LUXE 
 
 W I L-DE.- 
 

 JlhU^;^:^^ /f^^^' 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
The 
 
 Great Piano Virtuosos 
 of Our Time 
 
 FROM PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 Liszt, Chopin, Tausig, 
 Henselt 
 
 BY 
 
 W. VON LENZ 
 
 Author of ^^ Beethoven et ses trots Styles^ and ''Beethoven^ 
 eine Kunststtidie."" 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY 
 MADELEINE R. BAKER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. Schirmer 
 
 MDCCCXCIX 
 
MUSI 
 
 Copyright, 1899, by G. Schirmer 
 
 BERKELEY 
 MUSIC LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 k M t 
 
nL3'l7 
 
 ORY OF/l/ft^-^X 
 
 TO THE MEM 
 COUNTS MICHAEL AND MATHIAS 
 WIELHORSKI 
 MY FATHERLY FRIENDS 
 
 AND BENEFACTORS 
 
 I 
 
 VOS, MUSICS PRINCIPES, 
 MORITÜRÜS SALUT AT 
 
Note 
 
 r^HE first part of the following 
 Recollections of my musical life ap- 
 peared in 1868 in the '*Neue Bei'liner 
 Musikzeitung" Tausig vcished the articles 
 collected and published separately, and cor- 
 responded with me on the subject. These 
 essays — to which I have added one on 
 Adolph Henselt — will now have a wider 
 circulation than would be possible through 
 the columns of the ''Neue Berliner Musik- 
 zeitung" 
 
 The Author 
 
 L 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 Majore cultu 
 
ranz JLiszt 
 
 ALL the great pianists of the first half of 
 the century, were personally known to me: 
 Field, Hummel, Moscheles, Kalkbrenner. 
 From the school which we now already call "old"" 
 (excluding Field, who went his own peculiar way), 
 a school which, if not founded by Hummel, was 
 at least essentially influenced by him, I came to 
 the new era of the pianoforte, to Liszt and 
 Chopin. 
 
 Liszt is a phenomenon of universal musical virtu- 
 osity, such as had never before been known : not 
 simply a pianistic wonder. Liszt is a phenomenon 
 spreading over the whole domain of musical pro- 
 duction, and creating a universal standard of com- 
 parison. 
 
 Liszt does not merely play piano; he tells, at the 
 piano, the story of his own destiny, which is closely 
 linked to, and reflects, the progress of our time. 
 Liszt is a latent history of the keyboard, himself 
 its cro^vning glory. To him the piano becomes an 
 approximate expression of his high mental culti- 
 vation, of his views, of his faith and being. "WTiat 
 does piano-playing matter to him! — ^^ Steig' auf 
 
 [1] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 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, how 
 far speculation has fathomed musical thought; how 
 it goes in the world of intellect — that is what one 
 has to learn from his playing (how else were such 
 playing possible?), and to learn for the ßrst time, 
 for one could never go so far alone. 
 His wish to become a priest rose from the inner- 
 most core of his being. It was thematic. The man 
 of 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 continuation 
 of Prophet; and Liszt was ever a prophet from 
 the beginning of his career. 
 
 When Liszt thunders, lightens, sighs on the piano 
 that "Song of Songs" — the great Bßat major So- 
 nata for Hammerklavier — by Beethoven, he coins 
 capital for mankind out of the ideas of the great- 
 est musical thinker the world has ever known, 
 who could have had no conception of such a ren- 
 dering of his Hammerklavier music; he wrote his 
 later piano-music (from Op. 100 on) for the tran- 
 scendence (viewed through the spectroscope of his 
 [2] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 orchestral conceptions at the piano) of his musical 
 thought, not of his ^^?ö;20-thought. 
 The pianist in Liszt is an apparition [Gespenst], 
 not to be compressed within the bounds of the 
 house drawn by schools and professors ! 
 The old proverb applies here: "Quod licet Jovi^ 
 non licet hovir 
 
 Nothing could be more foolish than to attempt to 
 imitate Liszt, or even to use him as a measure by 
 which 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 be 
 a professor and pattern besides ? He is the spirit of 
 the matter; he absorbs the conception. How can 
 that which is perishable hope to vie with the im- 
 perishable.'^ — This entire pianistic stronghold is the 
 material side of the matter; it was never the spirit 
 of the matter, however much spirit may have oc- 
 cupied the guest-chamber. One cannot suspend a 
 ghost as a barometer in the sitting-room! So 
 Liszt is no pattern, only the beginning, continua- 
 tion, and end! Hence, in Liszt's case, any com- 
 parison of any given performance at the piano is 
 [3] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 a priori out of the question; because he is the ex- 
 ception, because he is the prophet who has ceased 
 to be a plain citizen, in order to become a soldier 
 of 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 impor- 
 tance, that Liszt plays the piano at all. Perhaps, 
 in a higher sense (majore cultu), this is in fact 
 not the case, the piano being merely visible, like 
 the tub in Mesmer's case! It is wholly uncritical 
 to say that Liszt does this or that differently from 
 some one else; do not imagine that Liszt does any- 
 thing — he does nothing at all; he thinks, and what 
 he thinks takes on this form. That is the process. 
 Can this be called piano-playing? "Thee now the 
 body leaveth, and God the soul receiveth,"' ' for 
 now everything leads upward, onward, — excelsior! 
 Liszt, then, cannot be expected to practise scales 
 and finger-exercises, as is the custom among schools 
 and professors ! — Does the eagle practise flying? 
 he looks upwards, gazes towards the sun, un- 
 folds his pinions, and soars towards its burning 
 light! 
 
 Such is the relation of Liszt to the piano, and it 
 
 is not given to every one to follow his flight, 
 
 [4] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 thereby forgetting the unhappy instrument, the 
 starting-point ! 
 
 I will relate the circumstances which brought me 
 to Liszt, as one makes the acquaintance of such a 
 spirit in no ordinary way; one gains access to 
 him, or one does not. That is the whole matter, 
 and signifies much in either case. 
 In 1828 (forty-three yeai-s ago!) I was nineteen 
 years old, and had come to Paris to pursue my 
 studies (humamores litt er ce) on a broader scale, 
 above all to continue my work in French chan- 
 nels, and to take piano-lessons (as people used to 
 say), but with Kalkbrenner. Kalkbrenner was a na- 
 tive of Berlin, of Jewish extraction; in Paris he was 
 the Joconde of the ^aZow-piano, under Charles the 
 Tenth. He was a knight of the Legion of Honor, 
 and farmer-general of all permissible pianistic ele- 
 gancies. The beautiful Camille Mock, later Mme. 
 Pleyel — to whose charms neither Liszt nor Chopin 
 was indifferent — was the favorite pupil of the irre- 
 sistible Kalkbrenner. I heard her play from the 
 manuscript, with Kalkbrenner and Onslow, the lat- 
 ter's sextuor. It was at the home of Baron Tre- 
 mont, a tame musical Maecenas of the time, in Paris. 
 She played the piano as one wears an elegant shoe, 
 [5] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 when one is a pretty Parisian. Nevertheless, I was 
 in danger of becoming Kalkbrenner's pupil, but 
 Liszt and my good star ordered it otherwise. On 
 the way to Kalkbrenner (who plays a note of his, 
 nowadays?), as I was walking along the boulevards, 
 I read among the theatre-posters of the day, which 
 exercised so powerful an attraction, the notice of 
 an extra concert (it was already November) to be 
 given at the Conservatoire by Mr. Liszt, with 
 Beethoven's Eflat majo?- Piano Concerto heading the 
 programme. 
 
 Beethoven was then (and not only in Paris) Para- 
 celsus personified, in the concert-room. Of Beethoven, 
 at that time, I knew only that I had been fright- 
 ened by his ladder-like notes in the D major Trio^ 
 and in the Fantasia with chorus, which I had once 
 opened (and at once closed) in a music-store in my 
 native city, Riga, where more was doing in trade 
 than in music. 
 
 How astonished I should have been if some one 
 had told me — as I innocently stood before the 
 advertising-column in Paris, and learned from the 
 notice that there were such things as piano-con- 
 certos by Beethoven — that some time in the fu- 
 ture I should write six volumes in German, and 
 [6] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 two in French, about Beethoven ! I had heard of 
 the septuor. In those days Beethoven was called 
 J. N. Humjnel! 
 
 From the concert-notice, I concluded that any one 
 who could publicly play a Beethoven piano-con- 
 certo must be a remarkable person, and of quite 
 a different growth from Kalkbrenner, the composer 
 of the Fantasia Effusio Muska. That this Ef- 
 fusio was a ti^umpery piece, so much I already 
 understood, young and happy though I was. 
 It was in this manner — on the fateful Paris boule- 
 vards — that I first saw the name of Liszt, which 
 was to fill the world; — on the boulevards where one 
 fancies one is contributing one''s part to the daily 
 history of Europe when one takes a walk ! 
 That concert-notice was destined to have a lasting 
 influence on my life. I can still see, after the lapse 
 of so many years, the color of the fateful paper; 
 gigantic black letters on a bright yellow ground 
 {la coideur d'lstin^uee of those days, in Paris). 
 I drove straight to Schlesinger, whose place was at 
 that time the musical exchange of Paris, in the 
 Rue Richelieu. 
 
 "Where does Mr. Liszt live.^" I demanded, and 
 pronounced it Litz, for the Parisians never got any 
 
 [7] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 further with Liszt than Litz. That good German, 
 Rudolf Kreutzer, who chanced at one time to be 
 their best vioHn-virtuoso, they called Kretch, where- 
 fore the man to whom Beethoven dedicated his 
 great violin-sonata, Op. 47, had his cards engraved 
 thus: Rodolph Kreutzer, prononcez Bertrand. The 
 Parisians understood that; Parisians are, after all, 
 very "so,*" as Falstaff says. 
 
 Liszfs address was Rue Montholon, far away, where 
 Paris imagines that she can become a mountain! 
 What has Twt Paris imagined — and what have we 
 ever refused to believe of her? Mountain and valley. 
 Heaven and Hell — all these has she imagined her- 
 self to be! 
 
 They gave me Liszfs address at Schlesinger'^s with- 
 out any hesitation, but when I asked litz's price, 
 and made known my wish to study with Litz, they 
 all laughed at me, and the clerks behind the desk 
 giggled with them, and they all said at once: ^^He 
 has never given a lesson, he is no piano-teacher T 
 I felt that I must have said something very stupid ! 
 But the reply: ^'' no piano-teacher,''^ pleased me, never- 
 theless, and I made my way at once to Rue Mon- 
 tholon. 
 
 Liszt was at home. That was a very unusual thing, 
 [8] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 his mother told me— an excellent woman with a 
 German heart, who pleased me extremely, — her 
 Franz was almost always at church, she said, and — 
 above all things — busied himself no more with music! 
 Those were the days when Liszt wished to become 
 a Saint Simonist; when Pere Enfantin infested 
 Paris; when Lamennais wrote the Paroles (Tun Croy- 
 ant, and the Peau de chagrin of Balzac followed 
 close upon his Scenes de la vie privee. 
 It was a grand epoch, and Paris the navel of the 
 earth. Rossini lived there, and Cherubini, also 
 Auber, Hale'vy, Berlioz, and the great violinist Bail- 
 lot ; Victor Hugo, who was afterwards banished for 
 political reasons, had published his Orientales, and 
 Lamartine was just recovering from the exertion of 
 his Meditations poetiques. We should soon be in the 
 midst of the July revolution, but we were still under 
 the Martignac ministry. 
 
 Odilon-Barrot spoke C07i sordini in the Chamber, 
 Cuvier lectured in the Jardin des Plantes, Guizot 
 and Villemain in the Sorbonne; Cousin had discov- 
 ered German philosophy; Lerminier — Savigny and 
 Ganz — one ran from one to the other! Scribe was 
 doing his turn at the theatre, where Mile. Mars 
 was still playing. Dumas had, after the German 
 
 [9] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 style, given his first and best piece, Henry III et la 
 Cour, to the Theatre Fran^ais, where the fii-st per- 
 formance was repressed by the ministry, because 
 there was something in it about "LiHes.'' Paris 
 piqued herself upon possessing both the Classic and 
 the Romantic Schools, and these factions were at 
 swords' points. During the reign of Charles X., 
 there were masked balls at court, at which the 
 Duchesse de Berry appeared as Maria Stuart, the 
 Due de Chartres as Francis I.; the Duchesse de 
 Berry'^s lovely foot was much talked of, and Sal- 
 vandy said — at the Due d'Orleans"* ball in the Palais 
 Royal — "We are dancing on a volcano.'' George 
 Sand was not yet well known — Chopin not yet in 
 Paris. Marie Taglioni danced at the Grand Opera, 
 Habenek, a German master, conducted the Elite 
 Orchestra at the Conservatoire — where the Pari- 
 sians, one year after Beethoven's death, heard, for 
 the first time, some of his music. Malibran and 
 Son tag sang the "tourney" duet in Tancredi at the 
 Italian Opera. It was the winter of 1828-1829; 
 Baillot played in quartets, and Rossini gave his 
 Tell early in the New Year. 
 
 In Liszt I found a pale, haggard young man, with 
 
 unspeakably attractive features. He was reclining 
 
 [10] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 on a broad sofa, apparently lost in deep reflection, 
 and smoking a long Turkish pipe. Three pianos 
 stood near. He did not make the slightest motion 
 when I entered — did not even seem to notice me. 
 When I explained to him, in French — at that time 
 no one presumed to address him in any other lan- 
 guage — that my family had sent me to Kalkbrenner, 
 but that I came to him because he dared to play a 
 Beethoven Concerto in public — he seemed to smile; 
 it was, however, like the glitter of a dagger in the 
 sunlight. 
 
 "Play me something,*" said he, with indescribable 
 sarcasm, which, nevertheless, did not hurt my feel- 
 ings — any more, for instance, than one feels insulted 
 when it thunders. 
 
 "I will play the Kalkbrenner Sonata for the left 
 hand,*" said I, feeling that I had chosen well. 
 ^'That I will not hear, I do not know it, and I do 
 not care to know it!"" he answered, with yet stronger 
 sarcasm and scarcely concealed scorn. 
 I felt that I was playing a pitiable role — perhaps 
 I was expiating the sins of some one else, of some 
 Parisian. However, I said to myself, as I looked at 
 this young Parisian — for in appearance he was thor- 
 oughly Parisian — that he must surely be a genius; 
 
 [11] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 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 near- 
 est 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. At that time I was ab- 
 sorbed in the Invitation to the Dance ; I had married 
 it out of pure love, two years before, and we were 
 still in our honeymoon. I came from Riga, where the 
 unexampled success of Der Freischütz^ had prepared 
 the way for Weber's piano compositions, while in 
 Paris Der Freischütz was called Robin (!) des hois, 
 and was embellished by Berlioz with recitative! 
 I had studied with good masters. When I tried to 
 strike the three first A flats I found it quite impos- 
 sible to make the insti-ument give forth a sound — 
 what was the matter? I struck hard; the Aflat 
 sounded, but quite piano. I appeared very foolish, I 
 felt sure of that, but without losing courage I went 
 bravely on to the entrance of the first chord — then 
 Liszt got up, came over to me, pulled my right hand 
 off the keyboard and asked: "What is that? That 
 begins well! 
 
 [12] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 "I should think it did,*" I answered, with the pride 
 of a parish clerk for his pastor, "that is by Weber!*" 
 "Has he ^mtten for the piano, too?""* he asked, as- 
 tounded. "Here, we only know his Robin des bois!''^ 
 "Certainly he has written for the piano, and more 
 beautifully than any one else," was my equally sur- 
 prised answer. "I carry in my trunk,"*"* I continued, 
 "two Polonaises, two Rondos, four Variation-Num- 
 bers,3 four Sonatas; one of the Sonatas, which I 
 studied with Yehrstaedt in Geneva, contains the 
 whole of Switzerland, and is inexpressibly beautiful 
 — in it all lovely women smile at once — it is in 
 Aflat major — you can't imagine how beautiful it 
 is, no one has ^vritten anything to compare with it 
 for the piano, believe me.'"* 
 
 I spoke from my heart, and so con\ancingly that 
 Liszt was strongly impressed. 
 
 Presently he said in his most winning tone: "Please 
 bring me ever}i:hing you have in your trunk, and, 
 Jbr the first time in my life, I will give lessons — to 
 you — because you have introduced me to Weber's 
 piano-music, and because you did not allow youi^self 
 to be discouraged by the hard action of this piano. 
 I ordered it myself; one scale played on such a piano 
 is equal to ten on any other; it is a completely im- 
 [13] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 possible piano. It was a mauvaise plaisanter'ie on my 
 part — but why did you speak of Kalkbrenner and 
 his Sonata for the left hand? But now, play me your 
 piece (^ voire chose '') that begins so curiously. That 
 piano you first tried is one of the finest instruments 
 in Paris.''' 
 
 Then I played, most enthusiastically, the Invitation^ 
 but only the Cantilena, marked wiegend (swaying, 
 rocking), in two parts. Liszt was charmed with the 
 composition. "You must bring me that,'"* said he, 
 "we will interpret it to each other!" 
 Thus the last letter of the alphabet came to the 
 first. 
 
 In our first lesson, Liszt could scarcely tear himself 
 away from the piece. He played through the dif- 
 ferent parts again and again; tried various rein- 
 forcements; played the second part of the minor 
 movement in octaves, and was inexhaustible in his 
 praise of Weber. And what, indeed, did one find at 
 that time in the piano-repertory.? The bland master- 
 joiner Hummel ; Herz; Kalkbrenner, and Moscheles; 
 nothing plastic, dramatic, or speaking, for the 
 piano; Beethoven was not yet understood; of his 
 thirty -two Sonatas, three were played (!) — the Aflat 
 major Sonata with the variations (Op. 26), the 
 [14] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 C sharp minor quasi Fantasia, and the Sonata in 
 F minor, which a publisher's fancy — not Beethoven 
 — christened appassionata. The five last ones passed 
 for the monstrous abortions of a German idealist 
 who did not know how to write for piano. People 
 undei-stood only Hummel and Co.; Mozart was too 
 old-fashioned, and did not write such passages as 
 Herz, Kalkbrenner, Moscheies, — to say nothing of 
 the lesser lights. 
 
 In the midst of this "Flowery Kingdom^ dwelt 
 Liszt, and one must take this into account, in order 
 to grasp the greatness of the man who discovered 
 Weber and his own genius at the piano, when he 
 was but twenty years old ! 
 
 Liszt was wholly enraptured with Weber^s Aflat 
 major Sonata. I had studied it in Geneva, with 
 Vehrstaedt,'^ and expressed in my rendering the 
 true spirit of the composition. Liszt proved this to 
 me by the way he listened, by his gestures, by his 
 exclamations of approval. We were as one man, in 
 our admiration for Weber. 
 
 This great romantic poem for the piano begins with 
 a tremolo in the bass, on Aflat. No Sonata ever 
 began that way, before! It is like the sunrise over 
 an enchanted forest wherein the action takes place! 
 [15] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 The uneasiness of my master over the first part 
 of the First Allegro became so great that, before 
 I came to the close, he shoved me aside, saying: 
 "Wait — wait! what is that? I must play that my- 
 self !" — I had never before heard anything like that ! 
 Think of a genius like Liszt, but twenty years 
 old, coming into contact, for the first time, Anth 
 such a capital composition — with the apparition 
 of that Knight in Golden Armor, Weber ! 
 He tried the first part over and over again in 
 various ways; at the passage (in the dominant) in 
 Eflat at the close of the first part, he said: "It is 
 marked ligato there, would it not be better to make 
 it pp. staccato (pique)? Leggermente is prescribed 
 there, too."' He experimented in every direction. 
 So I had the privilege of observing how one genius 
 looks upon the work of another and turns it to his 
 owTi account! So we learned some special lesson 
 every day, from our two hours'* sojourn with Weber! 
 "Now, how is the second part of the first Allegro ?'" 
 asked Liszt, as he examined it. It seemed to me 
 quite impossible that any one could read at sight 
 this part through which the theme is carried in 
 crowded octaves several pages long! 
 "That is very hard,'' said Liszt, "and the Coda is 
 [16] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 still harder; to hold the whole together in this cen- 
 trifugal figure near the end (thirteen measures 
 before the close) is very difficult. This passage (in 
 the second part — of course in the principal key, 
 Aflat) we will not play staccato, that would be 
 somewhat affected (recherche) ; neither will we make 
 it liß'ato, that is too thin; we will make it spiccato; 
 let us swim between the two waters'" (nageons entre 
 les deux eaux!). 
 
 If I admired the fire and life, the spiritual passion 
 in Liszt^s production of the first part — in the second 
 part I was astounded by his confident repose and 
 certainty, the way in which he held himself back 
 in order to reserve his strength for the last attack ! 
 So young and so wise ! I said to myself; I felt dis- 
 heartened and discouraged. 
 
 I learned more from Liszt in the first four measures 
 of the Andante of that Sonata, than I had gotten 
 in years, from my earlier masters. 
 "This exposition is to be after the manner of Baillot 
 when he plays in quartet, the accompanying parts 
 are in the lifted sixteenth-notes ; but Baillot^s parts 
 are very good, you must not make them inferior to 
 his. You have a good hand, you can learn it; look 
 sharp, it is not easy — one can move stones with 
 [17] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 that; I can imagine how the piano-hussars chase 
 through that ! I shall never forget that I became 
 acquainted with that Sonata through you. Well, you 
 shall learn something from me; I will tell you every- 
 thing I know about our insti-ument.*" 
 The thirty-second-note figure in the bass of the 
 Andante (thirty-fifth measure) one too often hears 
 played as a passage for the left hand; the figure 
 should be expressed caressingly, it should be a 
 violoncello solo amoroso! So Liszt played it; but 
 lent terrible majesty to the octave-irruption upon 
 the second theme in C, which Henselt calls the 
 "Ten Commandments'" — a capital title. 
 How can I begin to express what Liszt did with the 
 Menuetto capriccioso and Rondo of the Sonata, the 
 very first time he saw these inspired compositions? 
 What was there not in his treatment of the clarinet 
 solo in the trio of the Menuetto, the modulation of 
 that cry of longing, the winding ornamentation of 
 the Rondo ! 
 
 After considering the composer's manner of handling 
 the piano, and of writing for it, one may confidently 
 say 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] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 for which the piano is the medium of expression). 
 The Mozart sonatas are cartoons for quartets, the 
 Beethoven sonatas, symphonic rhapsodies ; but the 
 noble Weber sonatas — as such — are the happiest 
 expression of the piano, in its most happy mood. 
 The piano of Weber is quite innocent of quartet or 
 symphony; it is self-dependent, self-sufficient, con- 
 scious piano, and opened the door to the New School, 
 to the treatment of the instrument by Liszt and 
 Chopin. 
 
 And has there ever been manifested greater genius 
 in the handling of the piano, than is found in 
 Weber's ^ri-^ Sonata — the one in C major.^ 
 One is astounded at this work of the year 1813 (in 
 which it was criticized by that great blindwoman, 
 the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung), a work which 
 may have been composed still earlier, — that had 
 emancipated itself in such a degree from the forms 
 controlling musical thought sixty years (!) ago, and 
 from all social and socio-political relations and con- 
 ditions in life ! For in Art we do not part the spirit 
 from the form. The paternal home, the hearth, the 
 household altar, the häusliche Jahreszeit, are the 
 motives of the Weber Sonata in C ; the youthful 
 soul thus finds expression for its impulse towards 
 [19] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 the unknown country which lies behind the narrow 
 precincts of his homely native town ! This longing 
 supplied Weber with words for his sonata-poem in 
 C, a second Glocke. 
 
