeds of a concert to the cone (who that loves”Ilory of the Cathedral intoat the island of Nonneworth, near Bonn, and a musical society, the Liedertafel, resolved to escort hirand excursion with a great couests on a steareeted Liszt on landing, and an extensive banquet was then served, at which LisztThe artist acceded to the desire of the great congregation of people who had gathered to hear hiht into the ruined old chapel of the ancient nunnery, about which so ave a display of his wonderful powers to the delighted -deserted hall of Nonneworth chapel, which for many years had only heard the nificent music Finally the procession with Liszt at the head lided over the bosolare of fireworks and to the ne was assembled to meet them, and Liszt was carried on the shoulders of his frantic adreat hout life been a reverential adenius of Beethoven, an isolated force in music without peer or parallel In his later years Liszt bitterly reproached himself because, in the vanity and impetuosity of his youth, he had dared to take liberties with the text of the Beethoven sonatas

Many interesting facts in Liszt's life connect the these is worthy of mention our artist's part in the Beethoven festival at Bonn in 1845, organized to celebrate the erection of a colossal bronze statue The enterprise had been languishi+ng for a long time, when Liszt prole-handed, and this he did with great celerity In an incredibly short time the money was raised, and the commission put in the hands of the sculptor Hilbnel, of Dresden, one of the foreramme for the celebration was drawn up by Liszt and Dr Spohr, ere to be the joint conductors of the festival music A thousand difficulties intervened to eanization of the affair, the jealousies of proainst the self-effaceo, a certain truly Ger the money for the expenses, and the envious littleness of certain great composers and lory from the prominence of the part he had taken in the affair, But Liszt's energy had surmounted all these obstacles, when finally, only a ust, it was discovered that there was no suitable Pesthalle in Bonn The committee said, ”What if the affair should not pay expenses? would they not be personally saddled with the debt?” Liszt promptly answered that, if the proceeds were not sufficient, he hi The architect of the Cologne Cathedral was placed at the head of the work, a waste plot of ground selected, the trees grubbed up, tireat Rhine rafts, and the Festhalle rose with the swiftness of Aladdin's palace The erection of the statue of Beethoven at his birthplace, and the ust, 1845, one of theevents of its kind that ever occurred, y and es were present fro Willialand Henry Chorley, who has given a pretty full description of the festival, says that Liszt's perforlory of the festival, in spite of the richness and beauty of the rest of the progranificent piece of piano-forte playing I ever heard, Dr Liszt's delivery of the concerto in E flat Whereas its deliverer restrained himself within all the limits that the most sober classicist could have prescribed, he still rose to a loftiness, in part ascribable to the enthusiasm of time and place, in part referable to a nature chivalresque, proud, and poetic in no coree, which I have heard no other instrumentalist attain

The triumph in the mind of the executant sustained the triumph in the idea of the compositions without strain, without spasenius of the executant approach the genius of the inventor There are players, there are poets; and as a poet Liszt was possibly never so sublienuinely inspired as in that perfor in the midst of all the curiously parti-colored recollections of the Beethoven festival at Bonn”

In 1846, a Liszt's other hout Austria and Southern Geryars showed their hot Tartar blood in the passion of enthusiasm they displayed Berlioz relates that, at his first concert at Pesth, he performed his celebrated version of the ”Rakoczy March,” and there was such a furious explosion of exciteh put an end to the concert At the end of the perfor the perspiration froe, when the door burst open, and a shabbily dressedhi with tears He kissed the coain, and sobbed out brokenly: ”Ah, sir! Me Hungarian poor devil not speak French _un, poco l'taliano_ Pardon my ecstasy Ah!

understand your cannon Yes! yes! the great battle Gerreat bloith his fists on his chest, ”In my heart I carry you A Frenchman, revolutionist knorite iven after the perforot so gloriously be-chareat difficulty that he could be restrained fro a Bohe, who insisted that he could carry off more bottles under his belt than Liszt

But the latter played at a concert next day at noon ”assuredly as he had never played before,” says Berlioz

Before passing from that period of Liszt's career which was distinctly that of the virtuoso, it is proper to refer to the unique character of the enthusiasm which everywhere followed his track like the turreat players, many of them consummate artists, like Hummel, Henri Herz, Czerny, Kalkbrenner, Field, Moscheles, and Thalberg, thewhich these performers aroused was pale and passionless in comparison with that evoked by Franz Liszt This was not merely the outcome of Liszt as a player and musician, but of Liszt as a er than what he did, great as that was His nature had a lavishness that knew no bounds He lived for every distinguishedHe had wit and syentle and simple, and his kindliness was lavished with royal profusion on the scum as well as the salt of the earth This atrandeur radiated fros,peculiarly fine and fascinating And then as a player Liszt rose above his enius, a different race, a different world, to every one else who has ever handled a piano He is not to be considered areat composers, also pianists, who havemedium, but as a poet, who executively employed the piano as his means of utterance and material for creation In mere mechanical skill, after every one else has ended, Liszt had still so everyin richness of sound, he surpassed Thalberg by a variety of tone of which the redoubtable Viennese player had no dreaht stand for another Chopin in qualities of fancy, sentiment, and faery brilliancy In sweep of hand and rapidity of finger, in fire and fineness of execution, in that interweaving of exquisite momentary fancies where the work admits, in aquickness of view, enabling hi of a new coht it up properly with its own inner spirit (some touch of his own brilliancy added); briefly, in aenjoyment, over every style and school of music, all those who have heard Liszt assert that he is unapproached a players and the traditions of players

In a letter froreat virtuoso's playing and its effects Berlioz is co of orchestral concerts

After rehearsing his mishaps, he says: ”After all, of what use is such infor the mot of Louis XIV, '_L'orchestre, c'est moi; le chour, c'est s, dreaht of the most skillful forms; it has, like the orchestra, its brazen harive to the evening breeze its cloud of fairy chords and vague ing I have not to tirerehearsals I want neither a hundred, fifty, nor twenty players I do not even need any rand pianoforte, and I arand audience I showfantasies grow beneathSchubert's ”Ave Maria,” or Beethoven's ”Adelaida” on the piano, and all hearts tend toward me, all breasts hold their breath

Then corand firework, and the cries of the public, and the flowers and the crowns that rain around the priest of har beauties, who, all in tears, in their divine confusion kiss the hee drawn from serious minds and the feverish applause torn from many; the lofty brows that bon, and the narrow hearts,' It is a dreaolden dreaanini”

That such a ant in habit and opinion, courted for his personal fascination by every one greatest in rank and choicest in intellect froious youth to his ripe manhood, should suddenly cease frohest, when no rival was in being, is a remarkable trait in Dr Franz Liszt's re in Wei thirty-eight years

V