Part 4 (1/2)

He did not pattern after the three ave no time to line, fascinated as he was by the problems of color But color fades Where are the Turners of yester-year? Form and form only endures, and so it has coreat in the land where he was king for a day The B-flat is a pretty suite, the C- the lyric episodes--the D- of shreds and patches, and the _Rhenish_--muddy as the river Rhine in winter time

The _E-flat piano Quintet_ will live and also the piano concerto--originally a fantasia in onethe line of easiest resistance, which is the poetic idea If he had patterned as has Brahms, he would have sternly put aside his childish ro shadows, and pushed bravely into the open, where the sun and moon shi+ne without the blur and miasma of a _decadent_ literature But then we should not have had Schumann It was not to be, and thus it is that his is a na ently plucks at one's heart-strings His songs are sweet, yet never so spontaneous as Schubert's, so astringently intellectual as Robert Franz's His opera, his string quartets--how far are the latter from the noble, self-contained music in this form of Beethoven and Brahray _penuible His piano music is without the clear, chiseled contours of Chopin, without a definite, a great style, yet--the piano music of Schumann, how lovely some of it is!

I will stop , these vagaries, these senile ras of a superannuated musician Ah, me! I too was once in Arcady, where the shepherds bravely piped original and penetrating tunes, where the little shepherdesses danced to their lords and smiled sweet porcelain smiles It was all very real, this music of the middle century, and it ritten for the time, it suited the tirew stale, sour, and so, senescent _beau_, like the rouge and grimace of a debile _coquette_ My advice then is, enjoy theas music of the future It is always ner is having his, and Brahaces!_

There was a time, _mes enfants_, when I played at all the Schu_ variations, the _Papillons_, the _Intermezzi_--”an extension of the _Papillons_,” said Schumann--_Die Davidsbundler_, that wonderful _toccata in C_, the best double-note study in existence--because it is ro, opus 8_, the _Carnaval_, tender and dazzling anini, much more musical than Liszt's, the _Impromptus_, a delicate compliment to his Clara It is always Clara with this Robert, like that other Robert, the strong-souled English husband of Elizabeth Browning Schumann's whole life romance centered in his wife A man in love with his wife and that man a musician! Why, the entire episode er set, the Bayreuth set, for example But it was an ideal union, the wo for her, writing songs, piano music, even criticism for and about her

Decidedly one of the prettiest and most wholesome pictures in the history of any art

Then I attacked the _F-sharp Minor Sonata_, with its wondrous introduction like the vast, somber portals to some fantastic Gothic pile The _Fantasiestucke opus 12_, still remain Schumann at his happiest, and easiest coreatest of all, greater than the _Concerto_ or the _Fantasie in C_

These almost persuade one that their author is a fit companion for Beethoven and Chopin There is invention, workmanshi+p, and a solidity that never for abeneath Here he strikes fire and the blaze is glorious

The _F-minor Sonata_--the so-called _Concert sans orchestre_--a truncated, unequal though interesting work; the _Arabesque_, the _Blumenstuck_, the marvelous and too seldo with feeling; the eight _Novelletten_, alenial but unsatisfactory _G-minor Sonata_, the _Nachtstucke_, and the _Vienna Carnaval_, opus 26, are not all of these the unpreenuine poet, a poet of sensibility, of exquisite feeling?

I et those idylls of childhood, the _Kinderscenen_, the half-crazy _Kreisleriana_, true soul-states, nor the _Fantasie, opus 17_, which lacks a anic whole Consider the little pieces, like the three ro, opus 68_, the four fugues, four el als Prophet_ and _Trock'ne Blumen_--the _Concertstuck, opus 92_, the second _Albu_, the _Three Fantasy Pieces, opus 111_, the _Bunte Blatter_--do you recall the one in F-sharpone in A-flat? The _Albuhetta forro in D-minor, opus 134_, or the two posthumous works, the _Scherzo_ and the _Presto Passionata_

Have I forgotten any? No doubt I a weary, weary of all this music, opiate music, prismatic music, ”dreary music”--as Schumann himself called his early stuff--and the somber peristaltic music of his ”loneso, for the self-illuded We caresturdy realists--for architecture today These crepuscular visions, these adventures of the tis of love and sentiment are out of joint with the days of electricity and the worshi+p of the golden calf