 Vom Mädchen reisst sich stolz der Knabe ! — 
 is the clear meaning of the diminished chord at the 
 beginning, through which Weber's poem rushes into 
 life. 
 
 The Weber sonatas unite us to life; Beethoven's 
 relation to life — at the piano — is that of the 
 preacher to the parish. 
 
 Of Liszt's magnificent interpretation of Weber, of 
 the Alexandrian triumphal processions he made 
 throughout Europe with Weber's piano-composi- 
 tions— ^especially his Concertstiich — the world knows, 
 and future generations will talk about it. 
 I now come to a thought, respected Reader, which 
 I fancy is original, because no one else has spoken 
 it, and because it explains Liszt's wonderful manner 
 of writing for the piano as arising from esoteric 
 causes, and gives to his mechanical difficulties an 
 externally artificial appearance. 
 
 I understand Liszt's manner of writing for piano as 
 a satire on the distinctions of rank, the convention- 
 alities and absurdities of the early Parisian saloiis, 
 [20] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 which, in their pitiful puerility, through three dif- 
 ferent forms of Parisian government, I had opportu- 
 nity to note. These weak pretensions of every sort, 
 constituted in those days the difference between 
 France and Germany, and between France and the 
 fi'eer atmosphere of St. Petei^sburg, where the Artist, 
 as the epitome of culture, is equal in rank to the 
 highest -born of the land ; there, the relation of the 
 artist to the world about him, turns rather in 
 the opposite extreme, and this condition of affairs 
 is not always conducive to his own happiness. 
 The difficulties of Liszfs style are — so to speak — 
 variations upon his own Parisian theme : " Stirb, 
 Vogel, oder^rm / "' 5 
 
 Liszt tossed these technical difficulties in the faces 
 of the Parisians: — "I require no thanks, ladies,'" 
 says he ; " do this after me,*" says he, " who and 
 what are you ? " he asks. He who did not live in 
 Paris, was not to be considered as living at all. Of 
 this city Liszt was at once the scoui'ge and the dar- 
 ling. His method, hard to describe, is an expression 
 of his native, unparalleled pianistic technique, and it 
 would be a great mistake to imagine that any one 
 could ever approach such individuality, no matter 
 how thoroughly he might overcome the difficulties 
 [SI] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 of his piano-mechanism. It has been said : " Let 
 all composers assemble, and let each instrument 
 the simple chord of C major; Beethoven's chord 
 would be Beethoven !" That is the kernel of the 
 whole matter ! It is not otherwise with Liszt ; let all 
 the pianists come together and attack the Eflat 
 major Piano Concerto by Beethoven (to take this ai> 
 an example) ; Liszt's first stroke will betray the fact 
 that it is he and no other ! His phantasy (imagina- 
 tion) is imponderable ; it is disembodied ; all other 
 pianists are lost in the shadow cast by Liszt ; he is 
 a doctor like Faust^ and we are his Warier ! 
 The friendly reader of these leaves of remembrance, 
 has not my permission, after noting our criticism of 
 others, to ask : But Liszt ? 
 
 That is just my point : " That is the humour of it," 
 says Pistol ; that was our meaning — Liszt is an 
 apparition ! 
 
 Since one has to go to Rome in order to see Liszt — 
 to say nothing at all about hearing him ; — ever 
 since 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 may 
 be likened to a dead man, who fortunately is still 
 alive — a pianist he is not. In his personality, he is 
 [ 22 ] 
 
Franz Liszt 
 
 an image of our day, in which more happens than 
 formerly took place in centuries ; apart from his 
 musical hegemony,^ Liszt is one of the great intel- 
 lects of the century. 
 
 As for the explanation and proper view of Liszfs 
 particular manner of WTiting ; of himself, of his 
 favored nature, I may say : Art is the ideal Truth 
 of earthly life, she is the disembodied Truth. She 
 can exhibit hei-self in diverse ways. The difficulties 
 in Liszt are nothing external — they are a key to his 
 inmost being. Were these difficulties but outwardly 
 represented — as one but too often experiences — 
 they would remain something outward and super- 
 ficial — the clod would cling to them, and the spirit 
 would remain with the composer. 
 
 [23] 
 
Chopin 
 
 n nefaut pas s'en nourrir^ 
 mais s'en servir comme 
 cCune essence, Pascal 
 
Chopin 
 
 EUROPE, from Madrid to St. Petersburg, was 
 lionizing Liszt, when, in 1842, we again 
 found ourselves in Paris, where Louis Phi- 
 lippe had become King. Twelve years had elapsed 
 since the year 1830, when the French nation hung 
 upon the word of the Citizen King; it was, never- 
 theless, a great and stirring time, a time of ideas, 
 and Paris, through the influence she exercised on 
 manners and customs — but still more through the 
 belief, univei^sally shared, in her dictatorial suprem- 
 acy — was the central Sun in the constellation of 
 Europe. 
 
 Life had become elegantly frivolous ; under Charles 
 X. it had been simply corrupt. Then, Vice had 
 worn its livery ; now it was transformed into a 
 demi-monde^ with all sorts of socially authorized 
 titles, with the accepted grades of " Duchesse,'" 
 "Camelia,'" etc. "Grisettes"" were promoted to "Lo- 
 rettes'^ — a cognomen which, if I'm not mistaken, 
 originated with Thiers, or some gi*eat 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] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 society was wont to dwell. At that time Thiers 
 lived in the parish of the church of Notre Dame de 
 Lorette, Place St. -George, in the pleasant hotel of 
 his mother-in-law, Madame Deaune, with a small 
 garden next the street. He was, from time to time, 
 minister to King Louis Philippe — which did not 
 amount to much, and never lasted long. Thiers cer- 
 tainly did not then believe that a Revolution would 
 find it worth while to raze his house to the ground, 
 or that he, the little Advocate from Marseilles, was 
 destined to rise on the rmns^ as President of the 
 French Republic ! Iinpavidumjerient ruince ! 
 At that time — 1842 — George Sand was an estab- 
 lished fact. The whole range of Camelia literature 
 was in full bloom; Balzac thought that Paris 
 breathed an electric atmosphere ; Paris was a milieu^ 
 in which alone one could live. 
 
 In this milieu lived Chopin. Just now, however — in 
 the month of August — he was still in Touraine with 
 George Sand, living in a chateau of too diminutive 
 proportions to be designated as a " castle.'' In truth, 
 the spirit of this time, and of the Pleiades of Art 
 and Literature which it produced, was manifested 
 in wishing to appear greater than one wa,s^ and to 
 spend what one did not have at all ! The term " dis- 
 [28] 
 
Chopin 
 
 tinguished""* (le disüii^ie) took the lead, and went 
 through 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 through 
 the summer, was not "distinguished"" ! And Chopin 
 was very distinguished — not like dead-and-gone 
 Kalkbrenner, as a peacock, or a silver pheasant 
 (neither was he decorated with the smallest Legion 
 of Honor ribbon), but as a great artist^ although 
 a good, fashionable Parisian, was Chopin distin- 
 guished. In his easy, well-bred reserve, in his man- 
 ners, in his whole outward appearance, he sought 
 to be, and was, distinguished. 
 
 This time I came from St. Petersburg to Paris, 
 not from Riga, by way of Geneva. Since the Aflat 
 major Weber Sonata, I had passed fourteen years 
 in St. Petersburg, quantum mutatus ah illo! Liszt 
 was in Paris, fresh from his unexampled St. Peters- 
 burg triumph, where he — before four thousand peo- 
 ple, alone, and without accompaniment — appeared 
 in the Hall of the Nobility ; w here women of the 
 highest rank awaited him on the steps of his hotel, 
 with garlands of flowers ; where the greatest nobles 
 secured a steamboat, with choruses of singers, in 
 order fittingly to accompany the great artist as far 
 [29] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 as Kronstadt, and further — to the roadstead of 
 the Gulf of Finland, when he sailed for Germany. 
 My first visit in Paris was to Liszt, who lived in 
 Rue Blanche, not far from our Rue Montholon of 
 1828. The mother of the great artist again received 
 me most kindly, but she did not tell me, as for- 
 merly, that I "wearied her Franz," he was always 
 "in a dreadful way" after I, with my Weber So- 
 natas, had been to see him ! Her son did not attend 
 church so assiduously, he carried his church about 
 in himself, and no longer desired to become a St. 
 Simonist. 
 
 Liszt himself received me right royally. His first 
 words were: "I shall go to see you every day; 
 you live so conveniently near Schlesinger, where I 
 go so often ; I shall send you an Erard grand, and, 
 at the instrument, we will live over again the good 
 old times, especially the Weber Sonatas; I sup- 
 pose you have them with you?" 
 "In the same copy, with your notes, which I keep 
 as a holy relic — but I should like some Chopin." 
 "We will study whatever you like, only don't dare 
 imagine that you are to pay me — for no price would 
 I give lessons. I shall visit a friend ; all I ask is a 
 cup of coffee from the hotel. I will come every day 
 [30] 
 
Cho 
 
 in 
 
 promptly at two o'clock, and we will agree upon 
 afternoon and evening, as you must spend the en- 
 tire morning at the piano — I shall send you the 
 very best, I shall go myself to Erard's and select 
 one." 
 
 Those were afternoons never to be forgotten ! Liszt 
 seldom missed the hour — another mark of his un- 
 failing politeness. I see him standing in the door- 
 way of my hotel, his hat on his head, an elegant 
 Verdier stick in his hand, his spiritual, speaking 
 countenance laughing up at me ! It made me feel 
 as though / had been made king in Paris ! 
 Once I played his own arrangement of Schubert's 
 Ständchen to him. 
 
 "Give me a pencil," said he, and wrote in it : Comme 
 ncUuraliste, parfait, with Franz Liszt, in his crooked 
 signature. 
 
 "How naturallste f^ I objected, "when I have had 
 you for a teacher .P" 
 
 "Well ; you play it very well ; heartily, very heart- 
 ily, and quite faultlessly, but not like a virtuoso ; 
 and only such an one — and how few among them 
 — can play the Coda as I wish ; it is diablement 
 hard, not in the reading, but as a whole, and in 
 virtuoso-like expression. That is what I mean." 
 [31] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 We next came to Weber's Polacca in E major. 
 "There is more virtuoso work,"" said he ; "you play 
 it 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 well,'''' said Liszt, animatedly, "look 
 you, that is perfect — give me the pencil ;""* and he 
 wrote in it: Ceci est parfait — "do you see, this 
 is the antidote for the Schubert ! Where did you 
 learn that fingering? that change from the thumb 
 to the second finger, and back again [in the dotted 
 middle part on b and ^]? That is not your own 
 invention; it is good, but somewhat choppy, one 
 might come to a standstill — whose is that finger- 
 ing?" 
 
 "It is by Moscheles in London ; in the time after 
 you— 1829 !'' 
 
 "Oh ! ho ! was he so learned in Weber? Now, / will 
 play 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 capital — 
 capital ! You had not practised it, had you ? It is 
 very difficult in this cantilena; one does not get 
 that from one"'s so-called strong pupils — here in 
 [32] 
 
Chopin 
 
 Paris, never. So, keep to Weber, there is your na- 
 tive soil !'" 
 
 Then I was happy, and began to consider myself a 
 foudre de giierre at the piano ! How happy conceit 
 can make one ! Those were blessed days, those days 
 of the Weber alliance with Liszt ! 
 Since then Liszt has been happily inspired to unite 
 the serious, striking Introduction of Weber^s first 
 (insignificant) Polacca in E flat to the second Fo- 
 lacca in E, that noble ancestress of the species, — 
 to anfange the whole for piano and orchestra, and 
 so to honor the bravura repertory with an inesti- 
 mable gift. The connecting paii: between the Weber 
 Introduction and the Weber Polacca, composed by 
 Liszt, is the most tasteful and intelligent piece of 
 work one can imagine ; it is like a beautiful face 
 whose expression reveals the soul of romance ! It 
 is like the enchanted wood of Titania in the 
 midst of other forests ! It is inimitably conceived ! 
 Chopin would have wept over it ! He never soared 
 so high ! He never rose to the romantic, he re- 
 mained poetically material. He sat, a prisoner in 
 the glitter of the conventional atmosphere of Paris, 
 in its most becoming toilette of conventional 
 tenets ! 
 
 [33] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 One morning Liszt said : "It is fine weather, let 
 us go for a walk — but, what have you there for a 
 great-coat ?'"* 
 
 "A sort of tigerskin of brown velvet; I got it in 
 Hamburg ; it fits snug, and suits me." 
 "That will make you conspicuous in Paris ! / am 
 the only man in Paris who can afford to give you 
 his arm, while you wear that Hanseatic pelt ; come 
 on. We will get some macaroni at Broschi's, oppo- 
 site the Grand Opera: Rossini goes there — we will 
 sit at his table."" 
 
 As we walked along the Boulevards, and I noticed 
 how curiously the people looked after us, I under- 
 stood Liszt's remark — that he alone might dare to 
 show himself with any one wearing such a garment. 
 Chopin would never have done it, it might have 
 displeased the Sand ! So strange, so affected, so 
 small was — and ever will be — the great city of 
 Paris ! 
 
 The Weber A flat major Sonata came post tot er- 
 rores^ in its turn. "Very good, very good,'" said 
 Liszt, to the Rondo among other things — "but 
 
 still too little of the little Countess B in St. 
 
 Petersburg: the eloquent foot is wanting."' He 
 
 played the foot. I studied, and went through the 
 
 [ 34 ] 
 
Chopin 
 
 Rondo again under his hawk-eyes. "Now it is 
 right,"' said he, "the foot is there, but where is 
 the shoe ?" He played the shoe. Thus he always 
 had to say and do something, and he was always 
 right. It was the passage in the Rondo (twenty- 
 fourth and following measures) with the serpentine 
 scales in the bass in F minor. Liszt forgot it long 
 ago, in Rome. I shall remember it. 
 In Chopin's Bßat major and A minor Mazurkas, 
 Op. 7, I learned much about piano-playing in gene- 
 ral from Liszt. In both pieces he noted important \^ 
 little variants, taking the matter very seriously, es- ^^^ 
 pecially the apparently so easy bass in the Maggiore 
 of the A minor Mazurka. What pains he took with 
 me there ! "Only an ass could think that was easy,^ 
 said he; "in these slurrings one recognizes the vir- 
 tuoso ! Play it thus to Chopin, and he will notice 
 something ; it will please him. These stupid French 
 editions bungle everything of his ; these slurs must 
 run 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 Chopin still so distingue 
 
 that he was not in Paris. With the most amiable 
 
 [35] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 sympathy Liszt said to me one morning: "Now he 
 is coming, I feel sure of it, if the Sand will only 
 let him go i"*"* I said : "If he would only let Indiana 
 
 gor 
 
 "That he will not do," Liszt replied, "I know that. 
 When he is here, I will bring him directly to you ; 
 after all, ^ou have the Erard ; and we shall play, as 
 if by chance, the Onslow four-hand Sonata in F 
 minor that you are so fond of; we have already 
 played it once in Paris — in public; curiously enough 
 Chopin played the primo, — that was my idea, and 
 he'll be glad to do it again. You must have the 
 Sonata ; get it at Schlesinger's, and try to secure the 
 Leipzig edition — that is correct. In this way you 
 will most easily get lessons from him, it will arrange 
 itself — particularly now, in the beginning of the 
 season. You can't imagine how difficult it is, because 
 you don't know Paris yet. With me, for example, 
 it is nothing, but hard, so hard with Chopin ! How 
 many have journeyed all the way to Paris, and have 
 not been able even to get a glimpse of him !" 
 From the time I dared hope to hear Liszt and 
 Chopin play in my apartments, I walked on air in 
 Paris ; I was greeted in front of the music-shops ; 
 they offered me a chair every time I went into 
 [36] 
 
Cho 
 
 in 
 
 Schlesinger's — I had passed there with Liszt ! At 
 Schlesinger's I met Berlioz ; he understood little of 
 piano-music, and looked — in his blue frock-coat 
 with brass buttons, and decorated with the well- 
 earned Legion of Honor — like a musical Robert 
 Macaire ; a character whom Frederic Lemaitre suc- 
 cessfully exhibited at the Theatre of the Porte St- 
 Martin. Berlioz called Liszt le eher sublime, which 
 was considered very spirituel — people, in those 
 times, were regularly astonished if any one dared 
 to clamber over the hedge of speech. 
 When I again met Berlioz, in St. Petersburg in 
 1868, after the loss of his only son, his hope and 
 his joy, he looked like the Vicar of Wakefield at a 
 funeral ; it was no use, then, to speak to him of 
 Liszt; he had come to consider the Bflat major 
 Symphony of Beethoven the most beautiful of all ! 
 There lay the poor, suffering man (always on his 
 back) in the palace of the Grand-duchess Helena, 
 where he lived. There, at his bedside, I read to him 
 my report of the concert directed by him, and 
 given, under the patronage of the Grand-duchess, 
 by the Russian Musical Society ; and there he gave 
 me, at parting, his daguerreotype with this inscrip- 
 tion in his own hand : A Vhomme qui a su aimer et 
 [37] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 admirer!! Son frere devoue. Hector Berlioz. Berlioz 
 was unhappier than King Lear ! 
 October was here, but still no Chopin ! With trou- 
 ble and some sacrifices, I obtained an extension of 
 my leave of absence from St. Petersburg, waited 
 patiently, and was as diligent as possible at my 
 Erard. I well remember how, in that cabriolet 
 which I mounted at the risk of my neck, in order 
 to traverse the famous milieu "with the electrical 
 atmosphere ""^ in all directions, and learn it tho- 
 roughly, I used continually to practise — on the 
 wooden apron enclosing the seat — the volate that 
 Liszt had noted for me in the Chopin Bßat major 
 Mazurka — so as to "keep my right hand in." The 
 particular point was this, — instead of returning to 
 the theme, from J' to J' (an octave lower), to go 
 two octaves higher, and then fall back into the 
 lower octave, — that is, to take twelve f^s in trip- 
 lets, and by no chance to miss coming in on 
 time! Under Liszt's hands, this was a rocket with 
 its returning shower of stars, in the reprise of the 
 theme ! 
 
 I mention this in order to warn adepts never to 
 
 presume to attempt anything like it. These naive 
 
 mistakes always mislead, and make one appear as 
 
 [38] 
 
Chopin 
 
 ridiculous as is a German who tries to speak French 
 — to quote Goethe. 
 
 One evening Liszt came to see me with the excel- 
 lent pianist, Hiller, and the well-known violin-vir- 
 tuoso, Ernst. The good piano was at mi/ lodgings, 
 and plenty of music at hand. Liszt played with 
 Hiller the overture to Der Freischütz, and Ernst 
 fiddled with them with might and main. The idea 
 had come into these gentlemen''s heads that noon, 
 and Ernst had brought his violin along. It was a 
 remarkable performance. They remained for the 
 evening, and "made jokes of all kinds,"' as Liszt 
 expressed it. "Where does Cramer live?'' I asked. 
 "He has founded a Lancaster Pianoforte School,"" 
 replied Liszt ; "you cannot see him, he is never in 
 the city — he lives in the suburb of Batignolles !" 
 Cramer, who had become a millionaire in London, 
 speculated through a banker, and lost everj'thing. 
 He became an Englishman in England, and had 
 now come to Paris, which did not suit him. "Cramer 
 is a septuagenarian, leave him alone," concluded 
 Liszt; "from him you can learn nothing, since you 
 have 771^."" 
 
 I did not leave Cramer alone ; to me he was sancti- 
 fied, venerahilis Beda ! I had heard him at a concert 
 [39] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 at the Argyle Rooms, in London, in 1829 ; he played 
 capitally — the Piano-quartet in Eflat by ^Mozart 
 — with Lindley, the English violoncellist; and Franz 
 Cramer, brother of Jean Baptiste, played the violin. 
 In memory of this, I wrote Cramer a respectful 
 note ; Count Wielhorsky had met him in Rome, and 
 had told me much about him. That was the con- 
 necting-link. The author of the world-renowned 
 Audes — that hymn-book of unconfirmed pianists — 
 Church-Father Cramer, answered me, and promised 
 to come. "Now," I said to myself, "order an Eng- 
 lish dinner — all the dishes served at one time, the 
 best port wine, and all his works upon the table !"" 
 His complete works, a huge pile of music sent from 
 Schlesinger's, must have been covered with a layer 
 of dust a finger thick — but they were in good 
 condition. They contained the history of a whole 
 human life ! 
 
 I drove about an entire day in order to procure a 
 first-class English meal and port wine. Such a sin- 
 gular place is Paris ; conscious only of itself. 
 Unfortunately Liszt had already left Paris. He 
 would not have refused to play Church-Father 
 Cramer from the pile ! That would have been an 
 event, indeed ! 
 
 [40] 
 
Chopin 
 
 Cramer appeared on the stroke of seven — he had 
 wntten me that he would not be out of school any 
 earher ! I could hardly believe my eyes ! From my 
 youth up, Cramer had stood in a holy shrine at 
 Riga, and here he stood bodily before me ! I kissed 
 his hand heartily. He was embarrassed, but it had 
 seemed to me the proper thing to do. "I have but 
 this to offer you," said I, and led him to the tower 
 of his assembled works. 
 
 "Are all those mine ?^^ he sighed ; "have I written 
 all that ? ^Mio is acquainted with it now ? But I 
 am glad, I am very glad" — he shook my hand in 
 English fashion. We spoke French ; English seemed 
 out of place to me, unless Cramer had begun ; and 
 German is not a language fitted to Paris ; Parisian 
 penetrates into eveiy nook and cranny of life, 
 there ! 
 
 Dinner was served. Everything English^ even plates 
 and glasses ; he noticed it at once. "Do you live in 
 English fashion ?" he demanded. "It is a little at- 
 tention to vou !" I replied. That seemed to please 
 him. "There was a time when I drank such wine," 
 said he, as he tasted the port, "but where did you 
 find it here ? Aux Trois Tetes de Mores, that is 
 said to be the only place where one can find good 
 [41 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 porto, in Paris. Some one told me of it, it is an 
 American firm — strange city, this Paris, is it not ? 
 I do not like it, I should have done better, had I 
 gone to Germany, but the climate here agrees with 
 me ; I have already been here some years, and am 
 too old now to go further." 
 
