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She indeed has fully effected her purpose, but I can scarcely credit that my work alone should have produced a similar impression upon the spirituelle Princess; and I am probably right in surmising that here also my friend Liszt has wooed for me with his wondrous fire.
At Pressburg Adam Liszt succeeded in arranging a concert which interested all the Hungarian aristocracy of the city. It was given in the spacious drawing-rooms of the Prince's palace, and a notable audience was present. Little Franz achieved a triumph that night, because of the fire and originality of his playing.
Liszt was one of the mighty figures of the century, with all the external qualities of a master-genius, shaking the stage of Europe with the weight of his personality, and, besides, endowed with a creative power that was not understood in his day.
There is also much expression of the utmost devotion and loneliness. Years of this life of reunion and separation went on. There are biographers who deny this, but in this letter to the princess, Liszt encloses Wagner's letter of most affectionate appeal for reconciliation, and with it his answer, giving his long-withheld blessing.
But who knew, fifty years ago, that Wagner and Liszt, or even their predecessors, Chopin and Schumann, and the song specialist, Robert Franz, were giants? We know it now, and future generations will know whether we have giants among us.
Some of his studies have been adapted to the pianoforte by Schumann and by Liszt, and of the collection arranged by Liszt, consisting of five numbers from the Caprices, Schumann says: "It must be highly interesting to find the compositions of the greatest violin virtuoso of this century in regard to bold bravura Paganini illustrated by the boldest of modern pianoforte virtuosi Liszt."
The Third Sonata, despite its lambent andante, is patently the work of one who has studied his Liszt and loves his Chopin. And yet, these works are characteristically male and raging and proud. And in all the works of this period there appears something new and magnificent that has scarcely before informed piano music.
To-day we are perhaps in too agnostic a state to be absorbed by such a contemplation. The subject in a narrower sense is true at most to those who will to cherish the solace of a salvation which they have not fully apprehended. And so the Liszt symphony of the nineteenth century is not a complete reflection of the Dante poem of the fourteenth.
The Liszt Polonaises, all said and done, are the most remarkable in design and execution since Chopin. But they are more Hungarian than Polish. "Coquetries, vanities, fantasies, inclinations, elegies, vague emotions, passions, conquests, struggles upon which the safety or favors of others depend, all, all meet in this dance." Thus Liszt.
Liszt and Karasowski, who follows him, say that the Countess sang the Hymn to the Virgin by Stradella, and a Psalm by Marcello; on the other hand, Gutmann most positively asserted that she sang a Psalm by Marcello and an air by Pergolesi; whereas Franchomme insisted on her having sung an air from Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda, and that only once, and nothing else.
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