Do not ask yourself with cynical airs if Schumann is not, after all, second-rate, but rather, when you are in the mood, enter his house of dreams, his home beautiful, and rest your nerves Robert Schuhest Valhall, but he served his generation; above all, he made happy one noble wootten, the nas, conjugal felicity

XII

”WHEN I PLAYED FOR LISZT”

To write froner sleeps calmly in the backyard of _Wahnfried_, without a hint of hisme one of the deepest satisfactions of my existence How came you in Bayreuth, and, of all seasons in the year, the spring? The answer may astonish you; indeed, I areatest of pianists--after Thalberg--greatest of modern composers--after no one--Liszt lies out here in the ceerstrasse, and to visit that forlorn paGoda designed by his grandson Siegfried Wagner, I left s in Munich and traveled an entire day

Now letin your ear--I once studied with Liszt at Wei, nevertheless, once upon a time I pulled up stakes at Paris and went to the abode of Liszt and played for hio I carried letters from a well-known Parisian music publisher, Liszt's own, and was therefore accorded a hearing Well do I recall the day, a bright one in April His Serene Highness was at that ti, and to see him I was forced to as ained me admittance to a royal household

_Endlich_, the fatal moment arrived Surrounded by a band of disciples, crazy fellows all--I discovered areat ly sat He was very amiable He read the letters I ti me on the back with an expression of _bonhomie_, he cried aloud in French: ”_Tiens!_ let us hear what this ad has to say for himself on the keyboard!” I did notever so lightly underlined; I knew of the fa which so ony! The _via dolorosa_ I traversed from my chair to the piano!

Since then the modern school of painter-impressionists has come into fashi+on I understand perfectly the mental, may I say the optical, attitude of these artists to landscape subjects They aze upon a tree, a house, a coith their nerves at highest tension until everything quivers; the sky is bathed in round trembles as it does in life So to me was the lofty chamber wherein I stood on that fateful afternoon Liszt, with his powerful profile, the profile of an Indian chieftain, lounged in theeray and brown, and silhouetting his brow, nose, and projecting chin He alone was the illuminated focus of this picture which, after a half-century, is brilliantly burnt intoin a ht for eyes And I felt like a diseed by an hypnotic will I went to the piano, lifted the fall-board, and in my misery I actually paused to read the maker's na these words: ”He un as a piano-salesman,” further disconcerted ers upon the keys Facing me was the Ary Scheffer portrait of Chopin, and without knohy I began the weaving Prelude in D-major My insides shook like a bowl of jelly; yet I was outwardly as calrass My hands did not falter and the music see's _Art of Singing on the Piano_ I finished There was amore

Then Liszt's voice cut the air:

”I expected Thalberg's tremolo study,” he said I took the hint and arose

He per for -stick in the antechas Later I sent a servant for the forgotten articles, and the evening saw ence miles from Weimar But I had played for Liszt!

Now, the moral of all this is thatmystery of Franz Liszt He heard hundreds of such pianists of my caliber, and, while he never committed himself--for he was usually too kind-hearted to wound mediocrity with cruel criticism, yet he seldom spoke the unique word except to such , Joseffy, d'Albert, Rosenthal, or von Bulow Ahimself out upon the world, body, soul, brains, art, purse--all were at the service of his fellow-beings That he was imposed upon is a matter of course; that he never did an unkind act in his life proves hientleman: ”One who never inflicts pain” And only now is the real significance of theto be revealed Like a comet he swept the heavens of his early youth He was a marvelous virtuoso who mistook the piano for an orchestra and often confounded the orchestra with the piano As a pianist pure and si; but, as a composer, as a man, an extraordinary personality, Liszt quite filled earian Rhapsodies, what a wealth of piano-music has not thisof Breitkopf and Hartel and you will be as by Schubert, Schumann, and Robert Franz, in which the perfuhts is never se-work Consider the delicious etude _Au bord d'une Source_, or the _Sonnets After Petrarch_, or those beautiful concert-studies in D-flat, F-enuine piano-s of Schubert marches Hanslick declared are marvels; and the _Transcendental Studies!_ Are not keyboard limitations compassed?