 Cramer was sparing of words and answered always 
 quietly and deliberately — moderato. When I asked 
 him about Chopin, he said : "I do not understand 
 him, but he plays beautifully and correctly, oh ! very 
 correctly ; he does not allow himself to become 
 careless, like other young people, but I do not 
 understand him ; Liszt is a phenomenon, neither 
 does he always play his own compositions. I do not 
 understand this modern music." 
 The atmosphere at table was depressing — why.'' 
 Cramer seemed to me to cling too closely to the 
 past, for the present to have any interest for him. 
 I, sitting opposite to him, seemed so insignificant 
 and young — with my thirty-three years ! After din- 
 ner, however, Cramer became more talkative; I 
 made a diversion with the Erard, and asked him to 
 allow me to play to him his first three studies. He 
 sat down by me, in the friendliest manner — and so 
 I took, de Jacto, lessons of J. B. Cramer ! 
 [42] 
 
Chopin 
 
 I should never have allowed myself to dream of 
 such a thing in my young days ! Vehrstaedt of 
 Geneva plaved the Etudes as repertory-music ; with 
 him I had studied the third in D major, with the 
 intricate fingering, all carefully slurred, with a full 
 cantilena, as a prayer, as a slumber-song — what you 
 will. Cramer said : "From me you have nothing to 
 learn. Those are exercises ; do you play such things 
 for pleasure ?'' 
 
 "Indeed I do !"" I opened the Etude in F with the 
 triplet-figure in eighth-notes. "See here! What a 
 pastoral !'^ I spoke of Henselt in St. Petersburg, 
 who played the Etude so wonderfully. It seemed to 
 please him. 
 
 At my request, Cramer played the first three 
 Etudes. It was dr}', wooden, harsh ; with no canti- 
 lena in the third one, in D major, but rounded and 
 masterly. The impression I received was painful, 
 extremely painful ! Was that Cramer ? Had the great 
 man lived so long, only to remain so far behind the 
 times .^ I did my best to prevent the appearance of 
 any sign of my disillusion ; I had, however, entirely 
 lost my bearings, and did not know what to say ! 
 I asked him if he did not think an absolutes Ligato 
 indicated in this third Etude? He had cut short 
 [43] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 off the notes in the upper part, and had paid no 
 attention whatever to binding the notes in the bass 
 — I could not beHeve my eyes and ears ! 
 "We were not so particular," answered Cramer; 
 "we did not consider that of great importance, 
 these are only studies : I have not your modern ac- 
 cents and intentions. Clementi played his Gradiis 
 ad Parnassum just so — it was good enough fof us, 
 and no one has ever sung more beautifully on the 
 piano than Field, who was a pupil of Clementi. My 
 pattern was Mozart, no one has ever composed 
 better than he ! Now I am forgotten ; I'm a poor 
 teacher of the rudiments in a suburb of Paris, where 
 they study the Bertini Etudes, I must even teach 
 Bertini myself ! You can hear it any time you will 
 — eight pianos going at once V 
 I spoke of Hummel, who dedicated to Cramer his 
 Pianoforte Trio in E major ; I said I thought the 
 theme of the first part fine, but nothing comes of 
 it, except smooth passages. 
 
 "Next to Mozart, Hummel is the greatest composer 
 for 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, so 
 that nothing remained in the room save only J. B. 
 [ 44 ] 
 
Chopin 
 
 Cramer. I drew forth his four-hand Sonata in G 
 major (with the Adagio in C). I had loved to play 
 it with my Hfe-long friend Dinglestaedt, in the 
 happy days of my youth ! Cramer wondered that I 
 should know it — he had to look it over again, him- 
 self, then played the bass clumsily and roughly, so 
 that all that remained to me was the honor of hav- 
 ing' sat next the composer ! I had never, but once, 
 in my life, experienced so great a disenchantment 
 with so famous an artist : Beethoven's pupil, Ferdi- 
 nand Ries, whom I heard in Frankfort-on-Main, in 
 the summer of 1827 ; he was a woodchopper at the 
 piano. 
 
 Cramer had a thick-set figure, a full, ruddy coun- 
 tenance, and dark brown eyes; he had the appear- 
 ance of an Englishman, and English manners. 
 Considering his old age, he was extremely vigorous. 
 "I am a good walker,'' said he, "I walked all the 
 way from Batignolles to Paris."^ He stayed until 
 late in the evening, selecting one and another of his 
 oldest compositions, and playing parts of them. 
 " I don't remember that ! I don't know this any 
 more," were his words. I listened with the greatest 
 reverence^ but I could not be reconciled to his 
 treatment of the piano. It was repulsive. On tak- 
 [45] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 ing leave, he said : " Receive the blessing of an 
 old man ; I owe you an evening such as I had 
 never hoped to enjoy again. I wish sincerely that 
 it may bring you happiness. And so you say, I am 
 not quite forgotten ? "*"* 
 
 "The great virtuoso Henselt plays your Etudes as 
 repertory -mw^Xc, in St. Petersburg; in my native 
 city, Riga, the Etudes lie upon every piano — they 
 will never perish ; they alone rank with The Well- 
 tempered Clavichord as a Book of Wisdom ; they 
 have never been equalled, and, like Bach's work, 
 can never be laid aside ! "" 
 
 I spoke from my heart. That Cramer had visited 
 me, 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 have 
 been the case had he lived in Germany ! Cramer is 
 a 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 VAJricaine. His 
 arrival was an event in Paris. 
 
 Liszt had left his visiting-card with me, with the 
 
 following words for Chopin wTitten upon it : Lais- 
 
 sez passer, Franz Liszt. "Present this at Chopin's,"" 
 
 [46] 
 
Chopin 
 
 he told me ; " you might never succeed in seeing 
 him at all without a lalssez-passer ; that is the 
 custom among authors and artists of the first rank, 
 we cannot afford to lose our time. About two 
 o'clock, go to the Cite d'Orleans, where he lives — 
 where, also, live the Sand, the Viardot, and Dan- 
 tan*" — [the famous caricaturist, who drew a pic- 
 ture of Liszt playing the piano with Jour hands]. 
 " In the evening, these people assemble at the house 
 of a Spanish countess, who is a political refugee. Per- 
 haps Chopin will take you there ; but do not ask him 
 to present you to the Sand, he is very mistrustful ! " 
 "He has not your courage, then.?*" 
 " No, he has not, pauvre Frederic ! *" 
 
 At last I could go to Chopin ! 
 
 The Cite d'Orleans was a new structure of large 
 proportions, with a spacious court, — the first under- 
 taking of this description ; a collection of apart- 
 ments, with numbers, and a name (Cite), is always 
 popular with Parisians. 
 
 The Cite lay behind the Rue de Provence, in the 
 fashionable quarter of Paris. It looked aristocratic 
 — and that was and is the end and aim of every- 
 thing there ! 
 
 [47] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 I gave Liszt's card to the servant in the anteroom ; 
 a 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 repeated : 
 " Deliver this card, I will attend to the rest."' Chopin 
 soon came out to me, the card in his hand ; a young 
 man, of middle height, slim, haggard, with a sad, 
 though very expressive countenance, and elegant 
 Parisian 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 stood 
 before him as before a monarch. — "What do you 
 wish ? Are 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 regard 
 as a Literature ; I have already studied several of 
 them with Liszt "*" — I felt that I had been incau- 
 tious, but it was too late. 
 
 "So .?■''' said Chopin, deliberately, but in his most 
 amiable 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 elegant 
 little watch from his pocket ; " I was going out — 
 I had forbidden the door to any one, pardon me ! '"* 
 [48] 
 
Chopin 
 
 I found myself in the same painful position which I 
 had experienced thirteen years before, with Liszt ; 
 another examination ? After Liszt, though, I felt 
 I need fear no one, and I had come from St. 
 Petersburg — I went without further ado to the 
 piano, and opened it as though I were quite at 
 home. It was a Pleyel ; I had been told that 
 Chopin never used any other instiTiment. The 
 Pleyel has an easier action than that of any other 
 Parisian manufacture. I struck a chord before seat- 
 ing myself, in order to get the depth of touch, — 
 le giie, I called it. This, and the mot, seemed to 
 please Chopin ; he smiled, leaned wearily against 
 the piano, and his keen eyes looked me directly in 
 the face. I ventured only one glance towards him, 
 and then boldly struck up the B flat major Ma- 
 zurka, the typical one, to which Liszt had noted 
 the variants for me. 
 
 I got through well ; the volata through the two 
 octaves went better than ever before, the instru- 
 ment ran even easier than my Erard. 
 Chopin whispered engagingly : " That ti'ait is not 
 your owTi, is it ? He showed you that ! He must 
 have his hand in everything ; well ! he may dare — 
 he plays to thousands, I seldom to one! Very well, 
 [49] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 I will give you lessons — but only twice a week, 
 that is the most I ever give; it will be difficult 
 for me to find three-quarters of an hour."" He 
 looked again at the watch. "What are you read- 
 ing? With what do you occupy yourself in gen- 
 eral?'' That was a question I was well prepared 
 to answer: "I prefer George Sand, and Jean 
 Jacques, 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 are ini- 
 tiated — so much the better. Only be punctual, 
 everything goes by clockwork with me, my house 
 is like a dove-cote (pigeonnier). I see already that 
 we shall be congenial ; a recommendation from 
 Liszt means something; you are the ßrst pupil 
 he has recommended to me — we are friends, we 
 shall be comrades." 
 
 I always went to him long before my hour, and 
 waited. One lady after another came out, each 
 more beautiful than the others; once it was Mile. 
 Laure Duperre, the Admiral's daughter; Chopin 
 always accompanied her to the stairs — she was a 
 most lovely woman, tall and straight, like a palm- 
 tree. To her Chopin dedicated two of his most im- 
 portant Nocturnes (C minor and F sharp minor. Op. 
 [50] 
 
Chopin 
 
 48); she was, at that time, his favorite pupil. In 
 the anteroom I often encountered Httle Filtsch, 
 who, unfortunately, died young. He was then but 
 thirteen years old — a Hungarian genius. He under- 
 stood, he played Chopin! At a soiree at the house 
 of the Duchesse d'Agoult, Liszt said, of Filtsch, in 
 my presence : " When the little one goes on the 
 road, I shall shut up shop." I was jealous of 
 Filtsch, Chopin had eyes only for him. He gave 
 him the Scherzo in Bflat minor (Op. 31) ; he had 
 •forbidden me to touch the piece, saying that it 
 was too difficult — he was right, too — but he per- 
 mitted me to stay when they played it, so I have 
 often heard this charming work in its highest per- 
 fection. Filtsch also played the E minor Concerto; 
 Chopin accompanied at a second piano, and in- 
 sisted that the little fellow played it better than 
 himself; I did not believe it! But such was he; 
 he had little physical strength, but no one could 
 approach him in grace and elegance, and if he 
 embellished, it was always the apotheosis of good 
 taste. Only in his earlier years had Chopin given 
 concerts, and won a place in Paris beside Liszt. 
 That is saying much ! Now he played only once a 
 year, semi-publicly, to a select circle of his pupils 
 [51 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 and adherents, among the flower of the highest 
 society, 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 temble time for me; I do not like pub- 
 licity, but it is a duty I owe my position. For two 
 weeks I shut myself up, and play Bach. That is my 
 preparation ; I do not practise my own composi- 
 tions.'' 
 
 Chopin was the Phoenix of intimacy with the piano. 
 In his Nocturnes and Mazurkas he is unrivalled, 
 downright fabulous. His Mazurkas were Heinrich 
 Heine's songs on the piano ! When I told him so, 
 he played abstractedly with the chain of his little 
 watch, which he always kept on the piano during 
 lessons so as not to overstep the three-quarter hour, 
 which passed so quickly ! 
 
 "Yes, you understand me," said he. "I listen with 
 pleasure, when you play something of mine for the 
 first time, for then you give me ideas ; if you pre- 
 pare yourself, it is not at all the same — it is then 
 mediocre." 
 
 "Liszt said the same thing to me," escaped me. 
 "Then I do not wonder that you agree with me," 
 [62] 
 
Chopin 
 
 was his piquant and piqued rejoinder. With 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 a 
 new pianist of the first rank to each one of them.'"* 
 "Liszt is always right,'' answered Chopin ; "do you 
 think that / am satisfied with my own interpreta- 
 tion of the Mazurkas.^ A few times I have been 
 satisfied — in those yearly Concerts, when I have 
 been uplifted by the appreciative atmosphere of 
 the hall. Only there must I be heard, once in the 
 year — the rest of the time is for work ! There is 
 that Valse vielancoUqiie — you will never in your life 
 be able to play it, but because you understand the 
 piece, I will write something in it for you.'"^ 
 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 any 
 need to write !'' He went as far as that! that was 
 his way ! How prone is Genius to be deluded by 
 woman ! How far higher Chopin stood ! Chopin will 
 be played when not a line by George Sand will be 
 read. What has this woman, so overrated in France, 
 ever ^vritten, of an imperishable nature? But Cho- 
 pin's Pindaric Hymns of Victory, the Polacca in 
 [53] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 A flat major (to mention this alone), are immortal ; 
 they will always belong to the best literature of the 
 piano, 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 for 
 the poisonous plant, perhaps because but one side 
 of his literary 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 every 
 criminal case put the question : "Where is the 
 woman ? I don't see the woman !" 
 I managed with Chopin as one would with a woman, 
 whom one wished, above all things, to please. With 
 Liszt / did not manage at all, he managed me^ and 
 just exactly as he pleased. Chopin said to me, in 
 one of his confidential moods : "I have but one 
 fault to find with you ; that you are a Russian !^ 
 Liszt would never have said that ; it was one-sided, 
 narrow — but it was a key to his nature. He often 
 made 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 Du- 
 perre, he answered : "Ah — she pleased you ! I in- 
 troduce no one ! You have nothing to learn from 
 [54] 
 
Chopin 
 
 her, you play my things in Weber style, and have 
 learned something from Liszt."" Liszt would not 
 have answered so, he would have said: "When do 
 you wish to go ?" To be sure Chopin added, by way 
 of excuse: "In a few days I must play the A flat 
 major Sonata of Beethoven (Op. 26) to some Rus- 
 sian ladies ; I promised to do so. I pray you, come 
 with me, it will be pleasant for me to have you. The 
 ladies will send their carriage for me, and we shall 
 drive en princes.'''' 
 
 Can'iages played an important part in the life of 
 this strange city — even in this circle ! 
 The Russian ladies were the ideally beautiful Baron- 
 ess Krlidner, and her charming friend, the Countess 
 Scheremetjew ; I had been well known to them in 
 St. Petersburg ; they never failed to be present at 
 the Sunday matinees at Henselt's, and at all other 
 musicales at the home of Count Wielhorski. 
 As we drove along the Boulevards, I spoke to Cho- 
 pin of Henselt. ''He would be glad to hear you !" 
 "/ no less glad to hear him !" answered Chopin, 
 heartily. "Will he not come here sometime.?'" One 
 must always come — the Parisians never went! 
 The Baroness** talented daughter was a pupil of 
 Chopin's, also the young Princess Tchernischow, 
 [55] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 daughter of the Russian Minister of War. Chopin 
 dedicated his Prelude in C sharp minor, Op. 45, to 
 her. 
 
 As we rolled over the Boulevards in the luxurious 
 interior of a St. Petersburg caleche, with liveried 
 servants 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 sit 
 side by side in the brilliant sunlight of beautiful 
 Paris !" 
 
 Chopin had been sent for, to play the Beethoven 
 Sonata — the Variation movement. 
 How did Chopin play Beethoven's Op. 9ß? He 
 played it well, but not so well as his own composi- 
 tions ; neatly, but with no contrasts — not like a 
 romance, mounting from variation to variation. 
 His mezzo voce was a whisper, but he was unap- 
 proachable in his cantilena, endlessly finished in 
 coherency of construction — ideally beautiful, but 
 womanish! Beethoven is a man, and never ceases 
 to be a man ! Chopin played on a Pleyel — at one 
 time he would never give a lesson on any other in- 
 strument ; one had to have a Pleyel ! Every one was 
 charmed ; I, too, was charmed — but only by his tone, 
 by his touch, by his elegance and grace, by his abso- 
 [56] 
 
Chopin 
 
 lutely jmre style. As we drove back together, I was 
 quite sincere when he asked my opinion. 
 "/ indicate^'' he remarked, without any touchiness, — 
 "the listenere must finish the picture."" 
 When we returned to the house, he went into a 
 small cabinet which adjoined the drawing-room, to 
 change his clothes. I seated myself at the Pleyel. I 
 felt I owed Liszt something, and played the Beet- 
 hoven theme so as to express an autumn landscape, 
 with a dash of summer sunlight ! with the three 
 well-graduated, very intensive Crescendos in the 
 five consecutive A flats (sixteenth-note groups). 
 Everything that was in it, came forth, even to a 
 sudden halt before the gruppetto in thirty-second 
 notes ! Chopin came at once from the cabinet, and 
 sat down near me, still in his shirt -sleeves. I played 
 well, and glowed like a coal ; it was a sort of chal- 
 lenge, but not intentionally so ; I but spoke w^ith 
 myself. At the Thema, I stopped, and looked him 
 quietly in the eyes. He laid his hand on my shoul- 
 der, and said : " I will tell Liszt. It never occurred 
 to me to play it like that, but it is fine. But must 
 one always speak with so much passion?"' — "It is 
 no drawing-room piece, it is the life of a human 
 being,""* I replied ; " Rochlitz has wTitten a novel 
 [5T] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 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 Aspi- 
 ration, are no longer dotted, and are played in the 
 middle. But what do you not do with the groups of 
 triplets in the last variation ? If I could only learn 
 that of you ! But that would be impossible, that is 
 a part of your nature, and belongs to your pecu- 
 liar management of the instrument ! '^ 
 We talked much of Beethoven, for the first time. 
 He never cared very much for Beethoven ; he 
 only knew his great compositions, nothing at all 
 of his last works. That was in the air of Paris ! 
 The Symphonies were known there ; the Quartets 
 but little — the later ones, not at all. The Morin 
 Quartet Society was formed later; Paris was al- 
 ways decades behind Germany. 
 I told Chopin, among other things : In the F minor 
 Quartet Beethoven had divined Mendelssohn, Schu- 
 mann, and him [Chopin] ; the Scherzo prepared one 
 for his Mazurka Fantasias; this did not mean, in 
 the least, that he had borrowed from Beethoven ; 
 Beethoven embraced all within himself — a univer- 
 sal genius like that, anticipates future epochs in 
 this way.9 
 
 [58] 
 
Chopin 
 
 "Bring me that Quartet,"*' said Chopin, "I do not 
 know it.'"* I brought it. He thanked me repeatedly. 
 I also brought Weber. He did not appreciate him ; 
 he spoke of "Opera,"" of " unklaviermassig"" [bad 
 piano-style] ! — In general, Chopin was far from 
 comprehending the German spirit in music, though 
 I often heard him say : " There is but one School, 
 the German.'''' The build of his compositions is Ger- 
 man, not French ; he bears Bach in mind. Of many 
 examples, 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 in 
 imitative style. They do him much credit. They 
 are more fully worked out than usual — they are 
 sonnets, 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 from 
 E major to F major was the same as that in the 
 Agatha Aria of Robin des hois (compare, in the 
 C major Sonata of Weber, the Trio of the Menu- 
 etto in E major, eight measures before the close). 
 "I do not know the Aria, though I have heard 
 it — show it to me.'' When I brought him the Aria 
 and Sonata he said : " I did not know that any- 
 [59] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 thing like this had ever been written ! "' " And 
 think how long ago Weber wrote them,"'' I an- 
 swered, "the Sonata in 1813, the Freischütz in 
 1820!" 
 
 I tormented Chopin most, with the famous Nocturne 
 in E flat major. Op. 9, dedicated to the lovely Ca- 
 mille Pleyel. He, like Liszt, was very sensible to 
 the charms of women. 
 
 Deux coqs vivaient en paix, une poule survint : 
 Et voilä la guerre allumee. 
 Amour! tu perdis Troie ! 
 
 The Nocturne is simply a perfected Field, grafted 
 on a more interesting bass ; in 1842 it was in the 
 full bloom of fashion ; now it is superseded by the 
 later, the higher forms in Chopin — more especially 
 by the Duperre Nocturnes, Op. 48 (C minor and 
 F sharp minor). 
 
 When Chopin was pleased with a scholar, he, with 
 a small, well -sharpened pencil, made a cross under 
 the composition. I had received one, in the Noc- 
 turne (premier chevron); next time I came, I got 
 another. I came still another time. "Do please let 
 me alone,'' said Chopin, "I do not like the piece at 
 [60] 
 
Chop 
 
 in 
 
 all [because he had already soared beyond it]; there, 
 you have another cross, more than three I riever give. 
 You cannot do it any better V 
 
 "You play it so beautifully,*'' I ventured, "can no 
 one else?"" "Liszt can,*" said Chopin, drily, and played 
 it to me no more. He had noted in it some very im- 
 portant little changes for me; his notes were clean, 
 small, and sharp, like English diamond type. 
 In the Cite d' Orleans, where Chopin lived, lived also 
 Dantan, George Sand, and Pauhne Viardot. They 
 assembled in the evening, in the same house, in the 
 apartment of an old Spanish countess, a political 
 emigree. All of which Liszt had told me. Chopin 
 took me \vith him once. On the staii^ he said: "You 
 must play something, but nothing of mine — play 
 your Weber piece" (the Invitation). 
 George Sand said not a word when Chopin intro- 
 duced me. That was uncivil. For that reason, I im- 
 mediately sat do^vTi close to her. Chopin hovered 
 round like a frightened bird in a cage, he saw that 
 something was coming. Was there ever a time when 
 he was without apprehension in her presence ? At 
 the first pause in the conversation, which was con- 
 ducted by Sand's friend, Madame Viardot (I was to 
 become well acquainted with this great singer, later, 
 [61] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 in St. Petersburg), Chopin took me by the arm, and 
 led me to the piano. Reader ! If you play the piano, 
 you can picture to yourself how sorely I stood in 
 need of courage ! It was a Pleyel upright, which, in 
 Paris, passed for a pianoforte ! I played "The In- 
 vitation" fragmentarily ; Chopin shook me by the 
 hand ; George Sand did not say a word. I sat down 
 by 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. Petersbui'g 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 a 
 country where slavery exists,*" she answered shortly. 
 (Je ne m'abaisserai jamais jusqu'ä un pays d'es- 
 claves !) 
 
 This was indecent, after she had been discourteous. 
 "After all, you may be right, not to come,"" I re- 
 plied, in the same tone : "you might find the door 
 closed against you ! I just thought of Kaiser Niko- 
 laus.'*'' George Sand looked at me, astounded ; I 
 looked steadily back, into her beautiful, big, brown 
 cow-eyes. Chopin did not seem displeased. I under- 
 stood every motion of his head. 
 [62] 
 
Cho 
 
 in 
 
 Instead of answering, George Sand rose, and strode 
 like 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 enormously thick Trabucco cigar from 
 her apron-pocket, and called back, into the drawing- 
 room : ^'Frederic, unßdibiis r 
 
 I felt insulted in him — my great lord and master; I 
 understood Liszt's remark : Pauvre Frederic ! in all 
 its bearings. 
 
 Chopin obediently brought a fidihus. 
 After the first abominable whifF of smoke, George 
 Sand favored me with a question : "I suppose I 
 could not even smoke a cigar in a drawing-room 
 in St. Petersburg P"' 
 
 "In no drawing-room, Madame, have I ever seen a 
 cigar smoked,'^ I answered, not without emphasis, 
 with a bow ! 
 
 She looked at me sharply, the thi-ust had struck 
 home ! I looked quietly around at the fine pictures 
 in the salon, each one of which was lighted up by 
 a separate lamp. Chopin had probably not over- 
 heard us, he had retm-ned to the table, where our 
 hostess sat. 
 
