DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

LISZT LISZT 745
[In the last year of liis life he received special
honours in the two capitals "where his earliest
successes had been won. On March 25, 1886,
his
' Graner Messo ' was given at St. Eustache,
Paris.] Liszt's former triumphs in England "were
destined to be eclipsed by the enthusiasm of the
reception which awaited him "when he was prevailed
upon to return in 18S6. In 1824 George
IX. had given the sign to the aristocracy of
homage to the child-prodigy ; and his visits in
the following year and in 1827 were successful
enough. In 1840-41 ^ the Queen's favour was
accorded to him, and he shared with Thalberg
a reputation as a skilful piianist in fashionable
circles. But it was not until 1886 that the vast
popularity which had hitherto been withheld
from him, owing to the conditions of nuisical
life in our country, was meted out to him in
full measure.
Liszt paused awhile in Paris on his way [see
above], and received much attention, his musical
friends and followers gathering to meet him
at the concerts of Colonne, Lamoureux, and
Pasdeloup. At length on April 3, the Ablje
Liszt reached our shores, and on the same
evening three or four hundred people met at
Mr. Littleton's house at Sydenham to do honour
to the great artist, and a programme consisting
entirely of his compositions was gone through
by 'Walter Bache and others. The gi'acions
and venerable appearance of the distinguished
guest, and his kindly interest in all that went
forward, won the hearts of those who witnessed
the scene ; all recognised the presence in their
midst of a marvellous personality such as is
rarely met with. On the following day Liszt
played part of his E'i> Concerto before a few
friends. On the Monday he attended the
rehearsal of his oratorio ' St. Elizabeth ' in
St. James's Hall ; and in the evening of the
same day he astonished his host and a circle
of friends by an improvisation on some of the
themes. A^tril 6 was the date of the concert,
which was conducted by Mackenzie, and when
the composer walked into the hall he received
such ovations as had probably never been
offered to an artist in England before. Even
before he entered his arri"\'al was announced by
the shouts of the crowd outside, who hailed him
as if he were a king returning to his kingdom.
During the afternoon Liszt had been entertained
at the Royal Academy of Music, where the
Liszt Scholarship, raised with so much zeal by
Jlr. "Walter Bache, was presented by him to
the master. A short programme was performed,
Messrs. Shakespeare and Mackenzie conducting,
and when Liszt rose from his seat and moved
towards the piano, the excitement of the students
and of the rest of the audience knew no bounds.
A visit to "Windsor, where he played to Her
Majesty a reminiscence of the Rose Miracle scene
1 His project of conducting German opera in London in 1842 came
to nntliiiip.
from 'St. Elizabeth,' filled up most of the
following day (April 8), on the evening of which
Mr. AValter Baehc's reception at the Grosvenor
Gallery took place. The brilliant scone of
Saturday was here repeated, with the very
important additional feature of a solo frcm
Liszt himself, [See Bache, vol, i. p. 160.]
The events wliich followed in the course of the
great man's visit included a performance of
' St. ' Elizabeth at the Crystal Palace on the
17th. On the 22iid, a week later than he
intended, Liszt left England, pleased with his
reception, and promising to repeat his visit.
No wonder that his death was felt by English
people as the loss of a personal friend. The
last music he wrote was a bar or two of
Jlackenzie's ' Troubadour, ' upion wliich he had
intended to write a fantasia.
Thereniaining incidents in the life of Lisztniay
only be briefly touched upon. Paris gave him a
performance of ' St. Elizabeth ' at the Trocadero.
The master left Paris in May, and visited in turn
Antwerp, Jena, and Sondershausen. He attended
the summer festival here while siiO'ering from
weakness and cold. ' On ni'a mis les liottes pour
le grand voyage,' he said, excusing himself to a
friend for remaining seated. His last appearance
upon a concert platform was on July 19,
Avlien, accompanied by M. and Mine. Munkacsy,
he attended a concert of the Musical Society of
Luxemburg. At the end of the concert he was
prevailed upon to seat himself at the piano. He
played a fantasia, and a ' Soiree de Vienne.' It
need not be said that the audience, touched and
delighted by the unlooked-for favour, applauded
the master "with frenzy. In the pages of Janka
Weill's Francois Listl there is an account of
a scene during Liszt's stay at the Munkacsys'
house, according to the writer a record of the
last time the greatest master of the pianoforte
touched his instrument. A flying visit had been
paid to Bayreutli on the marriage of Daiiiela
von Billow— Liszt's grand-daughter—with Herr
von Thode on July 4. Liszt returned again for
the performance of ' Parsifal ' on the 23rd. He
was sutferiug from a bronchial attack, but the
cough for a day or two became less troublesome,
and he ventured to attend another pilay, an
exceptionally fine performance of 'Tristan,'
during which the face of Liszt shone full of life
and happiness, though his weakness was so great
that he had been almost carried between the
carriage and Mme. "Wagner's box. This memorable
performance of ' in Tristan, '
which the
singers (Suclier, Vogl, etc.) and players surpassed
themselves, lingered in Liszt's mind until his
death. 'When he returned home he was prostrate,
and those surrounding him feared the
worst. The patient was confined to his bed and
kept perfectly cjuiet. The case was from the
first hopeless, the immediate cause of death being
general weakness rather than the severe cold and
inflammation of the lungs which supervened on
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