Part 12 (1/2)
”The address of Liszt was Rue Montholon; they gave it me at Schlesinger's without hesitation. But when I asked the price of _Litz_, and expressed my wish to take lessons from him, they all laughed at me, and the shopmen behind the counters t.i.ttered, and all said at once, 'He never gives a lesson; he is no professor of the piano!'
”I felt that I must have asked something very foolish. But the answer, no professor of the piano, pleased me nevertheless, and I went straightway to the Rue Montholon.
”Liszt was at home. That was a great rarity, said his mother, an excellent woman with a true German heart, who pleased me very much; her Franz was almost always in church, and no longer occupied himself with music at all. Those were the days when Liszt wished to become a Saint-Simonist. It was a great time, and Paris the centre of the world.
There lived Rossini and Cherubini, also Auber, Halevy, Berlioz and the great violinist, Baillot; the poet, Victor Hugo, had lately published his Orientales, and Lamartine was recovering from the exertion of his Meditations Poetiques. Georges Sand was not yet fairly discovered; Chopin not yet in Paris. Marie Taglioni danced tragedies at the Grand Opera; Habeneck, a German conductor, directed the picked orchestra of the Conservatoire, where the Parisians, a year after Beethoven's death, for the first time heard something of him. Malibran and Sontag sang at the Italian Opera the Tournament duet in Tancredi. It was in the winter of 1828-9 Baillot played quartets; Rossini gave his Guillaume Tell in the spring.
”In Liszt I found a thin, pale-looking young man, with infinitively attractive features. He was lounging, deep in thought, lost in himself on a broad sofa, and smoking a long Turkish pipe, with three pianos standing around him. He made not the slightest movement on my entrance, but rather appeared not to notice me at all. When I explained to him that my family had directed me to Kalkbrenner, but I came to him because he wished to play a concerto by Beethoven in public, he seemed to smile.
But it was only as the glitter of a dagger in the sun.
”'Play me something,' he said, with indescribable satire, which, however, had nothing to wound in it, just as no harm is done by summer lightning.
”'I play the sonata for the left hand (pour la main gauche princ.i.p.ale), by Kalkbrenner,' I said, and thought I had said something correct.
”'That I will not hear; I don't know it, and don't wish to,' he answered, with increased satire and suppressed scorn.
”I felt that I was playing a pitiful part--doing penance, perhaps, for others, for Parisians; but I said to myself, the more I looked at this young man, that this Parisian (for such he seemed to be by his whole appearance) must be a genius, and I would not without further skirmishes be beaten off the field. I went with modest but firm step to the piano standing nearest to me.
”'Not that one,' cried Liszt, without in the least changing his half reclining position on the sofa; 'there, to that other one.'
”I stepped to the second piano. At that time I was absorbed in the 'Aufforderung zum Tanz'; I had married it for love two years before, and we were still in our honeymoon. I came from Riga, where, after the unexampled success of the 'Freischutz,' we had reached the piano compositions of Weber, which did not happen till long after in Paris, where the Freischutz was called Robin des Bois(!). I learnt from good masters. When I tried to play the first three A-flats of the Aufforderung, the instrument gave no sound. What was the matter? I played forcibly, and the notes sounded quite piano. I seemed to myself quite laughable, but without taking any notice I went bravely on to the first entry of the chords; then Liszt rose, stepped up to me, took my right hand without more ado off the instrument, and asked:
”'What is that? That begins well!'
”'I should think so,' I said; 'that is by Weber.'
”'Has he written for the piano, too?' he asked with astonishment. 'We only know here the Robin des Bois.'
”'Certainly he has written for the piano, and more finely than any one!'
was my equally astonished answer. 'I have in my trunk,' I added, 'two polonaises, two rondos, four sets of variations, four solo sonatas, one which I learned with Wehrstaedt, in Geneva, which contains the whole of Switzerland, and is incredibly beautiful; there all the fair women smile at once. It is in A flat. You can have no idea how beautiful it is!
n.o.body has written so for the piano, you may believe me.'
”I spoke from my heart, and with such conviction that I made a visible impression on Liszt. He answered in a winning tone: 'Now, pray bring me all that out of your trunk and I will give you lessons for the first time in my life, because you have introduced me to Weber on the piano, and also were not frightened at this heavy instrument. I ordered it on purpose, so as to have played ten scales when I had played one. It is an altogether impracticable piano. It was a sorry joke of mine. But why did you talk about Kalkbrenner, and a sonata by him for the left hand? But now play me that thing of yours that begins so seriously. There, that is one of the finest instruments in Paris--there, where you were going to sit down first.'
”Now I played with all my heart the 'Aufforderung,' but only the melody marked wiegend, in two parts. Liszt was charmed with the composition.
'Now bring that,' he said; 'I must have a turn at that!'
”At our first lesson Liszt could not tear himself away from the piece.
He repeated single parts again and again, sought increased effects, gave the second part of the minor in octaves and was inexhaustible in praise of Weber. With Weber's sonata in A flat Liszt was perfectly delighted. I had studied it in much love with Wehrstaedt at Geneva, and gave it throughout in the spirit of the thing. This Liszt testified by the way in which he listened, by lively gestures and movements, by exclamations about the beauty of the composition, so that we worked at it with both our heads! This great romantic poem for the piano begins, as is well known, with a tremolo of the ba.s.s on A flat. Never had a sonata opened in such a manner! It is as suns.h.i.+ne over the enchanted grove in which the action takes place. The restlessness of my master became so great over the first part of this allegro that even before its close he pushed me aside with the words, 'Wait! wait! What is that? I must go at that myself!' Such an experience one had never met with. Imagine a genius like Liszt, twenty years old, for the first time in the presence of such a master composition of Weber, before the apparition of this knight in golden armour!
”He tried his first part over and over again with the most various intentions. At the pa.s.sage in the dominant (E flat) at the close of the first part (a pa.s.sage, properly speaking, the sonata has not; one might call it a charming clarinet phrase interwoven with the idea) Liszt said, 'It is marked legato. Now, would not one do it better _pp._ and staccato? Yet there is a leggieramente as well.” He experimented in all directions. In this way it was given me to observe how one genius looks upon another and appreciates him for himself.
”'Now what is the second part of the first allegro like?' asked Liszt, and looked at it. It seemed to me simply impossible that any one could read at sight this thematic development, with octaves piled one on another for whole pages.
”'This is very difficult,' said Liszt, 'yet harder still is the coda,'
and the combining of the whole in this close, here at this centrifugal figure (thirteenth bar before the end). The pa.s.sage (in the second part, naturally in the original key of A flat), moreover, we must not play staccato; that would be somewhat affected; but we must also not play it legato; it is too thin for that. We'll do it spiccato; let us swim between the two waters.'
”If I had wondered at the fire and life, the pervading pa.s.sion in the delivery of the first part by Liszt, I was absolutely astonished in the second part at his triumphant repose and certainty, and the self-control with which he reserved all his force for the last attack. 'So young, and so wise!' I said to myself, and was bewildered, absorbed, discouraged.