 [63] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 Pauvre Frederic! — how sorry I was for him — the 
 great artist ! 
 
 The next day, M. Armand, the portier of my hotel, 
 said to me : "A gentleman and lady have been here 
 — I told them you were not at home, — you did 
 not say you wished to receive visitors. The gentle- 
 man had no card, but left his name/' I read : Chopin 
 et Madame George Sand. I quarrelled every day for 
 two months, with M. Armand. 
 Such are the Parisians ; one must know beforehand, 
 if one is to have visitors — and it nearly always hap- 
 pens, 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 should 
 have made him. 
 
 Chopin said to me, during my lesson : "George Sand 
 [Mme. Dudevant was always so called] went with 
 me to see you — what a pity you were not at home ! 
 I regretted it very much. She felt that she had been 
 rude to you ! You would have seen how amiable she 
 can be ; you pleased her very much ! '' 
 The Spanish countess probably had a hand in that 
 visit ; she was a woman of distinction, and she may 
 have reproved George Sand for her rudeness to me 
 [64] 
 
Cho 
 
 in 
 
 — I thought. I drove to call upon George Sand ; 
 she was not in. I asked: "What is Madame pro- 
 -3erly called — Dude van t .'''" "Ah ! ]\Ionsieur, she has 
 many names,"^ was the concierge's answer. 
 From that time on, Chopin was particularly com- 
 plaisant to me. I had pleased George Sand! That 
 was a diploma. George Sand had considered me 
 worthy the honor of a visit ! That was promotion I 
 Liszt or Chopin — humanity is the same everywhere. 
 "You are approved/' Liszt had said to me a month 
 earlier, referring to a Parisian lady of the highest 
 rank, whom he had always wished to please, and 
 had always succeeded in pleasing! But I had only 
 told the lady of Liszt's triumph in St. Petersburg, a 
 thing he could not very well do himself. 
 Herein we all resemble one another — hicjacet homo! 
 — The following incident was entirely characteristic 
 of Liszt. After I had told the above-mentioned lady 
 the story of Liszt's triumph, she had invited me — 
 simply out of courtesv — to plav Weber to her. 
 Liszt found me still at the piano, and said: "You 
 replace me also at the piano" — (Vous mefaites done 
 des queues au piano?) half in jest, half in earnest, as 
 always with him — and as always with everything in 
 Paris! 
 
 [65] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 I have already touched on the altogether charming 
 — but not ^eat — style of Chopin'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 was 
 taking my lesson with Chopin. I had never seen him 
 before. Meyerbeer was not announced ; he was a 
 king. I was just playing the Mazurka in C, Op. 33 
 — on only one page, which contains so many hun- 
 dreds ; I named it the "Epitaph of the Idea" — so 
 full of grief and sorrow is this composition — the 
 weary flight of an eagle ! 
 
 Meyerbeer had seated himself; Chopin let me play on. 
 " That is two-four time," said Meyerbeer. 
 For reply, Chopin made me repeat, and kept time 
 by tapping loudly upon the instilment with his 
 pencil ; his eyes glowed. 
 "Two-four," Meyerbeer repeated quietly. 
 I never but once saw Chopin angry ; it was at this 
 time ! A delicate flush colored his pale cheeks, and 
 he looked very handsome. 
 
 "It is three-four," he said loiully, he, who always 
 spoke so softly ! 
 
 "Give it me, for a ballet for my opera (VAfrkahiey 
 then kept a secret), I will show you, then r 
 [66] 
 
Chopin 
 
 "It is three -four,'''' almost screamed Chopin, and 
 played it himself. He played it several times, 
 counted aloud, and stamped the time with his foot 
 — he was beside himself! It was of no use, Meyer- 
 beer insisted it was two-four, and they parted in 
 ill humor. It w^as anything but agreeable to me to 
 have witnessed this little scene. Chopin disappeared 
 into his cabinet without saying a word — the whole 
 thing had lasted but a couple of minutes. I in- 
 troduced myself to Meyerbeer, as the friend of his 
 friend. Count Wielhorski in St. Petersburg. "May 
 I take you home?'" he kindly asked, as he stood 
 on the platform in the court, where his coupe 
 awaited him. We were hardly seated, when he be- 
 gan: "I had not seen Chopin in a long time, I love 
 him dearly ! I know no pianist like him, no composer 
 for piano like him! The piano is intended for deli- 
 cate shading, for the cantileiia, it is an instrument 
 for close intimacy. I also was a pianist, once, and 
 there was a time when I aspired to be a virtuoso ; 
 come and see me, when you come to Berlin — we 
 are now^ comrades; when people meet under the 
 roof of such a great man, it is for life." Meyer- 
 beer spoke German, and so heartily! He pleased 
 me far more than the Parisians; but Chopin was 
 [67] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 right. Though the third beat in the composition 
 referred to is slurred over, it no less exists, but I 
 took good care not to press this point against the 
 composer of Les Huguenots. 
 Et adhuc suhjudice Iw est ! 
 
 When I met Meyerbeer in Berlin, twenty years later, 
 the first thing he said was : " Do you still remember ? 
 It was during your lesson that I interrupted/' 
 " You hurt his feelings ! What must Chopin have 
 felt, when i/ou denied the triple rhythm to a compo- 
 sition which is substantially founded on that rhythm 
 — and then consider his irritability V^ 
 "I did not intend to be unkind," said the great man, 
 good-naturedly, " I thought he wished it so !*" 
 That which particularly characterized Chopin's play- 
 ing was his rubato, whereby the rhythm and time 
 through the whole remained accurate. "The left 
 hand," I often heard him say, " is the conductor, it 
 must not waver, or lose ground ; do with the right 
 hand what you will and can." He taught : "Suppos- 
 ing that a piece lasts a given number of minutes ; it 
 may take just so long to perform the whole, but in 
 the details deviations may occur !" 
 But I heard Chopin's rubato better defined, by Liszt, 
 at Weimar in 1871 — as I heard from his distin- 
 [68] 
 
Cho 
 
 in 
 
 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 ruhatoT 
 In the fluctuation of the tempo, in this "Hangen 
 und Bangen'' — in the ruhato of his conception, 
 Chopin was ravishing; every note stood on the high- 
 est degree of taste, in the noblest sense of that term. 
 When he embellished — which he rarely did — it was 
 always a species of miracle of good taste. In his 
 entire make-up, Chopin was not fitted to interpret 
 Beethoven or Weber, who paint along great lines 
 with great brushes. Chopin was a painter of pastels, 
 but an unrivalled one. Contrasted with Liszt he 
 might stand on an honorable equality with him — as 
 his wife. The grand Bflat major of Beethoven, Op. 
 106, and Chopin, are mutually exclusive. 
 About this time there lived in Paris a pianist by the 
 name of Gutmann; a rough fellow at the piano, but 
 with robust health, and a herculean frame. Through 
 these physical endowments, he impressed Chopin — 
 the Sand also extended to him her protection. Cho- 
 pin praised Gutmann as the pianist whose interpre- 
 tation of his compositions was most grateful to him ! 
 [69] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 That was strong! He said "he had taught himself.'"' 
 That was stronger, he^ a giant! The Scherzo in C 
 sharp minor, Op. 39, is dedicated to Gutmann, and 
 Chopin certainly had his prize-fighter fist in mind, 
 when he composed it, for no left hand can take the 
 chord in the bass (sixth measure, d sharp, y sharp, g, 
 d sharp, y sharp), least of all Chopin's hand, which 
 arpeggio'd over the easy-running, narrow-keyed 
 Pleyel. Only Gutmann could "knock a hole in a 
 table "''* with that chord! I heard him at Chopin's; he 
 played like a porter; so does Genius allow itself to 
 be deluded, when its own weaknesses sit in judg- 
 ment ! To the little Filtsch, and me. Gutmann was a 
 horror; we derided him; he learned absolutely no- 
 thing 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 more 
 was ever heard of this Gutmann — he was a dis- 
 covery 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, hy 
 Franz Liszt, it is called; a speaking title. It was 
 published in 1845 by Escudier, in Paris, and the 
 entire edition was sold out. I was unable to procure 
 [70] 
 
Chopin 
 
 a copy, either in Berlin, Leipzig, or St. Petersburg, 
 whither a great number of them had been shipped 
 — I had to read it by snatches, in the library of 
 Count Wielhorski. It has been repeatedly asked for 
 in Paris, but always in vain. 
 
 George Sand speaks of Chopin in her book, " Un 
 hiver au midi de V Europe T it is a description of 
 her sojourn in Minorca, with Chopin, whom the 
 Parisian doctors had sent to the Balearics, he being 
 already dangerously ill with consumption. She does 
 not mention his name, she speaks of him as V Artiste. 
 That is singularly secret ! It is not depreciating, but, 
 for so great an artist, neither is it sufficiently appre- 
 ciative; it is simply, yooZwÄ/?/ Parisian! How could 
 a French nature understand Chopin? A Sand could 
 never take a loftier flight in music than: ^'Jouez- 
 moi quelque chose, Frederic! unßdibus, Frederic!^'' etc. 
 V Artiste was caught in a web, to which the spider 
 was not lacking ! 
 
 The compositions of Chopin opened a new era for 
 the pianoforte. They run the risk, through lack of 
 knowledge of the master's style of playing, of his 
 intentions, of his views concerning the pianoforte, of 
 remaining misunderstood; because there is infinitely 
 more in the playing of them than appears on the 
 [71 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 printed page. In expressing the inner soul of the in- 
 strument, and in their treatment of the same, they 
 must be ranked above Weber. They went a step 
 further. They maintain a first place in piano-litera- 
 ture. They occupy the plane of ideas of a Novalis, a 
 Heine. They cannot be "arranged'' for any other 
 instrument; they are the Soul of the Piano. They 
 are less in touch with general musical ideas than 
 with piano-id^as. They are often great works in 
 small frames — they are elegiac — lyric — on the 
 standpoint of their creator's nationality; yet they 
 are ideal, they are imperishable in the history of 
 musical thought. 
 
 It is not my purpose to discuss the compositions of 
 Chopin; it would be impossible to do so, within the 
 small compass of these pages. A pamphlet is not a 
 book. Only a book would suffice to give a complete 
 picture of such great personalities as those of Liszt 
 and Chopin, those Dioscuri of the modern piano- 
 forte. Such a picture would necessarily include a 
 complete historical view of art and literature as it 
 was in the thirties and forties. The writers of that 
 day were Balzac and Hugo, Dumas and Sue, Guizot 
 and Villemain; the painters, Ary Scheffer and Dela- 
 croix; the composers, Cherubini, Rossini, Halevy 
 [72] 
 
Chopin 
 
 and Berlioz. They all belong to that historic view of 
 civilization. 
 
 Only in this focus of light could the forms of Liszt 
 and Chopin appear in life-size. 
 
 In comparison to the later condition of French af- 
 fairs — the total Napoleonic eclipse — the days of the 
 Louis Philippe regime were a great epoch. ''Notre 
 voix avait tin son eclatant quelle a perdu,'''' Jules 
 Janin wrote me, at St. Petersburg in 1853. 
 Musical literature is a concrete form of the ac- 
 tivity of universal mental culture, and hence a 
 min'or of the life, amid whose conditions it had its 
 origin. 
 
 The works of Chopin are no exception ; even Chopin 
 is a son of his time, and only through the history of 
 that time will he be understood. One can make an 
 absolute estimate of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and 
 Beethoven, but not of Weber, even. 
 Let us glance at the compositions of Chopin. We 
 must exclaim : so much in so little! in barely sixty- 
 four authentic opus-numbers, of which the "first 
 steps'*' are a negligeable quantity. — And yet so much 
 in the domain of Mind ! 
 
 AVhat could one not say about the finished technique 
 
 of Chopin.'^ in which regard he even ranks above 
 
 [73] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 Weber! ^Vhat cannot one say about his style of 
 
 writing, his harmony, his modulation, his treatment 
 
 of the piano in general, and especially of the left 
 
 hand?^° 
 
 Chopin's tone-color is like that of Raphael ! He is 
 
 the Raphael of the piano — though one must not 
 
 seek his Madonnas in the churches — but in Life! 
 
 [74] 
 
a r 1 T a u s i g 
 
 Dem Mann muss Musih- 
 
 feuer aus'm Kopf schlagen — 
 
 Rührung passt für Weiber 
 
 Beethovex 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 SELDOM has a death excited such universal 
 sympathy as did that of Carl Tausig, cut off, 
 like Chopin, at the very height of his artistic 
 career, in the strongest period of his musical develop- 
 ment ! 
 
 People who formed no part in the musical 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 but 
 once, every one spoke of the sad death in Leipsic, as 
 though it were one of their own near and dear ones 
 who had entered the spiritual life. How much more 
 must this have been the case in Germany ! 
 There was but one opinion of Tausig, even among 
 the envious! — unfortunately there are such among 
 us 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 appearance 
 among us, make a lasting impression. To these few 
 belonged Tausig. 
 
 [77] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 In the late autumn of 1868 I was on my way 
 towards Europe's stronghold of Reason, Berlin — 
 wdth the purpose of hearing Tausig. I was leaving 
 behind 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 thoughts 
 concerning the greatness of the composer of Der 
 Freischütz in the theatre, and at the piano, that I 
 was too preoccupied in arranging them to take pre- 
 cautionary measures against the harvest-wind blow- 
 ing across the stubble, and felt ill by the time we 
 reached the lines of lamps which told me that we 
 were nearing Berlin; in contrast to the dimness of 
 the Saxon nights, these lights appeared like an illu- 
 mination in honor of some royal event ! Berlin's cali- 
 ber already began to assert itself. 
 My artistic friend, the General -Intendant, Herr von 
 Hülsen, had promised to give, that evening — at my 
 request — Der Freischütz, from which I had not been 
 separated for the past forty years. He wished to no- 
 tice my little polemic concerning the performance of 
 this manifestation of German Mind, so he had given 
 orders that my observations should be considered; 
 he particularly asked: "We surely have not four 
 [78] 
 
Carl Tausi 
 
 g 
 
 trombones in Der Freischütz?'''' At Dresden, the in- 
 troduction of the tuba in Weber's music struck me 
 Hke a cuckoo's egg — quite anti-Weber in effect. No 
 tuba, m'lrum spargens sonuni, but with the sugges- 
 tion, not the real introduction of the wind-instru- 
 ments, as in Mozart's Requiem.^^ 
 Herr von Hülsen had kindly offered me his box, and 
 the fatality which attends a traveller brought me 
 there long before the time. I raised the gi'een screen 
 and looked down into the orchestra, where but two 
 people appeared in the semi-darkness, a viola and a 
 clarinet. Said the viola to the clarinet: "Look sharp 
 now ! draw back w ell on the dominant in the Over- 
 ture, as we have been told; he is already here" — 
 pointing out my hiding-place behind the screen. 
 That was caliber: the consideration of a possible 
 truth which he had not grasped! 
 I was soon quite ill, and obliged to keep my room. 
 I wTote Tausig, whom I did not personally know, to 
 say how much I regretted my inability to call upon 
 him. In but a few hours a young man, somewhat 
 under middle height and delightfully unaffected — 
 stood before me. "I am Tausig; as you were unable 
 to come to me, I came to you — I will come twice 
 every day, if I can. You are of Liszt's household, so 
 [79] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 am I — we are comrades, and I am at your command 
 while you are in Berlin."' Chopin did not receive me 
 in this manner; this was Berlin, not Paris! That was 
 German cordiality, no conventional iciness about 
 that — and yet Tausig occupied the same position 
 in Berlin, as did Chopin in Paris. " 
 "Shall I send you a piano ?" he asked. "I have some 
 very good ones." 
 
 I was soon able to visit him in the Taubenstrasse, 
 where he lived. The first time I went he was not at 
 home. I told the maid I would await her master, and 
 made my way directly to the bookcase in the first 
 room. On the handsome bindings in the first row 
 I 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 examined one book 
 after another until I came to Arthur Schopenhauer, 
 when Tausig laid his hand on my shoulder saying: 
 "Good books, are they not .^ They are my favorites 
 — and they are not for show, I read them often! 
 Down here are my 'naturals' — (he spoke jestingly 
 of the natural histories) — but your book is also 
 here; do you not believe me? — here it is.'' 
 "Have you read it ? — truly ?" 
 
 He hesitated a moment, then looked me frankly in 
 [80] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 the eyes and said: "I have read the French one; it 
 made a fearful row at Liszt's.'^ 
 
 "That is the poorest one/' I repHed; "read the Ger- 
 man one — but only the last volume is for you — the 
 contemplation of the last works — for instance the 
 A major Sonata, Op. 101 ; Holz and others in Vienna 
 supplied me with some hitherto unknown particulars 
 concerning it."" 
 
 "The A major is in that? It is my favorite. That 
 shall be 'taken care of.' I will read it to-day." He 
 took down the book, and laid it on the table in the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 We Ment into the next room, where the first piano 
 presented itself. On this the Quasi-Fantasia in C 
 sharp lay open. "A pupil has forgotten this,'"* said 
 Tausig. 
 
 "Did you know that that should be played only in 
 a room draped in black ?" 
 "No, I did not know that, at all!'' 
 "Holz ^\Tote me about it, he knows it; Beethoven 
 confided to him that he improvised the Adagio while 
 sitting beside the coi-pse of a friend in a room hung 
 with black." 
 
 "That is just lovely!" laughed Tausig, in his humor- 
 ous manner; "if a pupil ever again torments me with 
 [81 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 it, I shall ask: 'Is your room hung with black, noth- 
 ing but black? Not otherwise.' '""^ 
 In this, my first visit, the piano played no part, I 
 avoided it purposely. Tausig said: "Well, we have 
 always known each other, and you shall come every 
 day. If you should hear a piano-racket when you 
 come in, that's the pupils ! Escape into my study — 
 there stands my best piano, there you will find 
 scores, the newspapers and, / think, the best cigars 
 in Berlin. If you still hear the din, you must play 
 against it; that is what I do, for other people give 
 lessons at my house — I am collective, you see; but 
 I can't stand it long; only one more lustrum, and 
 I'm off to the University to amuse myself with the 
 study of philosophy and natural history, and to live, 
 as far as possible — without a piano. Will you come 
 with me.'' What do you think of Heidelberg? Berlin 
 is wearing, have you not yet noticed that? But I 
 am very fond of Berlin — still — only five more yeai-s 
 of this 'collective' business, and I shall say: ^Jo- 
 hanna geht, und nimmer kehrt sie wieder P"^ That 
 was characteristic of Tausig — how far removed from 
 the brazen bonds of fashion in Paris ! 
 At my second visit, Tausig played me the A major 
 Sonata, Op. 101 — as I had never before heard it; 
 [82 J 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 the fii-st movement became an idyl; his handling of 
 the 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 intention — 
 but 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 the 
 movement so that I could hear the guitars, and said: 
 "But our legato is better, let us keep to the grand 
 style — Beethoven was no painter of genre-pictures 
 — I will now play you Chopin's Aflat major Polo- 
 naise — it is a little specialty of mine!'** 
 I never heard this triumphal, stupendously difficult 
 piece in such perfection, played with such easy mas- 
 tery over, or rather, with such complete oblivious- 
 ness to, the mechanical difficulties. The Trio, in de- 
 scending octaves for the left hand, aroused an aston- 
 ishment to which I gave unstinted expression: 
 "That is beyond everything!'' I cried, "how can you 
 play those octaves so evenly, so sonorously — in that 
 [83] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 furious tempo? Murmuring pianissimo, thunderous 
 fortissimo P""* 
 
 "I told you that it is a specialty! Look, my hand is 
 small, and I hold it still closer together; my left 
 hand is so formed that it runs by itself over the four 
 degrees, e, £? sharp, c sharp, b — it^s a kind of lusiis 
 naturae'''' (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; you 
 can't play them so loud."*' I tried it. "See! see! very 
 good, but not as loud as mine, and after a couple of 
 measures you are tired — and so are the octaves! I 
 do not think any one else can play this passage just 
 as I do — but how few understand it! It is the 
 tramp of the horses ift the Polish Light Cavalry !"" 
 To me, the supreme artistic moment was the ex- 
 position 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 Polonaise^ Liszt in Beethoven's 
 Scherzo, Op. 106, and Henselt in Chopin's A viinor 
 Etude; these are the Amazon streams of the piano, 
 they overspread its entire extent, and are inimi- 
 table!'' 
 
 [ 84 ] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 Tausig answered: "No mortal can vie with Liszt; he 
 dwells upon a solitary height!"^ 
 "Do you also play Weber ?'' I asked. 
 "I do not like to. I do not care to expose my in- 
 most self to the public, and that is what Weber 
 demands, does he not ? I play for the sake of Art, 
 and I believe that when I have satisfied her, I have 
 also satisfied mankind! The Co)icertstücJc, however, 
 I have often played, but it is not within my prov- 
 ince, like Beethoven'*s E ßat major Concerto — that 
 is my specialty; I shall play that at my debut in St. 
 Petersburg. The Philharmonics have written for me 
 — who are they.^ I shall play at their concert, and 
 will give my own self.'"* 
 
 "The Philharmonics, as you call them, are a society, 
 an old society, of St. Petersburg musicians who give 
 two concerts yearly, in the Hall of the Nobles, for 
 the benefit of their widow^s and oi-phans.'' 
 "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 (Tausig smiled 
 slyly), which one ordinarily does in moderation. 
 One reads Beethoven, has read him often, will read 
 him again and again. The actual Beethoven lives 
 in the Grchestra.'"* 
 
 [85] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 "About Weber,"" said Tausig, "I have designs on 
 the Invitation ; I wish to work on it, and should like 
 to talk with you about it. At my house we should 
 be often disturbed. I frequently can find a free hour 
 in the midst of my business, if you would wait for 
 me ? there are suitable meeting-places."" 
 I proposed the Maison Doree on Unter den Linden. 
 There we met and talked undisturbed. I admired 
 the modesty of the gi'eat artist; his eagerness to 
 hear about Chopin, whose acquaintance he had never 
 had the opportunity to make, and yet whose works 
 he interpreted as no other could ! 
 I told Tausig of Chopin's peculiar treatment of that 
 innocent Nocturne in Eflat, Op. 9, No. 2. 
 "That is interesting,"' said Tausig, "I will play 
 through the bass with hath hands, myself; that is 
 the place for the guitar — that shall be 'taken care 
 of.""" 
 
 But he was most interested in the fact of Chopin 
 being so critical and hard to please in the first four 
 measures of the great C minor Nocturne (Op. 48, 
 No. 1, Lento) — apparently so simple. In the second 
 measure occurs the sixteenth-note figure r/, c flat, J\ 
 g. The point was, to glide from this g to r, in the 
 third measure. Chopin was never satisfied with this. 
 [86] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 He said to me: "It is possible for you to do this, 
 so you must do it.*" At last I was able to satisfy him, 
 but it took a long while — sometimes the g was too 
 short, and changed to the c too quickly — some- 
 times it was just the other way. "There is a mean- 
 ing in it,"" Chopin said. It was just as difficult to 
 please with the lifting of the c before the eighth- 
 note rest in the sixteenth-note group e flat, c, in 
 the fourth measure; the c was always too short or 
 too long! I found a way out by drawing my finger 
 along the key until I came to the end, and then 
 drawing it off at the sharp corner; at last he 
 was satisfied! But it was nothing when compared 
 to the manner in which Chopin played both these 
 passages ! 
 
 "I quite understand him," remarked Tausig, "I 
 shall ' take care of that." 
 
 "Chopin intended the passage from ^ to c as a 
 question ; c gave the answer." 
 "So I understood it," said Tausig. 
 Just as rarely was Chopin satisfied with the first 
 measure in the C minor Nocturne; the quarter-notes 
 g^ a flat, should be prominent, being thematic, but 
 they were always too forte or too piano. Chopin 
 always used a Pleyel, an instrument with light 
 [87] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 action, on which one can do such shading much 
 more easily than on one of mellower, fuller tone. 
 During the next few days, Tausig played me both 
 Nocturnes in the most finished manner, in fact, just 
 as Chopin played them. He was pleased himself, and 
 said: "I ought to have known Him !" Never was a 
 composer so lovingly cherished by a virtuoso, as was 
 Chopin by Tausig. 
 
 One day Tausig appeared at my rooms early in the 
 morning: "The Baroness Schweinitz invites you to 
 a soiree at her house; she is my best pupil — indeed, 
 I can scarcely call her a pupil, she is an artist, and 
 a charming woman. You will meet interesting peo- 
 ple there. The Baroness sends her excuses that the 
 Baron has not called on you."' 
 
 "I do not stand upon ceremony, and consider my- 
 self 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."*"' 
 As 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 give 
 charity concerts here, in which the Baroness takes 
 the lead." 
 
 [88] 
 
Carl Tausi 
 
 g 
 
 Tausig walked to a side-door of mahogany, richly 
 gilded, and opened it. A suite of three salons, bright 
 as day, lay before us; in the first, we were most win- 
 ningly received by the Baroness. The gathering con- 
 sisted of several distinguished artists belonging to 
 the musical circle of Tausig and the Baroness; the 
 Austrian Ambassador, Count Wimpffen, and his 
 wife; the Russian military plenipotentiary. Count 
 Kutusow; and the master of the house, Couii: Min- 
 ister von Schweinitz. Tausig had not said too much ; 
 in a composition of Schumann's, and a difficult, 
 brilliant piece of Tausig's, the Baroness proved her- 
 self a finished artist. Tausig's demeanor particularly 
 pleased me: he quite effaced himself — it was as 
 though he were not there at all, and yet he was 
 everywhere, and the life of the animated conver- 
 sation. This soiree lives among my musico-social 
 memories as one equally distinguished for intellec- 
 tuality and good taste. Since the death of the great 
 artist who amiably opened these doors to me, the 
 memory of it has become a sacred one. In the higher 
 circles of St. Petersburg, Berlin has a reputation for 
 stiffness of etiquette. Here was one of the best 
 houses in Berlin opened to me, a stranger, whose 
 only recommendation was, being knowTi to Tausig. 
 [89] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 As we drove home, Tausig said: "You have given 
 me uncommon pleasure! You sat at the piano just 
 as He does." — 
 
 "You cannot beHeve that it ever occurred to me 
 to imitate Liszt?''"' I was somewhat disconcerted — 
 what could Tausig mean? 
 
 "You do not understand me; I am in earnest; there 
 is no imitation about it, only an affinity in the spirit 
 of the matter, understood by myself alone; — not 
 at all the way you sat there — something to which 
 you gave no thought in your intercourse with the 
 piano; it was He, as he lives and moves, I tell you, 
 and I could think only of Him the whole evening!" 
 Seldom is a master so lovingly reverenced by a pupil, 
 as Liszt by Tausig! He had such a tiTie, loyal, lov- 
 ing heart! Such an amiable nature should never 
 have been wounded in its inner life, in the most 
 sensitive spot. In Tausig''s character humanism was 
 prominent, like the artistic height on which he stood. 
 Dark clouds seemed to have gathered early over his 
 life; the artist took refuge from them in his Art, 
 his virtuosity was a veil behind which the artist 
 sought to conceal the man — in other Mords, to 
 mould his art objectively. In his daily life he re- 
 garded as a simple human duty, what others call 
 [90] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 woi-shipping God. Not with any desire to shine, 
 but with an earnest purpose, did Tausig take up 
 the study of philosophy; he was far from caring 
 for ostentation, he never courted applause — it was 
 quite indifferent to him: a fact I had good oppor- 
 tunity to observe at his triumphs in St. Peters- 
 burg, Melancholy, a certain profundity of medita- 
 tion, which caused him to appear absent-minded, 
 while his thoughts were but too vividly actual, — 
 dominated him; he tried to conceal the underlying 
 vein of sadness, but it was clearly evident, and the 
 dash of humor in his conversation w^as also the 
 flight of his spirit before the gloomy spectre, the 
 atra cura of Horace ! I found a key to his artistic 
 nature in the manner in which he approached the 
 Barcarole of Chopin. "Do you know the Barca- 
 role.?" he asked me. 
 "No!" 
 
 "I will play it to you on Sunday ; but come early, be- 
 fore the hour my friends, Messrs. Davidsohn and C. F. 
 Weitzmann, and some on the staS oi Kladderadatsch, '^ 
 usually drop in. This is between ourselves; it is an 
 intei-pretation which must not be attempted be- 
 fore more than two people; I will disclose myself 
 to you — I love the piece, but I seldom play it." 
 [91] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 That same day I read the Barcarole through care- 
 fully, at a music-store. The piece did not please 
 me at all; a long composition in nocturne-style, 
 bombastic in tonality (F sharp major) and modula- 
 tion ; a tower of figuration reared on an insecure 
 foundation! And the greatest mechanical difficul- 
 ties 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: — "This tells of two per- 
 sons, of a love-scene in a secret gondola; we might 
 call this mise en scene symbolic of lover's meetings 
 in general. That is expressed in the thirds and 
 sixths; 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 major 
 (marked dolce sfogato) one recognizes a kiss and an 
 embrace — that is plain enough! When, after three 
 measures of introduction, this bass solo — an easy 
 rocking theme — enters in the fourth, and this theme 
 is, nevertheless, employed only as an accompaniment 
 throughout the entire composition; on this lies the 
 cantilena in two voices, and we have a sweet and 
 long dialogue. From the chain of double trills on, 
 [92] 
 
Carl Tausi 
 
 g 
 
 the story becomes difficult to tell — that is my affair, 
 ril *take care of that. Turn the leaves well and 
 listen attentively."^ 
 
 Seldom in my life have I heard so sweet, such a won- 
 derfully beautiful story told at the piano. Every 
 note spoke, the artist gave way to the man in Tau- 
 sig; and how interesting were both! 
 How difficult, how impossible, except to subjective 
 interpretation, it is to carry through nine pages of 
 enervating music, in the same long-breathed rhythm 
 (twelve-eighths) so much interest, so much emotion, 
 so much action, that I regretted that the long piece 
 was not longer! 
 
 Tausig was here the living impersonation of Chopin, 
 he played like him, he felt as he did, he was Chopin 
 at the piano ! 
 
 I told him so frankly, and he felt the sincerity of 
 conviction in my words. But he .was always careful, 
 even suspicious, on such occasions, perhaps because 
 he was never of a merry disposition, never able en- 
 tirely to dissipate his clouds ! 
 
 Tausig gave concerts in Berlin which were entirely 
 devoted to Chopin's compositions, the first instance 
 of such a thing, I think — excepting the yearly con- 
 certs intimes given in Paris by the master himself. 
 [93] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 How thankless undertakings of this sort usually are ! 
 How grateful we should be to Tausig for taking 
 such an initiative with regard to Chopin, whose 
 pianistic importance is by far too lightly esti- 
 mated. Tausig also impressed me deeply in his 
 interpretation of Chopin's Ballade in F minor. It 
 has three requirements: "The comprehension of the 
 programme as a whole — for Chopin writes according 
 to programme, to the situations in life best known 
 to, and understood by, himself; the exposition of 
 the motives in detail, and in an adequate man- 
 ner ; the conquest of the stupendous difficulties in 
 complicated figures, winding harmonies and formi- 
 dable passages."'"* 
 
 Tausig fulfilled these requirements, presenting an 
 embodiment of the signification and the feeling of 
 the work. The Ballade {andante con moto, six-eighths) 
 begins in the minor key of the dominant; the 
 seventh measure comes to a stand before Sijermata 
 on C major. The easy handling of these seven 
 measures Tausig interpreted thus: "The piece has 
 not yet begun;"" in his firmer, nobly expressive ex- 
 position of the principal theme, free from sentimen- 
 tality (to which one might easily yield), the "grand 
 style"'"' found due scope. 
 
 [94] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 An essential requirement in an instrumental vir- 
 tuoso is that he should undei-stand how to breathe, 
 and how to allow his hearers to take breath — giving 
 them opportunity to arrive at a better understand- 
 ing. By this I mean a well-chosen incision, the cce- 
 sura, and a lingering ("letting in air,"" Tausig clev- 
 erly called it) which in no way impairs rhythm and 
 time, but rather brings them into stronger relief; 
 a lingering which our signs of notation cannot ade- 
 quately express, '5 because it is made up of atomic 
 time-values. Rub the bloom from a peach or from 
 a butterfly; that which remains will belong to the 
 kitchen, to natural history! — It is not otherwise 
 \nth Chopin; the bloom consisted in Tausig's treat- 
 ment of the Ballade. 
 
 He came to the first passage, — as one would ordi- 
 narily say; the motive from among blossoms and 
 leaves, as one must say for Chopin — a figurated 
 recuiTence of the principal theme is in the inner 
 parts — its poh'phonic variant. A little thread con- 
 nects this with the chorale-like introduction of the 
 second theme. The theme is strongly and abruptly 
 modulated, perhaps a little too much so. Tausig 
 tied the little thread to a doppio movimento in two- 
 fom- time, but thereby resulted sextolets, which 
 [95] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 threw the chorale into yet bolder relief. Then fol- 
 lowed a passage a tempo, in which the principal 
 theme played hide-and-go-seek. 
 
 How clear it all became, as Tausig played it! Of 
 technical difficulties he knew literally nothing; the 
 intricate and evasive parts were as easy as the 
 easiest — I might say, easier! 
 
 I admired the short trills in the left hand, which 
 were trilled out quite independently, £is if by a sec- 
 ond player; the gliding ease of the cadence marked 
 dolcissimo. It swung itself into the higher register, 
 where it came to a stop before A major, just as the 
 introduction stopped before C major. Then, after the 
 theme has once more presented itself in a modified 
 form (variation), it comes under the pestle of an 
 extremely figurate coda, which demands the study 
 of an artist, the strength of a robust man — the 
 most vigorous pianistic health, in a word! 
 Tausig overcame this threatening group of terrific 
 difficulties, whose appearance in the piece is well 
 explained by the programme, without the slightest 
 effiart. The coda, in modulated harp-tones, came to 
 a stop before a.Jermata which corresponded to those 
 before mentioned, in order to cast anchor in the 
 haven of the dominant, finishing with a witches' 
 [96] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 dance of triplets doubled in thirds. This eighteen- 
 page piece winds up with extreme bravura. 
 Tausig's left hand was a second right; he never ap- 
 peared even to notice difficulties! Anton Rubinstein 
 called him "the infallible ;""' Liszt spoke of his fin- 
 gers as brazen ; Serow said to me whenever we spoke 
 of pianists: "Hear Tausig; you must hear Tausig 1"^ 
 His distinguishing characteristic was, that he never 
 played for effect, but was always absorbed in the 
 piece itself and its artistic interpretation. This ob- 
 jectivity the general public never undei'stood; when- 
 ever serpents are strangled, it always wants to know 
 just how big and dangerous they are, and judges of 
 this by the performer s behavior. The general pub- 
 lic thinks that whatever appears easily surmounted, 
 is not really difficult, and that son or daughter at 
 home might do it just as well ! But it was this out- 
 ward calm, this perfect steadiness of Tausig's atti- 
 tude, which crowned his virtuosity. 
 Well might he say, as I once heard him: "I am no 
 drawing-room pianist, it is only in public that I 
 can command all my resources!" Eccentric gestures, 
 and playing with all one's limbs, may be, and are, 
 very effective with the public; but such elements 
 are inimical to art. Tausig's playing was flawlessly 
 [97] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 moulded. — Tausig would have charmed Chopin, 
 whose perfect ease in overcoming mechanical diffi- 
 culties he possessed, though paired with far superior 
 strength and power. 
 
 Before I left Berlin, I discussed with Tausig Liszt's 
 Fantasia on the Don Juan motive, which calls for 
 the highest powers of the piano-virtuoso. Tausig 
 said, with noble modesty: "For a long time I could 
 not conquer this piece; not until I had returned to 
 Bach and the last Beethoven Sonatas, and studied 
 them again and again, would it surrender to me. 
 You raise no objection to my interpretation of the 
 Don Juan Fantasia .? Well, I tell myself that I have 
 not yet conquered the difficulties, I have only at- 
 tacked them. He only is superior to them — only 
 He! This is the secret of the impression He makes ! 
 You said in your French book: *He is the Paganini 
 of the piano"; that is true, and it pleased him, but 
 it says far too little. Liszt exhibits in himself an 
 absolute mastery over the entire realm of musical 
 art, he is a predestined composer in the largest 
 forms — in all ! Out of his great diversity of gifts, 
 arises his virtuosity; Paganini never soared as high 
 as Liszt, he stopped at virtuosity !" 
 In fact, Liszt's piano-technique has been understood 
 [98 ] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 as a spiritualized technique, a thing apart; — as a 
 new train of ideas, as a thread spun on from Bach 
 and Beethoven to us, reaching to the compositions 
 of Liszt, as to the latest expression of the possibili- 
 ties of the piano ! 
 
 The great piano-virtuosos of the century may be 
 compared with continents and countries. 
 Liszt, Chopin, and Henselt are continents; Tausig, 
 Rubinstein, and Biilow are countries. 
 Thalberg was only the correct "gentleman -rider'' of 
 the piano, during the forty years which seem to lie 
 a whole century behind our days ! A rider, no matter 
 how well he sits his horse, must get off sometimes ! 
 Thalberg rode perpetually. He called it Fantalsie — 
 the one on Moses, for instance; he made music, like 
 the trumpeter in Kaufmannes Museum in Dresden — 
 blown through the air, not through the soul. Thal- 
 berg was the well-groomed piano; who saddles a note 
 of his now-a-days? Only one of his lucubrations has 
 musical promise — and that only in the beginning, 
 the trot — his second Caprice (E flat major), in which 
 the motive is chaniiingly bridled, and, at the end 
 of the interminable performajice (as the English call 
 musical productions), sets off on a steeplechase and 
 clears the fence in octave-leaps of two octaves! 
 [99] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 Thalberg said that he would undertake to play side 
 by side with Liszt, but that Liszt must sit behind 
 a screen, and must not be seen while he was at it! 
 Just there, and for the first time, Thalberg would 
 have been thrown, for Liszt^s soul would not have 
 stayed behind the screen! "You resemble the spirit 
 which you comprehend, not me!" Liszt might have 
 told him. 
 
 Thalberg was a finished man of the world at the 
 piano; the thumb of his right hand was his groom, 
 whom he had elevated to the exalted position of 
 conductor of the melody ! The shifting of the accom- 
 paniment to the middle range of the piano was not 
 the invention of Thalberg, but was introduced by 
 Beethoven ^^ in his first Piaiio-concerto in C major. 
 Op. 15, Largo, which appeared in 1801; then again 
 by Weber in the Andante of his D vi'uior Sonata, 
 in his Invitation, and in the Rondo of his Eßat ma- 
 jor Cojicerto. 
 
 An oft-spoken opinion is to the effect, that the 
 piano has reached its climax in Liszt and Chopin. 
 Every period has its raison d'etre; virtuosity had 
 hers, and Tausig is the best evidence of this fact. 
 It is the same with creative work. Life being divided 
 between Church and Theatre — between the things 
 [ 100] 
 
Carl Tausi 
 
 g 
 
 symbolized by these factors — the representatives of 
 these "stages" on the piano are, foremostly, Beet- 
 hoven and Weber. 
 
 Weber's sympathy was with life in general, Cho- 
 pin''s with the life of the higher classes of society in 
 particular. Chopin did not feel less deeply than 
 Weber, because he Jilt in Paris; but Chopin's sym- 
 pathy was special, while Weber's was general — he 
 sprang from German soil ! There is no trace of opera 
 or symphony in Chopin's music, while these ele- 
 ments haunt Weber's piano-music like the fantastic 
 ^vill-o'-the-wisps in the Wolfsschliwht. Chopin is 
 always pure pianoforte, with a masterly pianistic 
 treatment and piano-style superior to Weber; Cho- 
 pin commands all technical resources, which Weber 
 never mastered to an equal degree. 
 The relation of Chopin to Beethoven and Weber 
 on the piano, is that of a peer to these great men. 
 Beethoven''s piano-music is to be regarded in the 
 light of cartoons for orchestra and quartets, just as 
 Kaulbach's cartoons in the Cathedral at Berlin are 
 to be understood as paintings. Beethoven, as the in- 
 carnate Genius of the symphony, is always sym- 
 phonic, both in his piano-concertos and in his violin- 
 concertos. His thoughts, in their flight, leave the 
 [101] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 piano, never to return — they are lost in the infini- 
 tude of the Idea! 
 
 Even his quartets are abbreviated symphonies, de- 
 spite their quartet-like equipment. 
 Tausig understood how to discriminate in Beethoven, 
 as well as in Weber, at the piano. He played Beetho- 
 ven's A major Sonata, Op. 101, with the most charm- 
 ing piano-coloring; the powerful Orchestra Fantasia 
 in the F minor Sonata, Op. 57 — which is called appas- 
 sionata (as though all Beethoven's Sonatas were not 
 appassioiiate ! ) — he performed orchestrally. He gave 
 the Aflat major Sonata with Pompeian coloring; 
 and the last Sonata, Op. Ill, was colossal! 
 Nothing is more important to the virtuoso than a 
 proper comprehension of the tone-poet whom he 
 undertakes to interpret. In this relation Tausig's 
 lofty general education stood him in good stead, 
 and his fine taste, largely the result of scientific 
 research, in all things. 
 
 One may say what one will, but as an authoritative 
 musical critic, Tausig takes an exceptional position; 
 our great master Liszt will, for all time, be taken 
 as the highest standard of musical criticism. 
 Before I speak of my meeting with Tausig in St. 
 Petersburg, I must relate one more reminiscence 
 [ 102 ] 
 
Carl Tausi 
 
 g 
 
 of Berlin, of that late autumn of 1868, ever-mem- 
 orable by reason of the artist's genial kindliness. 
 Once when we were quite alone, Tausig made me 
 sit at his piano, and said: "Play the highest part of 
 this; the piece cannot be known to you." 
 It was a set of short, expressive compositions for 
 four hands, by Schumann. 
 
 "There, you played that exactly as He would l"** 
 I looked up at him, confused; on the one hand, I 
 could not suppose that he was quizzing me; on the 
 other, I appeared very foolish to myself. 
 "I am in earnest,"^ he continued, "I repeat it, you 
 played it just as He would !" 
 
 "But there is nothing io play, only to understand.'" 
 "That is just it — one does not teach that to one^s 
 lady-pupils! It quite astonished me; those are the 
 Journeys — your foot-tours in Switzerland!'" (He was 
 still humorous in 1868; when I saw him in St. 
 Petei-sburg, in 1870, that phase of his character had 
 quite disappeared.) In a few days I appeared with 
 two 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 an 
 examination. I wished to see — never mind, tell me 
 in what / am to be examined.?"" 
 [103] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 "You see: 'Sonates progressives et agreables.'''" Tau- 
 sig laughed most heartily and asked: "What is that 
 to us?" 
 
 "To give pleasure,"" was my answer; "these are little 
 operas in disguise, by Weber; just play the bass and 
 listen attentively. The original is for piano and 
 violin; this arrangement is by Czerny — as Cranz, 
 the publisher in Hamburg, told me when I went to 
 see him about it. Sonate 1, rectitbs Sonatine, F ma- 
 jor. Allegro; Before the Gate, Whitsuntide; Lar- 
 ghetto; Grandmother'' s Story at the Fireplace, B 
 major; Rondo, amaMle, F major, The Posthorn. 
 There is nothing of all this in the music, but I will 
 bring 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 of faithful wedlock!" 
 "And still in love ? Well, let us go before the Gate,"" 
 laughed Tausig. "Also very interesting,"*"* he admitted. 
 "But the Amabile, the Posthorn story, is nothing!" 
 "But the little eight-measure minore f^^'' I asked. 
 "Yes ! That is by a master again !" 
 "Sonate 2, Moderato, carattere espagnuolo, G ma- 
 jor, A German in Seville. Adagio, C minor, From 
 [ 104 ] 
 
Carl Tausi 
 
 g 
 
 a lost Opera, Didone abbandonata; Rondo, G ma- 
 jor; Polish Air, In the country, St. John^s -^öf^-" 
 Tausig remarked: ''This Spain might be in Ger- 
 many!"' 
 
 "Just like the Spain in Don Giovanni, I think."" 
 "You think so? H'm, h'm! Well, perhaps! Adagio, 
 interesting; Rondo, charming, modulation to B flat, 
 into the lower dominant (C major), delicious — now 
 the Rondo again — Oho, how abruptly the thing 
 closes !" 
 
 "Sonate 3, Air russe, D minor, The truth about 
 Russia, unJcnown in Germany, (how ingenuously 
 Tausig glanced at me!). Maggiore, charming; see, I 
 have written over it * amoroso' (he smiled so kindly); 
 Rondo, Presto, six-eight, D major. Dance of the 
 Elves, charming beyond description."" 
 "Let us have the Elves, then,"" urged Tausig. 
 "Yes, see there! That is a serious matter! The 
 Rondo is very beautiful," said Tausig joyously, 
 " and how abrupt at the close ! That must be true ! 
 Now the Rondo over again ! "^ he commanded. 
 "Notice the festoons of flowers from the thirteenth 
 measure on ! Another seduction of Hiion ; but I 
 must beg you to play the primo now, because I do 
 the scales so badly."" 
 
 [105] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 " There is one in the bass that is more important, the 
 whole orchestra enters there ; I have not neglected my 
 part — I shall stay below ! " answered Tausig. 
 We played the Rondo three times. It is not long, only 
 eighty-four measures altogether, — yet how much there 
 is in it ! *"' An unmortgaged country-seat, with elves'."^ 
 " Will you not have the rest — ? "" 
 " Yes, I want the rest of it at once," urged Tausig. 
 "Sonate 4, Eflat major, Sunday, Game of Skittles. 
 Sunßowers hy the howling-alley. What fine, honest 
 folk these be, we find in measure nine and the fol- 
 lowing. Rondo vivace, modestly illuminated garden, 
 but still — " 
 
 Tausig : " But still ! How charmingly he accented 
 the idea, ' beloved brethren ! ' ""' 
 
 "Sonate 5, In the theatre. A major, Andante con 
 moto, theme from the opera Sylvana, four-four.'" 
 Tausig : " Well now, are you ready ? '*' 
 " Very ! — Do you know what that is ? Weber must 
 have loved this theme ; he worked it into variations 
 for solo clarinet accompanied by almost solo piano- 
 forte; that set is Op. 33, in B major; this set, in A, 
 is Op. 10 ; there are more of the clarinet-variations ; 
 which is the earlier work ? '" 
 
 ^'Darüber streiten die Städte'''' [When doctors dis- 
 [106] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 agree], aptly quoted Tausig ; " according to all good 
 methodology, the completer work is the last, I think."' 
 "Yes, but in our Op. 10 we have this devilish 
 march-variation, Marcia Maestoso ; only the most 
 finished master could write that ! The Finale sici- 
 liano is also charming ! '''' 
 
 Tausig : " This No. 5 is really too pretty ! Do you 
 know, I have an idea ! One could arrange these 
 things as a Weber Fantasia, for drawing-room pur- 
 poses. I shall do it sometime ! "" (A thought which 
 should be utilized ; one must love Weber ; Rubin- 
 stein loved him ! ) 
 
 "The 6th Sonatalet is insignificant, the closing 
 Polonaise is weak, but there's a pretty violoncello 
 solo, or would you call it a bassoon ? "*' 
 Tausig : " I should say cornet a pistons ! '' So scher- 
 zoso was he ! 
 
 So we passed every day — unfortunately but six weeks ! 
 Two years passed ; the news that, before Easter, 
 Tausig was coming for a concert-season, raised the 
 greatest interest in the compact group which formed 
 the musical contingent of St. Petersburg. It was in 
 IVIarch, 1870. I went directly to Tausig in the Hotel 
 Demuth, where he was staying. He greeted me 
 kindly, but I saw that he was a changed man. A 
 [107] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 cloud lay on his features ; he was no longer cheerful ! 
 "You forgive me, as I see," he said, tactfully, "be- 
 cause I did not go to you — I make no visits; I 
 leave the hotel only to go to my concerts, and then 
 not until everything is quite ready and I can seat 
 myself at the piano, as soon as I arrive."^ He handed 
 me a cigar. "They are the same T he said, with a 
 son'owful smile. I talked directly of indifferent mat- 
 ters — it seemed the best course to pursue, although 
 I was not yet certain of the reason. He must have 
 thought so, too, as he rose quickly and said : " I 
 must play you your Invitation.'''' He played only the 
 passage to which, in his arrangement of the piece, 
 is added a motu contrario for the left hand. I was 
 fairly astonished at this virtuosity soaring freely, 
 as it were, into space, even in a domain where I felt 
 so thoroughly at home ! — 
 
 " If it amuses you," he said, " I can do it faster." 
 This time he played the double passage pp, in a 
 fabulous prestissimo tempo, smiled, and rose. 
 This delivery was not natural, it was scnr?-iloiis, as 
 Master Hoffmann (Kreissler) was wont to say. The 
 artist must have been grieving ! At my request, how- 
 ever, he played me the entire piece with his Ara- 
 besques (the distinguishing title of his arrangement). 
 [108] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 The Invitatio?!, one of the most widely known 
 pieces of the piano-repertory, was written by Weber 
 some fifty years ago, yet it is still young ! I consider 
 it the most significant, and the most gratifying 
 piece in rondo-form without accompaniment, that 
 we possess. This tender, yet so remarkably brilliant 
 inspiration, is meant for an intimate piano-piece, 
 and finds its natural place in the family circle and 
 the drawing-room. If it is to appear before an 
 audience of two thousand people, of course it must 
 don ball-attire and appear in the full panoply of 
 the modem, Olympic concert-grand, an instrument 
 which reaches far beyond the possibilities of the 
 piano known to Weber. Thus Tausig treated the 
 Aufforderung in his variant. The rocking cantilena 
 (so aptly denoted by Weber), to which, in the origi- 
 nal, the accompaniment is played in the middle of 
 the piano, was placed by Tausig in the medium as a 
 bass voice — that proper to a dancer declaring his 
 love to his partner — quite as an a parte — while in 
 Weber's aiTangement this charming cantilena is 
 more representative of the whole scene. 
 To me, the most artistic part of Tausig's interpreta- 
 tion of the Aufforderung was the Minore, to which 
 he gave a well-nigh boisterous efi'ect. 
 [109] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 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 you 
 write about it ? '*' 
 
 " Certainly ! about your Arabesques in the Invita- 
 tion, I will write just what I now tell you. Person- 
 ally, and for the best of reasons, / shall remain faith- 
 ful to my Weber text." 
 
 He laughed in the old manner. "Yes, it is devilish 
 hard! see, here, where the motus contrarius in the 
 passage touches minor, and yet the polished floor 
 of the ball-room must remain as smooth and mir- 
 ror-like as ever ! I have often thought of you, 
 when I played it — but I shall play it much better 
 this evening ; my wings grow when I play in public. 
 You will see. And now, good-bye — and, like a good 
 fellow, don'*t come here again, for I have become an 
 insupportable companion !" There was a touch of 
 his old Berlin humor ! 
 
 I always go early to concerts and opera on special 
 occasions. I like to see the tribe of double-basses 
 gradually stretch out their long necks; to see the 
 wind-players fumble in their cases ; to see trumpets 
 and kettle-drums making ready ; the violins in con- 
 ference ! What thoughts arise the while ! There is 
 [110] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 something grand about an orchestra! It is the Doe- 
 mos, whence everything proceeds, and whither every- 
 thing returns ; that is the cosmic idea, and the or- 
 chestra is the Church of Instrumentalism. 
 Such an important fraction of the civilized populace 
 should never be invited to an improvised meal, but 
 only to a symposium ! 
 
 This time Beethoven's Eßat major Concerto was on 
 the programme — a worthy banquet! 
 The fate that compels the traveller (for in large 
 cities one always travels) brought me there one hour 
 before the time. The vast interior of the Hall of the 
 Nobles in St. Petersburg (Dvorcenskoje Sohrank) 
 usually resembles a dimly lighted crypt, at such 
 times. The hall itself was but half-lit, but already 
 completely filled. I had not seen such a sight for 
 forty years! I hastened to the artists' room in order 
 to tell Tausig about it; he was not there, however, 
 and appeared at each concert only just in time to 
 play. 
 
 This hall has, for the past forty years, been the 
 official meeting-place of the nobility, and is one of 
 the most beautiful — if not the most beautiful — in 
 Europe. The roof is supported on either side by 
 rows of twelve Corinthian columns of polished white 
 
 [111] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 stucco, in two stories (with gallery); there are three 
 pillared doorways at each end, through which one 
 descends into the hall by a few steps. Between the 
 pillars hang twenty-eight great chandeliers; from 
 the ceiling hang eight more, of colossal size. Of 
 course the acoustics, amid such surroundings, are 
 not 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 mu- 
 sicians of Europe. Here: Franz Liszt! Here, the 
 great singers: Pasta, Viardot, Sontag (Countess 
 Rossi). Here: Vieuxtemps, Ernst, Sivori, Ole Bull. 
 Here sang Rubini! Here took place all the grand 
 functions of musical life in St. Petersburg; while the 
 two Counts Wielhorski were leaders in taste, ten- 
 dency, and a right appreciation, by virtue of their 
 artistic superiority — morally, not by force, and 
 hence with the more enduring results; for these two 
 patrons and artists, unique in the musical annals of 
 Europe, never occupied an official station in music. 
 Their followers were drawn to them organicaUi/., by 
 natural selection. 
 
 Rubinstein, who belonged to this great musical pe- 
 [112] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 riod, once said to me: "In these days, everything is 
 open to the pubHc!" 
 "Dat vhicla libertas,""' said I to myself. 
 In any event, public spirit ought to rise to that 
 level, which marked the leadership of those eminent 
 minds — a leadership effective from internal reasons. 
 At Tausig's concerts every seat in these rooms was 
 taken ; even the balcony, facing the Emperor's box, 
 and belonging to the diplomatic corps, was given up 
 to the public. The gallery at the capitals was a com- 
 pact mass of men and women; in the entrances, be- 
 tween the windows and the pillars, stood row upon 
 row of closely packed people, the last row even 
 standing upon the window-ledges ! 
 Thus was Tausig received! In keeping with the 
 artist's modest manner of presenting himself, the 
 entrance-prices were also modest, yet, according to 
 German rates, they were high. They ranged from 
 one ruble '7 (gallery) as high as two, three, and five, 
 for the reserved seats. On the morning of the first 
 concert, Tausig's secretary had already sold three 
 thousand rubles' worth of tickets. The gross pro- 
 ceeds amounted to double that sum, and all three 
 concerts were equally thronged. It was the same in 
 Moscow, where all the tickets were sold before the 
 [113] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 arrival of the artist. Yet, after his return from Mos- 
 cow to St. Petersburg, he could not be induced to 
 give one more concert. 
 
 Well, Tausig appeared upon the platform, and seated 
 himself before the piano, which he had brought from 
 Berlin. He was greeted with a storm of applause, 
 such as an artist returning home after long absence, 
 might scarcely hope to receive. 
 Now the Eßat major Concei'to struck up ! 
 The artist was wholly oblivious of self — I saw it 
 instantly — that he might fully recognize the sway 
 of his imperial mistress, Art, in one of her noblest 
 works ! 
 
 His club-strokes, meeting the onset of the orchestra, 
 were fearful! These were his answers to the rigoi-s 
 of life, as they affect the artistic soul ! 
 Tausig played the Concerto by heart, as he played 
 all his programmes. He was a rhapsodist, drunk 
 with the passion of the immortal poet ! The passages 
 were like toys in his grasp ! I never heard a more 
 fiery, a more manly exposition of the flame of the 
 Rondo. 
 
 And how uniquely this Rondo rushed into the hall ! 
 In the delicate second theme Tausig seemed to say: 
 "It is nothing to me now! all is over!**"* 
 [lU] 
 
Carl Tausig 
 
 In the leaps in C (in the modulation) which were 
 like electric sparks, he said: '^This is I !"" It was the 
 epitome of delicacy, the most perfect elegance. I 
 thought of what he had said in Berlin: "That con- 
 certo is my specmltyy 
 
 He played up to that programme of the work 
 which the press {Kölnische Zeifu?ig'y 1871), at the 
 time of the secular celebration at Bonn, expressed 
 far better than I could do:^^ 
 
 "This Concerto is a tiTily noble tone-poem ! All it 
 requires, in order to appear in the full splendor of 
 its steel panoply, is a knightly player, — not one 
 who would strip off its armor, and take away its 
 weapons, to bring it forth clothed in a silken jacket 
 and soft shoes!" Tausig was this knightly player in 
 St. Petersburg, and the place of honor could scarce 
 have been wrested from him in Bonn! There he 
 would have played pro Germania ! 
 His solo playing in St. Petersburg extended over the 
 entire repertoire: from Bach and Scarlatti to Mo- 
 zart and Beethoven; from Field to Chopin; through 
 Weber and Schumann, to Liszt. All styles were 
 simple, to him; he united in himself the character- 
 istics of the most diverse natures ! 
 Let us sum up the attributes of the artist now torn 
 [115] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 from our midst: His command of all musical re- 
 sources was so great, that in this command resided 
 the poetiy of a conqueror holding sovereign sway 
 over material and machinery, — a poetry peculiar 
 and apart. His talent for the strict style (fugue, the 
 imitative style) was unique. He played fugues, and 
 the like, with the charm of the most charming treat- 
 ment of the free style ; as was once said of him : His 
 neatness in every part, the nuances of his touch, 
 made this domain popular, generally intelligible, 
 universally interesting. In the fugue we confront 
 the letter, into which we are to breathe the spirit of 
 Art, not a subjective personality; an artistic sub- 
 jectivity, in a narrow sense. Tausig possessed, in 
 a high degree, the power of subordinating his own 
 nature to the necessity of his art, so that in the 
 fugue he was peculiarly at home. He commanded 
 the entire arsenal of the utmost possibilities of the 
 piano as expressed in the compositions of Liszt, and 
 was a finished interpreter of Chopin. 
 In a word, he was one of the most prominent vir- 
 tuosos the world has ever known, an infaillibler tri- 
 umphator at the piano. 
 
 Have, anima pia! Te! amicissimum sodalem 
 
 moriturus salutat! 
 
 [116] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 Erlösung der Sinnlich- 
 keit durch das Ideal 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 yA RTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, who appre- 
 / % hends the world, in his philosophy, as Will 
 -^ -^ and Conception, once said : " The greatest 
 good fortune is never to have been born/' 
 Never to have ^\Titten may also be regarded as a 
 fairly acceptable piece of good fortune ! The diffi- 
 culty of >\Titing is, that you must not only talk — 
 you must say something; by writing you always 
 make more enemies than friends, and your gain is 
 but a symbol ! 
 
 In the Berliner MimJczeitung-, Nos. 37-39, 1868, 
 appeared a series of articles comprising Liszt, Cho- 
 pin, and Tausig, and holding out a promise of a 
 continuation, more especially because a halt was 
 made before the most unique phenomenon of this 
 century on the keyboard — Adolph Henselt. If we 
 speak of Henselt as the most unique phenomenon 
 on the keyboard, we now have to justify this desig- 
 nation by means of internal evidence. 
 In absolute power over ever?/ resource of the piano, 
 and, therefore, over evert/ style, Liszt is to be under- 
 stood as cosmic — i. e., universal. Tausig, who treated 
 the apparatus, the medium, as an art in itself, leaned 
 [119] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 thereby more towards universality, than individual- 
 ity. Chopin was too individual in production, to be 
 able to express his entire individuality in reproduc- 
 tion, as an artist deficient in physical command of 
 the medium. We say, his entire individuality ; for in 
 details of intei-pretation, in a natural elegance all 
 his own — springing from feeling, not artificial — in 
 the taste and fervency of all his conceptions, the 
 pianist Chopin likewise discovered incomparable 
 individuality of its kind, — a Polish (Sarmatian) 
 individuality with French breeding, French man- 
 ners, with the advantages and disadvantages of both 
 nationalities. 
 
 By reason of his lack of physical power, he com- 
 posed everything in song-style; every detail of his 
 work conforms to this style — in this art he was a 
 pastel-painter, ''wie noch Keiner wary His Ma- 
 zurkas are the journal of his spiritual journeys into 
 the socio-political domain of the Sarmatian dream- 
 world \ There his powers of reproduction were at 
 home, there dwelt the individuality of Chopin the 
 pianist. He represented his dream-land, Poland, in 
 the 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 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 the only political pianist. He interpreted Poland, he 
 composed Poland ! 
 
 French life, the French schools of Art and Science 
 in general, were not altogether without influence on 
 Franz Liszt. This was shown at the time bj the 
 fact, that this great apparition at the pianoforte, 
 the greatest phenomenon ever known on the piano- 
 forte, — that Liszt placed in the front rank the 
 attainments of a mechanical skill not wholly free 
 from a certain stereotyped formalism — French pre- 
 cision acting along conventional lines — and brought 
 its influence to bear on conventionalism and on all 
 things "that the Fashion sternly parts,'' as the 
 poet ^9 has it. His style was at that time sufficient 
 unto itself, much as the French language is self- 
 sufficing. The artist's genius, his "immortal part," 
 freed him from French influences, and drew him 
 ever closer to Germany, the collective fatherland of 
 musical ai't — an advantage which obtained for him 
 equal mastery over all other styles ; by means of 
 German intellect, from German depth, Ger'man know- 
 ledge and power, to enter at will into the soul-hfe 
 of France and Italy. 
 
 Midway between Liszt and Chopin — in a ivay, the 
 
 connecting-link between their contrasting natures — 
 
 [ 121 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 stands Henselt, a primitive German phenomenon, a 
 Germania at the piano. Henselt is German in eveiy- 
 thing, in production and in reproduction. German 
 is, for us, synonymous with faithful, honest, real ! 
 All that is true and upright in the world, all that 
 lies deep, all the deepest and noblest qualities which 
 live in the human breast, may safely be called Ger- 
 man ! But Henselt is not only German, he is, in the 
 best and broadest sense of the term, student -German ; 
 in his indestructible youthfulness of spirit, in his 
 entire exemption from social and conventional con- 
 straint, both in art and life, in his Utopian views of 
 life — the reality of which exists in the ideal ! Stu- 
 dent-life is a German institution which — like a 
 happy island in the midst of the sea of ordinary 
 society — symbolizes the youth of the world (Juven- 
 tus mundi)^ as Gladstone said of Greece ! This element 
 is a token of true German feeling, and on these 
 grounds we make an analogous application to Hen- 
 selt. 
 
 Therefore, when we say that, against Liszt and Cho- 
 pin, Henselt stands out as a student-German phe- 
 nomenon "such as never was before,"" we obtain 
 another key to a better understanding of his man- 
 ner. Our aim is to discriminate, to characterize. 
 [ 122 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 Commonplaces of acknowledgment, — qualifications 
 fitting similar phenomena, will not do ; for by such 
 means neither characteristic traits nor well-grounded 
 comprehension can be realized ; and these alone are 
 available for criticism, because they establish facts. 
 In order to solve our problem we had to determine 
 upon a standpoint from which to view Henselt. 
 We found the Gervianic standpoint. We shall, there- 
 fore, first submit a small, general portion of our 
 observations ; then describe the great artist by de- 
 scriptions of some of his compositions (as with 
 Weber and Chopin) ; and close with a sketch of the 
 artist as a man. For the life of an artist is a totality 
 which he can abandon only in episodes, and to which 
 his best impulses must ever be time — if he be a 
 genuine artist. 
 
 For the past thirty-two yeai-s ^° Henselt has lived in 
 St. Petersburg, where he never appears in public. 
 Twice eveiy year he visits Germany, but even there 
 he is heard only by a chosen few. Therefore it may 
 be agreeable to German readers to hear about an 
 artist who belongs to the artistic fame of the Ger- 
 man fatherland in such a high degree, that if one 
 dared calculate and classify, one might name Hen- 
 selt as the only artist among the great pianists who 
 [ 123 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 is Liszt's equal — although in the specifically sub- 
 jective domain he belongs to a more specialized 
 sphere. Henselt alone has, first of all, the same 
 command over the resources, in fullness of tone and 
 the same finish of execution; this execution is un- 
 approachable — above all comparison (omjii excep- 
 tione major). We do not care for comparisons, how- 
 ever, but will criticise each of these phenomena 
 apart, upon its own ground. 
 
 In his creation, in his style, in his entire personal- 
 ity Henselt is German, thoroughly German, without 
 general polish. He has his ow^n peculiar polish, his 
 own peculiar finish; he is a law and an end unto 
 himself. 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 can 
 speak of him as being any one's pupil! However, 
 every one must begin, therefore it is necessary to 
 mention that the foundation of Henselt's execution 
 is a very solid one. We should call it classic, had not 
 the term been so stupidly misused, were it not 
 odious to us, and did we not rather confine its appli- 
 cation to the Greek and Roman authors according as 
 one or the other treats his mother-tongue well or ill. 
 We shall call Henselfs mode of expression, taken as 
 [ 124 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 a whole, romantic — in feeling and spirit like Weber, 
 whom he much resembles in disposition. Romanti- 
 cism is a distinctly German propensity which is 
 most prominently developed in Henselt. Even when 
 the artist develops a lighter vein, proffers a modest 
 drawing-room piece (Liebeslied, Fontaine), and the 
 ordinary listener discerns sentimentality, refined 
 sensibility — there too, and in the smallest possible 
 compass, is Henselt romantic in the same sense in 
 which Weber is romantic in Der Freischütz, where 
 even Annchens simple songs are flooded with 
 moonlight for every one that has taste to appreciate 
 them. 
 
 In his outward appearance the artist is also specifi- 
 cally German; in his dignified, simple carriage, in 
 his self-poised manner combined with the sincerest 
 modesty, because he never is or will be satisfied with 
 his achievement — a fact which the keen observer 
 easily recognizes, and only the \Tilgar misjudges. 
 Henselt pursues an ideal of perfection, which never 
 permits him a moment of unalloyed delight. Hence 
 it comes that Henselt is the only artist to exhibit 
 the phenomenon — remarkable, indeed, but grounded 
 in his innermost nature — that immediately on fin- 
 ishing a given piece or movement, to the utmost 
 [125] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 astonishment and rapture of his chosen audience, he 
 would play it over, and even over again, as though 
 at the command of some higher power, quite uncon- 
 scious of his surroundings! These were moments of 
 supreme ecstasy, of entire isolation from the outer 
 world — 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 to 
 his ideal, which he longs with such passionate yearn- 
 ing to reach that the outer world, his own self, and 
 the impression made upon his auditors, are quite 
 forgotten ! Had he, at such moments, had a suspicion 
 of any audience, he would gladly have had them 
 thrown out of the window ! Such is the result of my 
 observations of the past thirty-two years ! 
 Such unconscious, rhapsodic reprises of this kind 
 usually ran on in accelerated motion, with modifica- 
 tions of form, in a concentration of expression upon 
 some darling passage which was to him hh Rezia, 
 his Agatha, to whom, over hill and dale, through 
 fire and water, he works his way, that with his be- 
 loved he may sacrifice himself upon the altar of the 
 purest enthusiasm! One does not experience mere 
 enjoyment in hearing Henselt, one is intoxicated 
 and elevated at the same moment. Another dis- 
 [126 1 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 tinctive trait in Henselt is that, in the midst of 
 compositions — wherever his enthusiasm seizes him, 
 when he soars towards his ideal, he doubles the 
 singing melody that quite fills his heart, by hum- 
 ming it himself! The artist's voice is anything but 
 lovely, and injures the effect, as he knows right well 
 when he is told that he has been singing again; for 
 he 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 joined his playing! But even then 
 he is never satisfied, he was never happy for even 
 a moment. Never does Henselt say, or feel, or think, 
 with the romantic poet : 
 
 AUe Wünsche, alle Träume 
 
 Waren herrlich mm gestlUt! 
 
 Das Verlangen war erfüllt. 
 
 Fj-'öhlich rauschten grüne Bäume! * 
 Henselt first appeared in St. Petersbui-g in the con- 
 cert-season of 1838, and since then has left us only 
 occasionally. I happened to be at Count Wielhor- 
 ski's when Henselt first called there. I shall never 
 forget the extraordinary impression he made by the 
 interpretation of his F sharp Major Etude. It was 
 * Kaiser Oktavianus. 
 
 [127] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 like an ^^olian harp hidden beneath garlands of 
 sweetest flowers! An intoxicating perfume was 
 crushed from the blossoms under his hands — soft, 
 like falling rose-leaves, the alternating sixths, which, 
 in one and the same octave, pursued, teazed, em- 
 braced, and enraptured ! Such a charm of rich fullness 
 of tone in pianissimo had never before been heard 
 on the piano! After the delicate whisper in the 
 principal theme, the Minore entered energetically, 
 mounting from one degree of power to another, 
 taking the instrument by storm — to lose itself 
 again in a magic dialogue in sixths! Thirty-two 
 years have passed since then, but the enchanting 
 picture still lives before the inner eye. 
 Henselt must have perceived how enraptured we 
 were with his performance, for as soon as he had 
 finished the piece, he commenced again at the most 
 touching part of his poem, and played it through 
 once again, with modified gradations of expression. 
 It was like gleaning after a harvest of joy! He 
 must have been satisfied with himself, and have 
 rejoiced to read his instant triumph in the eyes of 
 connoisseurs of such high standing as the Counts 
 Wielhorski. 
 
 In quite a different style, flowing more quietly, 
 [128] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 broadly, and deeply, followed his Poeme cTamour in 
 B major, which, passing over from an unquestion- 
 ably new nocturne-style, changes to a not less deeply 
 felt allegro in variation -style, and closes with the 
 highest degree of bravura in arpeggios which cov- 
 ered the whole extent of the instrument — and 
 which he hurled like heavy, well-aimed spears — 
 without exceeding the limits of euphony, without 
 once overstepping the measure of power allowed to 
 the piano. 
 
 Such playing had never been heard ! Such tenderness 
 allied to so much force ; a depth of meaning so suffi- 
 cient to itself, with all its euphemistic concessions 
 to the audience, was an artistic feat, a phenomenon, 
 wholly unique. 
 
 The success of the concert given at the big theatre 
 by Henselt, was so extraordinary, the result so 
 great, towering above everything of the kind which 
 had been known abroad, the victory over the old 
 world of the piano so indisputable — that the artist 
 acceded to the out-spoken wishes of the public, and 
 brought his Penates from Germany to St. Petersburg. 
 Henselt's coming to us marked the obsolescence of 
 the Hummel-Field school, and brought the piano 
 into quite another channel. A deep shadow fell over 
 [ 129 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 the old literature, which was represented in St. 
 Petersburg by Charles Mayer,^^ who in his way was 
 a finished, swift-fingered, smooth, but very dry 
 pianiste-compositeur — and by Reinhardt, who had 
 studied with Field in Moscow, but resembled his 
 master only in the outward part of piano ornamen- 
 tation, not in the spirit of his interpretations. Mayer 
 himself swore by Field, and posed as his best pupil ; 
 both these musicians understood little of Beethoven, 
 nothing at all of Weber. Mayer had had the pre- 
 sumption to go over to Hummel, whose compositions 
 passed for the highest kind of piano-music, in the 
 twenties and thirties ! Now, Hummel was but a 
 starting-point for Henselt, through whose compo- 
 sitions, aside from their unparalleled interpretation 
 by the author, a new era began : the era of lyric 
 personality, subjective dramatic intention, plastic 
 execution, bearing internal evidence of a real human 
 right to be. This tendency, this new ^oZow-literature, 
 had its origin in the good old school and belonged, 
 from a technical standpoint, to a straight guild; 
 now, however, it had nothing more to do with 
 schools and pedants, with pattern and routine, but 
 turned its doctrinary ideas to account for humanity, 
 in audience and adepts. 
 
 [130] 
 
Adoloh Henselt 
 
 Henselfs compositions seek to express emotion, and 
 not speculative musical ideas ; wherefore they should 
 not be judged merely from reading, but must be 
 played, or heard. 
 
 The abstract idea so powerful in Schumann, for 
 example, is foreign to Henselt ; but nowhere in his 
 compositions do we find the voids which, in Hum- 
 mel, hide behind passages and endless tinklings. 
 Henselt paints pictures of deep feeling within small 
 frames, and his mastery of the medium enables him 
 — through polyphony in composition, through posi- 
 tions, stretches, and turning to account eveiy possi- 
 bility of the piano, to give interest to compositions 
 in which the original idea was of slight value. It is 
 the most fruitful treatment of the piano, beyond 
 which Liszt and Chopin were able to pass only in 
 details, not in essentials. It is, rather, the same do- 
 main occupied by the Olympian piano of our day, 
 which dominates publicity, influences privacy, and 
 cannot well lend itself to simplified expression ; for 
 such simplicity, to receive vitality of form, must be 
 paired with a proportionally greater and more prim- 
 itive creative gift — one on a par with the gi-eatest 
 masters of composition, ay ! overpassing them, after 
 the delirious revel of our days in outward effect ! In 
 [ 13l'] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 these days we seem to rely more upon form and out- 
 ward appearance than on the deep musical produc- 
 tion — the idea. 
 
 Time is generally the most righteous judge of worth. 
 Henselt's compositions have held their own in the 
 piano-repertory for forty years. That is saying a 
 great deal; that is a proof that they embody living 
 thought which must survive fashion and the influ- 
 ence of the auspicious moment — that they are, in 
 a word, vital thoughts — which cannot be said of 
 many of their contemporaries. It is not merely the 
 fundamental expression of love-yearning, tempered 
 by strong dash of romanticism, in Henselt's compo- 
 sitions, but, no whit less, their tragi -dramatic aim, 
 which gives them value and importance. In the 
 jfitudes Eroica and Dankgebet nach Stu?'m, there is 
 an amount of energy, earnestness, and a dramatic 
 note, which, before his time, were not to be found 
 on the piano. Henselt is, altogether, a phenomenon 
 unexcelled by any other of our day; a phenomenon, 
 in its place and period, of equal 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 pia?io-mus\c — belonging 
 essentially to the piano and indissolubly bound to 
 [ 132 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 it. Hence it is that Weber and Henselt are so much 
 alike in spirit — that Weber is so much more sym- 
 pathetic to the artist than Beethoven. Weber lives 
 in the region of loving human souls, Beethoven's 
 influence over the world is through the strength and 
 power of speculative thought! These two aims are 
 not opposed, they nin parallel; they do not inter- 
 fere with one another, they divide the world be- 
 tween them. Of Beethoven's three first piano-trios 
 (Op. 1) Henselt said in his pithy way: "They ^^ze;, 
 the later ones were made;" and the same, in a 
 higher degree, he thought of the great thinker's 
 solo sonatas, which form a cult by themselves, as 
 every one knows. 
 
 I know that I lay myself open to contradiction here 
 — it might be war to the knife, but for the fact 
 that I shall never venture to argue with Henselt ! His 
 obstinacy and tenacity are too strong — he would 
 never yield! He sits walled in by his own convic- 
 tions, walled in \vith the precepts of his good old 
 school — even though these precepts are no longer 
 impregnable, or enlightened by the general latter- 
 day art-philosophy. But one example is worth men- 
 tioning. Beethoven, in the finale of the Choral sym- 
 phony, uses the chord of the seventh on ^ in D 
 [ 133 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 minor, with the minor ninth (b), and the full dom- 
 inant harmony (a, c sharp ^ f, g)^ whereby the en- 
 tire diatonic minor scale of D is heard at once. At 
 a dinner in St. Petersburg, which Henselt gave in 
 honor of Berlioz, the latter spoke of this chord as 
 a "monster'' which he could not understand. Hen- 
 selt rose from the table, opened a piano and seated 
 himself — not without some irritation — on the keys, 
 with the words: "It sounds something like this!""^* 
 Henselt says that Bach can never gi'ow old — and 
 that is very true; but the reason lies in the nature 
 of the fugue as a conventional form, not in the su- 
 periority of the thought. Such a study of Bach as 
 Henselt made, every day of his life, has never before 
 been heard of ! He played the fugues most diligently 
 on a piano so muffled with feather quills that the 
 only sound heard was the dry beat of the hammers 
 against the muffled strings; it was like the bones of 
 a skeleton rattled by the wind ! In this manner the 
 artist spared his ears and his nerves, for he reads, at 
 the same time, on the music-rack, a very thick, good 
 book — the Bible — truly the most appropriate com- 
 panion for Bach. After he has played Bach and the 
 Bible quite through, he begins over again. The few 
 people whom Henselt allows to approach him in 
 [ 134 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 those late hallowed evening hours, he requests to 
 continue their conversation, — that does not disturb 
 him in the least ; — but the rattle of the skeleton in 
 the piano disturbs them^ and tortures their nerves 
 instead of quieting them. Seated at a dumb piano 
 with Bach and the Bible for company, the composer 
 of many love-songs, of the Poeme cTamour^ the most 
 keen-eared tone-reveller among virtuosi, earned his 
 daily artistic bread! One might meditate much on 
 this; it is a long leap — a salto mortale — from the 
 Prophets to Theocritus and Tibullus ! 
 Such a strange phenomenon is this artist! — and in 
 these traits, to which much might be added, he is, 
 so to speak, a second Faust -Wagner : "In truth I 
 know much, but I would know all," without contra- 
 dicting his genuine artist-nature, but confirming it 
 in genuine German fashion. 
 
 The effect Henselt produced in St. Petersburg was 
 so great, that he became all at once the all-engross- 
 ing topic of conversation at the pianoforte ; he 
 concentrated, in his own person, the function of 
 instructor in all the most influential circles and at 
 Court, where the Empress immediately appointed 
 him Court Pianist. He kept open house, gave no 
 more concerts, and limited his consuming activity 
 [135] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 to composition and to teaching — his lessons he 
 managed with almost unheard-of punctuality and 
 energy. 
 
 His Piano Concerto in F minor dates from this time ; 
 we should call it the last possible three-part Con- 
 certo; — also his Trio in A minor, which, by reason 
 of the contemporary movement, stands in the con- 
 stellation of Mendelssohn. 
 
 In order to hear Henselt, one had either to become 
 his pupil, which was not easy, or to belong to his 
 circle of intimate acquaintances — which was still 
 more 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 matinees at Henselfs, as they were called, 
 were most extraordinary ; the artist played one piece 
 after another without halt or rest, — often without 
 any interruption. He thought little about his audi- 
 ence, unless the foremost beauties of the city hap- 
 pened to be present. He appeared to regard the 
 performance in the light of exercises of a loftier 
 scope — coram populo — for he was always playing 
 exercises ; for yeai's he always had a dumb piano on 
 his knees, on which he uninterruptedly punished his 
 fingers, in company or by himself — for instance, at 
 [136] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 his concerts between each two numbers. I shall 
 never forget how — a few minutes after one of his 
 most brilliant triumphs at a concert in the Hall of 
 the Nobility — I went to the artists'* room with 
 Count Wielhorski to speak with Henselt, and found 
 him, suiTounded by the flood-tide of a concert- 
 evening, busy with his dumb piano ! There was 
 something in this of Hoffmann's Kreissler — it 
 was the artist's confession of faith, his way of giving 
 himself up entirely to his art, to the exclusion of 
 every other interest. I have often regretted it for 
 his sake, but have always understood it as a rare 
 Jaithfulness to conviction, as an exaggeration of the 
 sense of duty to his life-work for art, — as a proof 
 of endurance and strength of character such as is 
 peculiar only to the Germanic nature. This was not 
 understood by every one, however — this longing of 
 Henselfs to gi-asp with his hands the ever-receding 
 horizon of ideal perfection ! 
 
 Not less significant of his character is the fact that 
 the mere thought of giving a concert makes him ill ; 
 after his first appearance, no amount of persuasion 
 WEIS sufficient to induce him to give another concert 
 — in thirty-three years he gave but three ! And a 
 speculator offered to pay him in advance the highest 
 [137] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 price he could reasonably demand if without any 
 further trouble he would only sit down at the piano 
 and play, the speculator taking whatever remained 
 of the receipts over and above the price which he 
 should see fit to demand; — but Henselt absolutely 
 refused. 
 
 It is quite as impossible to induce him to attend a 
 concert given by another, or the opera ; he devotes 
 himself entirely to his art, to his scholars, to the 
 Court, to Bach and the Bible. Before Bach comes, 
 however, he still pursues his course of bodily health- 
 gymnastics every evening; forcing, in the sweat 
 of 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 had 
 once got a notion that it was beneficial, and Henselt 
 never changes his opinion. These gymnastics of his 
 have a not uninteresting point of departure. 
 In the days of Emperor Nicholas hygienic gymnas- 
 tics came into fashion through the performances of 
 a Swedish gymnast whose influence reached the 
 highest social circles. For several winters the Em- 
 peror visited, early each morning, the maiiege in the 
 palace of the Prince of Oldenburg, where he, in com- 
 pany with the Grand Duke, the Prince, and the 
 [138] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 Duke of Leuchtenberg, practised gymnastics. In this 
 Henselt, as a friend of royalty, took pai*t. Many 
 yeai-s have passed since then, and of all who met 
 there Henselt alone continues the exercises — a strik- 
 ing example of the persistence of the German nature. 
 For the same hygienic reasons, the artist walks end- 
 less distances every day in St. Petersburg, sometimes 
 letting his carriage accompany him, but oftener pre- 
 ferring to do without it. 
 
 Henselt is General Inspector of the music-classes 
 in the royal educational institutions in St. Peters- 
 burg and Moscow which are under the management 
 of the Prince of Oldenburg. In dark winter even- 
 ings Henselt walks quite alone from the Smolna 
 Monastery — one of the largest — through a pecu- 
 liarly lonely part of the town back to his own house. 
 No remonstrance has any effect. We told him he 
 might be waylaid. " That would not be easy,"" was 
 his only answer. " I am agile, I do gymnastics — and 
 I have this life-preserver ! " pointing to his stick. 
 So it will always be ; for a yielding Henselt, at any 
 age, is unimaginable. — In those institutions Henselt 
 teaches whole generations of well-trained instruc- 
 tresses, thus assuring generations a respectable live- 
 lihood for which they have not ceased to be grateful. 
 [139] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 Henselt's great Etudes are to be considered as 
 poems, "Songs without Words,"' and he would surely 
 have named them so had this title, brought into 
 vogue by Mendelssohn, not already appeared. The 
 expression Etude is not in this case to be understood 
 — as are Cramer's — in the sense of exercises for 
 piano-ins ti-uction. Everything in life is study ^ prac- 
 tice; we shall never reach the end of practising and 
 learning ! But these inspirations [Henselt's Etudes] 
 assume previously finished study; they are of the 
 first rank in the mass of literature which has ap- 
 peared under the title of Etudes, in which Chopin 
 culminates. 
 
 Henselfs ifitudes are not inferior to those of Chopin, 
 but present an essentially different emotional realm; 
 they move in a different social sphere, with different 
 forms of intercourse. If we seek to comprehend these 
 differences, we shall fathom the character of both 
 artist-natures and shall discover another criterion 
 for a proper estimate of Henselt. 
 Henselt, in common with Chopin, acts with direct 
 effect ; the effect which speculative musical thought 
 does 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 the 
 [ 140 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 sense of hearing. Henselt differs from Chopin as the 
 former higher French society, as the salon, in a 
 word, diffei-s from German society and civiHzation. 
 During the past few years Paris has become alto- 
 gether demoralized, becoming a sort of robber-ro- 
 mance. As early as the days of Louis Philippe, the 
 scene of Dumas"* novels was laid in Paris. The Pa- 
 risian salon of yore exists now only in the literature 
 of the time, in its music, in Chopin. Take up a 
 novel of Balzac ; you will find forms of intercourse, 
 relations, feminine characters and personalities, 
 which make up a world apart, having no slight 
 power of attraction, but unable to lay claim to 
 ideality. Beatrix, in Les Amours forces, by Bal- 
 zac (not to mention his imitators), may serve as a 
 type. It is precisely so with Chopin. Not so much 
 ivhat he says, as how he says it, is the punctum 
 saliens — the main point. Whatever seems correct to 
 Parisians, and is accepted by Parisians, must have 
 universal vitality, and a frivolous conception of the 
 mutual relation of the sexes plays the leading role. 
 A more fervent feeling, a deeper conception, is not 
 precluded, but disappears beneath the conventional 
 purple cover under which this very exclusive society 
 seeks to prolong its artistic existence. 
 [141 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 On the other hand, take a novel by Auerbach, 
 Spielhagen, or any of our best German authors. Per- 
 haps you will not find such accomplished people as 
 occupy the French scene, and the forms of inter- 
 course will not prove so charming; the language 
 will hardly be modelled on the patterns which re- 
 ceive French sanction ; but the characters will belong 
 to ideality, a loftier expression of life, and not to a 
 material point of view masquerading in the venal 
 draperies of the latest fashion. It is just so with Hen- 
 selt, who reaches his ideal from life itself — a true 
 German procedure. Chopin and the French exalt a 
 life, justified solely by convention and example, to 
 an ideal in which they live, and for this reason recog- 
 nize therein their own artistic justification ! This 
 tendency is unwholesome, pathological. However 
 great the charm which its procedures possess, when 
 all is told it is but a poisoning with refined poisons, 
 a poisoning, let us say, by burning perfumed tapers, 
 whose ßame alone is an emblem of real life ! 
 This refined and effeminate character of modem 
 French literature — which is reflected, as it were, in 
 Chopin, finds exceptions in his Polonaises^ which are 
 (for him) the higher, more objective form (his Odes\ 
 and his Ballades^ which are pictures in small frames 
 [ 142 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 (Sonnets — to which his Nocturnes, especially^ be- 
 long). Such exceptions in no wise alter the character 
 of the phenomenon as a whole ; one can find depths, 
 and genuine pearls, even in Balzac and his epigones. 
 Not unconditionally, not without reservations, do 
 we classify either phenomenon as higher than the 
 other ; we would only discriminate. 
 H. von Grimm ^3 called Chopin a Weltschmerzler. 
 Chopin may pass for a UtIc epicure ; any deprecia- 
 tive epithets are out of place where a noble spirit 
 like Chopin is concerned, who, like Balzac, like all 
 those Parisian exotics, moved in a self-constructed, 
 self-imagined milieu (as they were wont to say), yet 
 still bore the unmistakable mark of genius. 
 Chopin is, with few exceptions, a charming water- 
 color painter ; Henselt paints al fresco even when 
 his subject appears to exclude the broader style. 
 In the difference of their natures, in the irrecon- 
 cilable divergence between French and German civi- 
 lization (quia ceterna inter ea est pugna !), lies the 
 natural reason why Henselt does not play Chopin 
 as 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] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 We spoke of Henselt's interpretation of Chopin, 
 only because the question : " How do you under- 
 stand Chopin ?" is one of the gravest one can put 
 to a representative of the modern piano. In Hen- 
 selfs interpretation of the Mazurkas and the Noc- 
 turnes Chopin (and I say it from my personal ac- 
 quaintance with this rare nature) would have felt 
 as little at home as would a Parisian in the midst 
 of German society, because a certain free-and-easy 
 manner is found in this society even in its highest 
 circles, and may be ascribed to the effect of German 
 university life, which permeates and influences all 
 grades of German social life. 
 
 Henselfs magnificently powerful art of playing 
 showed to advantage in Chopin's ornamental pieces 
 — which are in Pompeian, not colossal style, and 
 therefore refractory to a Titanic conception. With a 
 certain pleasurable consciousness of strength con- 
 fronted with weakness, Henselt lets the time take 
 the leading part in the Mazurkas ; he uses his heavy 
 brush for fullness of tone, where the whole fabric 
 is crocheted and woven ; his ruhato is not the Chopin 
 rubato, it is a shifting of the tempo, not a general 
 dislocation of the visual angle for the phenomenon 
 as a whole, like the effect of a scene viewed through 
 [ 144 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 the small end of an opera-glass. How I should have 
 enjoyed witnessing Chopin's ecstasy, could he have 
 heard Henselt ! have heard him whisper, lighten, 
 thunder through his A minor Etude ! — This render- 
 ing of Chopin by Henselt is so extraordinary, so 
 indescribably grand, so deeply poetic, so infinitely 
 idealized, as if by Oberon's wand, that I cannot find 
 words to depict it. One finds no trace, in reading, of 
 these never-resting figures flowing from diminished 
 harmonies; from the delicate melismata and the 
 ineffable tones produced by the right hand to the 
 herculean strokes of the left, by Henselt, they are 
 like the twinkling of stars, the unknown language of 
 the heights. 
 
 ^'Himmelhoch jauchzend, zu Tode betrübt!'''' 
 Herein lies the immeasurable superiority of the 
 German over the Italian nature ! Taken all in all, 
 this performance of Henselt's is one of the grandest 
 on the pianoforte, as such, that it has ever been my 
 privilege to hear. From his soul the artist loves this 
 poem, for years he has fostered and tended it, and 
 warmed it on his breast ; when Henselt plays the 
 A minor Etude, he plays it again and again, for 
 he cannot satiate himself with the euphony, with 
 whose atmosphere he surrounds himself! If there 
 [ 145 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 is any one performance in which the artist's con- 
 suming impulse for perfection was realized I believe 
 it is this — and my opinion is the result of years of 
 observation. 
 
 Some of Henselt's principal compositions are his 
 Concerto in F minor and the great Duo in a move- 
 ment for piano and horn, in B minor. The Concerto 
 is the climax of the most brilliant concert-^rfli'^^ra, 
 allied, however, to a good musical content. \\Tiat 
 one might be tempted to regard as passage-work, 
 is solid thought in figurate style ; but the execution 
 is so difficult, that the artist was never satisfied with 
 his own rendering, and never publicly played the 
 work in St. Petersburg. Neither was he ever quite 
 satisfied with an accompaniment. He often played 
 the Concerto at his own home, and such a colossal 
 subjection of the greatest difficulties (difficulties 
 which have, however, a purpose) laid claim to the 
 greatest musical interest. The Duo likewise required 
 a master-pianist to interpret it. In our opinion it is 
 the most interesting in this entire literature, as an 
 exponent of pianoforte-örarwra in combination with 
 a second instrument, with a scope gratifying to the 
 interest in the idea. Neither of these works is as 
 widely known, as it deserves to be — but this is not 
 [ 146 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 caused by their technical difficulties alone ; his resi- 
 dence being so far removed from Germany, and his 
 strong objection to publicity, may have had some- 
 thing to do with it. Hans von Bl'ilow played the 
 Concerto in St. Petersburg, and esteemed it very 
 highly. It is like an apotheosis of the old school in 
 the new era, a task for the well-intentioned bravura 
 pianist. 
 
 When Liszt came to St. Petersburg, I, with both 
 the Counts Wielhorski, accompanied him to Hen- 
 selfs ; we found the artist awaiting us and ready to 
 comply with Liszfs particular request that he should 
 play for him. Henselt gave us first his own reading 
 of the Weber Polacca in E. I watched Liszt ; his 
 features expressed a certain astonishment. After 
 Henselt had finished Liszt said : " I could have had 
 velvet paws too, if I had wished ! '" (^" Taurais pu me 
 donner ces pattes de velours, sijavais 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, he 
 replied : " Learn that an artist such as Henselt does 
 not make process r ^Apprenez, qiCun artiste, comme 
 Henselt, ne fait pas des progress) It was a reproof, 
 — but it was a reproof from Liszt ! 
 [147] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 Henselt's execution of Weber's Polacca is a phe- 
 nomenon. It is a union of the grandest power and 
 strength with the greatest tenderness, in the inter- 
 pretation of the poetic thought. With the very first 
 measure (trill) under Henselt's hands, arises a vision 
 of a brilliantly lighted Walhalla ; kings walk there 
 with fair women to whom they whisper words of 
 love; — and then the Trio ! — Henselt published his 
 Variations to this inspiration of the knightly tone- 
 poet, to this foremother of Polonaises, in St. Peters- 
 burg. There are not alone reinforcements ; inner 
 parts, more sonorous registers, double passages in- 
 stead of mere threads, elevate the piece upon the 
 shield of the Olympian present-day pianoforte, leav- 
 ing to the original a certain feeling of tonal empti- 
 ness, which, in its time, wasjidbiess of tone. But the 
 thought, the creation, of Weber, still lives immor- 
 tal ! — What Henselt has woven into the work, it is 
 like the journal of his soul, in the enjoyment of its 
 intercourse with Weber ! It is no improvement, no 
 editio emendat'ior, but the homage of our modern 
 piano — after fifty years of development — to its 
 emancipator. One of Henselfs specialties is his in- 
 terpretation of Weber, to whom, after all, he stands 
 in closest human affinity. But Henselt discriminates 
 [148] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 in Weber. He discriminates between the value of 
 the idea, and its often insufficient reaHzation in the 
 developments. Hans von Bülow is of the same mind ; 
 Tausig manifested the same in his arrangement of 
 the Invitation ; and Liszt has just published his ar- 
 rangement of Weber''s piano-compositions. At pres- 
 ent Henselt is busy with an edition of his own 
 reading of the solo sonatas — a reading which is the 
 result of a lifetime of careful study, and not the 
 passing fancy of a moment. 
 
 Of Weber's Piano-quartet and Trio (with flute) ; of 
 the Sonata in E minor (the fourth) ; of the Polacca 
 and the Rondo in E fiat ; of the two first Piano- 
 concertos (in C, and E flat), and of the Variations, 
 Henselt refuses to take any notice. On the other 
 hand, he considei^ the Sonatas in C and A flat 
 major, and in D minor, the Clarinet-sonata in E flat, 
 the Invitation (his arrangement of which appeared 
 early in St. Petersburg), the Momento capriccioso, 
 the Polacca in E, and above all the ConcertstilcJc, the 
 very highest expression of all piano-poetry. His 
 interpretation of the Concert stiich is extraordinär}^ 
 and if we look at Weber fi'om Henselt's standpoint 
 it is unapproachable ! Henselt throws his own life, 
 his veiy soul and being into Weber ; he does not 
 [149] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 play Weber objectively, and probably no composer 
 yields more readily to a subjective interpretation 
 than Weber — whose work we understand as redeem- 
 ing the sensual through the ideal. Weber is love; 
 flirtations, French or other, are foreign to his na- 
 ture ! — If it were possible to lose Germany, we 
 should find her again in Der Freischütz! — As 
 Weber is in Der Freischütz, so is he in his piano- 
 music. Weber is the last of the knights ; he is the 
 Ideal, ushered by the Artist into the prosy monot- 
 ony of everyday life, — that image of Womanhood, 
 which even the prosiest man of afFaii-s, in the sack- 
 cloth and ashes of debit and credit, will not wave 
 away ! 
 
 Thus Henselt, his most faithful shield -bearer, inter- 
 prets him. Henselfs most important intei-pretations 
 of Weber are his Polacca in E ; the Aß at major 
 Sonata ; the Rondo of the D minor Sonata, where 
 the episode in G (with the trills in the song-figure 
 in the bass) is expressed in a manner which I had 
 not believed among the possibilities of the piano — 
 it always sounded to me like an unspeakably lovely 
 spring song ! — These interpretations of Weber cul- 
 minated in the Concertstück ; to hear Henselt play 
 this is an event, the memory of which one carries 
 [150] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 through life ! He gives it the happiest reading ; it 
 takes on quite a different appearance — it seems to 
 prophesy the future of the piano as foreseen from 
 the date of its composition, in the early twenties. 
 And this subversion of all HummeFs ideas of piano- 
 playing was accomplished by a pupil of Hummel, 
 quantum mutatiis ab illo ! In order to render the 
 contrast between then and now still more striking 
 — to give to the affair a still more fateful appear- 
 ance than it bore at first glance — let us add, that 
 Henselt has by no means ceased to be a good 
 Hummel pupil ; that the artist does his best by the 
 well-kno-v^Ti sonatas dedicated to Father Haydn, 
 the Fantasia in Eßat (Op. 18), the Quintet, and 
 the Trios by Hummel ; yet ^^ these works, from 
 Weber's height, are like the toys of childhood. 
 Thus wondei-fully is Henselt's nature divided be- 
 tween the doctrines of the good old school, and the 
 acquisitions of the new ! — He an-anged the Concert- 
 stuck to be played without accompaniment — that 
 is, he so successfully altered the poem that one does 
 not miss the orchestra, but is carried away with 
 admiration of the composition. Of this, but one 
 example. Before the entrance of the JVIarch pp (the 
 return of the warrior — in the distance) where the 
 [151] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 alluring magic of the bassoon-tone, and the hushed 
 vibration of the stringed instruments (tremolo pp), 
 prepare for the Marcia which ranks alone in the 
 history of music, — Henselt introduces volate, short 
 but magnificent forerunners of the closing presto in 
 six-eight, which are strikingly effective and quite in 
 the spirit of the situation, for they foreshadow the 
 presto figure — in which the lady of the castle joy- 
 fully embraces her returning lord. — Weber himself 
 left us the programme of this piece (in the biog- 
 raphy by his son). 
 
 Henselt's arrangements for two hands (one should 
 have at least four to play them) are epoch-making 
 in " arrangement ''-literature : the three opera-over- 
 tures by Weber, several song-numbers from Der 
 FreischütZy Oheron^ and Euryanthe and the Corio- 
 lanus Overture by Beethoven. No orchestra would 
 be able to render the Ohcron overture with the fine 
 nuances^ with the flowingly blended euphony, with 
 the intricate meaning, with which Henselt imbues 
 this instrumental tale ! Perfection of this kind is 
 possible only to Unity in the Executant, not to 
 any group of factors, despite the advantage of dis- 
 similar tone-colors in the orchestra. This interpre- 
 tation is, indeed, wholly incomparable. 
 [ 1^^ ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 At rare, gracious moments, for his own enjoyment, 
 Henselt plays the Weber operas four-handed ; at 
 these times it is easier to be his audience than his 
 partner. His "Agathas" and "Annchens" were 
 better than any I ever heard on any other stage, 
 and I have heard them all. What shall I say of his 
 Gypsy choinises from Preciosa ? Astounding ; why 
 Henselt never went to the theatre, became quite 
 clear ! That in Weber the artist is eclectic, is his 
 right as a virtuoso ; for others (and I think they 
 have been the gainers thereby), the piano-quartets 
 and trio, and the other compositions which Henselt 
 rejected, have become life-long friends. Are not the 
 Sonates progressives et agreahles (in which only 
 the French conventional title can be found fault 
 with) — arranged for four hands from the too meagre 
 original for piano and violin — operas in disguise? 
 Is not everything comprehended within the bounds 
 of Weber's original Pieces for four hands ? 
 Henselt considers the Clarinet-sonata in E flat We- 
 ber's greatest work in respect of completeness and 
 unity of design, and he arranged the charming piece 
 for two pianos. On the second he gives the clarinet- 
 part in his happy style of accompaniment — a style 
 which no one else could attempt. By this means he 
 [153] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 obtains a unity and fullness of tone, and a general 
 effect, by which the work gains in a high degree. 
 The artist carries this second part in his heart — he 
 never wrote it down. He also accompanied several 
 of his great Etudes on a second piano, and in St. 
 Petersburg he had a second part to the Cramer 
 Etudes engraved. The artist considers the Etudes 
 by Church-Father Cramer, which contrast so strongly 
 with the Weber Muse, such great works of art, that 
 he produces them in St. Petersburg, where his pre- 
 dilection is well known, on two pianos as full- 
 fledged concert-pieces ; and the secondo part so skill- 
 fully adapted to the primo (the unaltered original), 
 that one can hardly believe they were ever played 
 otherwise. To us these productions of Cramer's 
 Etudes appear, viewed as repertory-pieces, like the 
 comments of a philologist on a classic author. They 
 are a culmen in the pedagogic fruit-garden ; from 
 an artistic standpoint, I never enjoyed them — caii- 
 didus imperii. But how old Church-Father Cramer 
 (Beda venerahilis) would have rejoiced to find him- 
 self so honored after a lapse of seventy years ! How 
 delicately and tastefully Henselt handled them ; to 
 invent a second part to the polyphonic compositions 
 of Cramer — always so complete in themselves — is 
 [ 154 ] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 a problem for the connoisseur. It is a far gi'eater 
 achievement than that of Gounod, who composed 
 a second paii: to the well-known Bach prelude. 
 Think of the variety of form and rhythm, of expres- 
 sion and conception, contained in the Cramer 
 Etudes ! It was an opus desparatum ; the thought 
 of such a work could have occun'ed only to a Ger- 
 man mind — and only the gi^eatest love for the com- 
 position and the pleasure of solving such a difficult 
 problem could have induced him to attempt it. 
 On several of the celebrated Moscheles Etudes (that 
 in A flat, for instance), Henselt has also bestowed the 
 blessing of the modern piano, and paid the greatest 
 compliment to Moscheles by playing these varia- 
 tions to him in Leipzig. How astounded the neat 
 little man must have been (we knew him very well) 
 to see Henselt hurl his Achilles spear into the midst 
 of his compositions ! 
 
 The great German artist to whom this sketch is 
 devoted despised ostentation and avoided publicity, 
 yet he won renown in the German fatherland, and 
 we believe these hints of his experiences in a foreign 
 land will — to the German reader — form a welcome 
 contribution to the history of the piano of our day. 
 The compass of a book is necessary for a detailed 
 [ 155 ] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 description of such an important artist as Adolf 
 Henselt. 
 
 Therefore we do not pretend to have exhausted our 
 subject, and I can but assure the friendly reader 
 that, to the best of our ability, we have endeavored 
 to draw in outlines (as the English say) one of the 
 most remarkable artistic phenomena of this century. 
 In closing, let us glance for a moment at the out- 
 ward appearance of the artist — which is oftener 
 mistaken for an exponent of the inner man, than 
 one might think. 
 
 When Henselt first came to St. Petersburg, he was 
 a perfect example of the German youth, of the Hun, 
 the Germanic hero confident of success, without 
 foreign polish. There was a suggestion o^ Siegfried 
 in his character; one could read something of the 
 Nibelungen in his deep, speaking eyes — young men 
 and maidens have been intoxicated by reading the 
 legend, both here and yonder ! Throughout Ger- 
 many one finds many portraits of the artist taken 
 at this period. In one especially (which is taken full 
 face) he looks you frankly in the eyes and you dis- 
 cern the romantic trait which is so prominent in 
 his character — the never-satisfied soul continually 
 striving to reach the ideal of absolute perfection. 
 [ 156] 
 
Adolph Henselt 
 
 Henselt is an ego, a distinct personality. Like Liszt 
 and Chopin, he is the fountain-head of a current, a 
 tendency, on the pianoforte, and his own ancestor. 
 It would be impossible to imitate Henselt's repro- 
 duction, because it is specifically individual ; for this 
 reason Henselt is without successors, and the best 
 of his pupils in Russia, though true virtuosi, repro- 
 duce only his material side, not his heart, which re- 
 mains his own, being inseparable from his total per- 
 sonality. 
 
 If any one ever approached Weber at the piano, it 
 is Henselt; he, like Weber, is a spirit — a cosmos 
 of ideas, such as one can find only in ages of the 
 organic life of art. There can never be another 
 Weber, for the reason that he lived at a time when 
 people had leisure for contemplation and possessed 
 greater power of thought and feeling than in our 
 day : we find it difficult to believe that such a time 
 ever existed ! 
 
 It is not alone in his fruitful treatment of the piano 
 that Henselt resembles Weber; it is not in the 
 tenths and the chord -stretches, from which Henselt, 
 like Weber, reaps advantage ; — it is in the spirit, 
 influencing the soul from the German soul, and not 
 from speculative musical ideas ; it is the life of the 
 [157] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 German heart, which is sufficient unto itself, and 
 courts nothing foreign ; as the romantic poet has 
 it: 
 
 Überwunden von der Schönheit, 
 Will ich ewig nach dir ziehen. * 
 Henselfs nature suggests an indestiTictible sense of 
 youthfulness ; such a nature cannot grow old, it 
 must be and remain like itself alone. In Germany 
 one sees among gray-haired statesmen a like youth- 
 fulness of thought; it is a legacy of the German 
 academic life with them, but with our artist it is 
 the German soul : — 
 
 — in dem die Welt sich. 
 Die Ewige spiegelt ! 
 
 • Kaiser Octavianus. 
 
 [ 158 J 
 
Notes 
 
Notes 
 
 Note 1 
 
 Des Leibes bist du ledig: 
 Gott sei der Seele gnädig.' 
 
 Note 2 
 
 In Riga, since 1828, Der Freischütz had been a per- 
 sonality with whom all had social intercourse. The 
 text was familiar language: "I have the Overture 
 for four hands/' caused peremptory invitations to 
 evening entertainments. No barrel-organ but played 
 "Und ob die Wolke sich verhülle;" no bowling-alley 
 where the "Jägerchor" was not heard; no dance-hall 
 that did not use the Waltzes; no bread-and-butter 
 Miss who did not know "Jungfernkranz" and '^veil- 
 chenblaue Seide;" no marriageable maiden who did 
 not know "Kommt ein schlanker." The hunter, com- 
 ing home with only two small snipe, excused himself 
 with: "Alles was ich könnt' erschauen;" the husband, 
 delayed by a glass of punch at the club, with: "Schwach 
 war ich, obwohl kein Bösewicht." — "Doch hast du 
 auch vergeben den Vorwurf, den Verdacht.'*" was the 
 last question the wife asked, before going to sleep. 
 Pigeons, long past all dangers of being shot at, em- 
 ployed an allegorical: "Schiess nicht, ich bin die 
 Taube!" "Die süsse Stimme ruft," said the tenor, go- 
 
 [161] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 ing to the duet at the piano; " könnt' ich das zu hoffen 
 wagen?" sang every contented one. "Samiel hilf!" 
 was an entertaining little society cry; "Bei den Pforten 
 der Hölle," the confirmation of every promise; not a 
 nail was hammered in without: "Schelm, halt' fest." 
 Women, who in no wise doubted the possibility that 
 even an unloaded gun might go off, stood their ground 
 bravely for three shots in Der Freischütz. Der Freischütz 
 travelled even into the country frus evolavitj; every 
 tree-trunk transfonned itself at evening into the hunter 
 "der im Dunkeln wacht." Such a union of all forces, 
 all classes, all professions, as never before! All had a 
 personal interest in Weber's music, and the roles dis- 
 tributed as follows: every proprietor of an estate, was 
 Ottokar, who led in the hunt; every forester was Kimo; 
 every lover of the god Bacchus was Kaspar; each and 
 every lover, with or without a gun, impersonated Majr; 
 the entire feminine population, were either Aimchejis 
 or Agathes without tertium comparatioiiis. Such was our 
 Robin des hois! How much of that could a Frenchman 
 appreciate? 
 
 Notes 
 
 Vien qua, Dorina bella ; Theme russe ; Th^me original ; 
 
 and the Joseph Variations. 
 
 Note J,, 
 
 See Lenz : Beethoven et ses trois styles, Sonata Op. 
 
 [ 162 ] 
 
Notes 
 
 26, where I endeavored to give a sketch of this curious 
 pianist. 
 
 Note 5 
 
 " Die J bird, or eat ! " [Root, hog, or die !] 
 
 Note 6 
 Supremacy. 
 
 Note 7 
 
 The term Lorette is two or three centuries old ; it has 
 come into vogue latterly through Alphonse Karr. — 
 Translator s Note. 
 
 Note 8 
 
 False melancolique (A minor). In the eighth measure^ 
 highest part, occur the notes d (quarter) d g sharp 
 (quarter) over the first d ; by taking g sharp and c, but 
 6 to g and d sharp, a close results (one part). It has a 
 fine effect to repeat the passage at the reprise. 
 
 Note 9 
 
 See Lenz : Beethoven, eine Kunststudie, Part iv, at Op. 
 
 95, 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. SS, No. 4, B minor, where the 
 left hand has an unaccompanied solo. 
 
 Note 11 
 
 See the Signale for the Musical World (1868, Nos. 37 
 [163] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 to 39), wherein my musical conscience called upon me 
 to take up the cudgels for Weber. 
 
 Note 12 
 
 Humor, a devotional, artistic wantonness, distin- 
 guishes the German from the Southron. Of this specific 
 racial difference the Times once wrote: ^'The French 
 have no humor. That poor, pitiful stuff of theirs, called 
 wit, is nothing but thin, sour, blue-colored claret — a 
 very different thing from the full, rich port-wine fla- 
 vored growth, dear to Englishmen." 
 
 Note 13 
 
 In the Neue freie Presse of Sept. 1, 1871, in a supple- 
 ment devoted to the Bonn celebration. Dr. Nohl col- 
 lected, with praiseworthy zeal, some communications of 
 Holz, the second violin of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, 
 in the time of Beethoven, whose amanuensis he was, 
 and to whom the master revealed much. I carried on a 
 diligent con-espondence with Holz ; he copied for me, 
 out of his musical diary, all the information Beethoven 
 had given him relating to the last five quartets — and 
 in these Holz had played the second violin and had, 
 therefore, stood next the composer. These letters 
 which Holz wrote me, being a valuable source of infor- 
 mation, I turned over to the Imperial Public Library 
 in St. Petersburg; but the contents are given word for 
 word in the sixth volume of my book Beethoven, 
 [ 164 ] 
 
Notes 
 
 eine Kunststudie in connection with Op. 127, the first 
 of the five last quartets. It is the only information we 
 possess relating to these Sybilline books, and we hiojv 
 that it is genuine. 
 
 I met Dr. Nohl at the Secular Festival at Vienna in 
 December, 1870; he, S6row, and I sat together at the 
 concert, and Serow told me — probably for the sake of 
 saying something agreeable — that Dr. Nohl had told 
 him that he had gotten most of his information about 
 Beethoven from my book. Consequently, Dr. Nohl at 
 least knows my book; it is astonishing that Holz, who 
 gave me the information which is printed in my book, 
 should also have given the same data to some one else, 
 without once mentioning the fact to me. I was really 
 but the medium, to preserve in a permanent form, the 
 data obtained from Holz by Frau Fanny Lingbauer 
 (nee Tonsing), at that time living in Pesth. I had, for 
 some years, carried on a correspondence with Frau 
 Lingbauer, who was an enthusiastic connoisseur of 
 Beethoven literature. It was not at all easy for this 
 excellent lady to obtain from the kind-hearted Holz 
 — who not only wrote badly, but expressed himself 
 badly, too — these important facts relating to the last 
 five quartets. I herewith offer Frau Lingbauer my re- 
 newed thanks. It was not decreed that I should be- 
 come acquainted with my kind Beethoven correspon- 
 
 [165] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 dent of Vienna and Pesth. My immature, but well-in- 
 tentioned first book about Beethoven, published in the 
 French language : Beethoven et ses trois styles (St. Peters- 
 burg, 1852, Bernard, 2 vols.; two pirated editions — 
 Stapleaux, Brussels, 1854; Lavinee, Paris, 1855), was in 
 such demand in 1852, that through the Austrian Em- 
 bassy in St. Petersburg I received from Frau Lingbauer 
 a Beethoven trophy — one of those ingeniously photo- 
 graphed groups of Beethoven relics, consisting of the 
 best bust of Beethoven, his Lichnowski violin and the 
 lithograph of the master at work upon his Missa Solem- 
 nisj an autograph from the last quartets, and a portrait 
 of our good Holz. This photograph of the Beethoven 
 relics, so often copied, was one of two original large 
 quarto photographs, and I presented it to the library 
 of the Imperial Hofsängerkapelle in St. Petersburg. 
 As to the data of Dr. Nohl which appeared in the 
 Neue freie Presse, I may say: Jirst, — that we ought at 
 last to leave off wTiting — according to Schindler and 
 Holz — "I'oeuvre le plus accomp//," as Beethoven called 
 the Mass in D in a letter to Cherubini, since it should be 
 called " la plus accomp/ie ; " and here there is no reason 
 for the diplomatic conservation of a grammatical error. 
 Secondly, — the Tenth Symphony was not, as Dr. Nolil said, 
 in C minor; it was sketched in Eflat major (the Scherzo 
 in C minor and C major). Holz sent me a copy of the 
 
 [166] 
 
Notes 
 
 sketches for it, and since the beginning of the world 
 there has not been a greater intellectual loss to de- 
 plore than that of the Tenth Symphony. Thirdly, — the 
 slow middle movement in the F minor Quartet is no ex- 
 traordinary Adagio, as Dr. Nohl writes, but an extraor- 
 dinary Allegretto (ma non troppoj, and this sign of Beet- 
 hoven's is specific, and important to the proper reading 
 of the composition. That which Dr. Nohl says further 
 on: "At night, when the heavens were alight with mil- 
 lions of stars, Beethoven walked across the fields at 
 Baden; his glance swept questioningly and longingly 
 into endless space" — is more important and significant 
 than anything which has hitherto appeared about the 
 immortal quartets; and these communications of Dr. 
 Nohl are, altogether, of high value. But, in comparison 
 to Beethoven's own utterances, we all — who have la- 
 bored with endless toil in these spheres — are but as 
 dust! 
 
 Note U 
 
 The title of a satirical publication printed in Berlin. 
 
 Note 15 
 
 Meyerbeer said: "Can one reduce women to nota- 
 tion.'' They would breed mischief, were they emanci- 
 pated from the measure!" — See No. 37 of the IS^eue 
 Berliner Musik-Zeitwig, 1871 ("Berliner Bekannstschaf- 
 ten"). 
 
 [167] 
 
Great Piano Virtuosos 
 
 Note 16 
 
 A fact which I think I was the first to point out (in 
 
 Beethoven, eine Kunststudie, vol. iii., p. 152, touching Op. 
 
 15). 
 
 Note 17 
 
 A Russian coin, value about 77 cents. 
 
 Note 18 
 
 See Beethoven, eine Kunststiidie, Part 4, pp. 159 et 
 seq.; an entire little monograph — yet not so much, 
 after all! — 
 
 "In seiner Werkstatt träume sich der Künstler 
 
 Zum Bildner einer schönem Welt!'' 
 
 Note 19 
 
 Schiller : " Was die Mode streng getheilt.'* 
 
 Note W 
 
 These essays were written about 1868. — Translators 
 
 Note. 
 
 Note n 
 
 For a proper appreciation of Henselt's triumph, and 
 of the peculiar situation in St. Petersburg, it must be 
 observed, that for thirty years Charles Mayer had held 
 the first place in St. Petersburg, and did not lack sup- 
 porters, and yet was never able to play even once 
 before the Court (the height of his ambition) ; he finally 
 left St. Petersburg and went to Dresden, where he 
 died. 
 
 [ 168 ] 
 
Notes 
 
 Note 22 
 
 The chord referred to is only the well-known horn- 
 passage in the Eroica, strengthened by the greatest 
 conceivable dissonance ; in other words, it is a cumuhts 
 of dominant and tonic, motivated by the idea with 
 which Beethoven was filled. The opinion of my dear 
 friend, C. F. Weitzmann of Berlin, I cannot agree with. 
 He thinks that the chord is not an independent one, 
 but a pedal-point figure like all chords, built up of suc- 
 cessive thirds, which overstep the limits of an octave. 
 See the Justification of the Chord by the Idea, in Beet- 
 hoven, eine Kunststudie, Lenz, vol. vi., page 194. 
 
 Note 2S 
 
 French Civilization and German Humanism from the 
 book lately published in Berlin — a book full of instinic- 
 tion and of deep thought : " Vaterländische Erinnerungen 
 und Betrachtungen über den Krieg von 1870-1871.'' 
 
 [ 169 
 
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