THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1682, 16 February 1884, Page 26

THE SKETCHER.

LISZT. The other day, tired of the crushing criticism with which the deep thinker must invariably meet whenever he ventures on the domainn of the philosopher, and desirous of distracting my thoughts awhile, I laid aside the books of men "of healthy minds" (mews sana), and took up • " Les Confessions de J. J. Rousseau." As I mechanically turned over a few pages, I came across the following paragraph, familiar, no doubt, to most of the literary world : " I am not made like anyone I haveever seen ; if lam not better, I am, at least, different. Whether Nature, did well or not in destroying the mould iv which she had cast me can only be judged after reading me. Let the trumpet of the Last Judgment sound when it will, I will come with this book in my hand. . . •" Here the book fell from my hand, and I ceased reading. But 'these few lines put me in mind of a celebrated youth, equally vain, with whom, when but a boy myself, I was well acquainted at my birthplace, Rome, and of whom I was very fond. I allude to M. l'Abbe 1 Liszt, who, in spite of his seventy years, is still, so to speak, young, and "is not made like anyone else whom I have ever seen or who exists." L'Abb^'Liazt is an honest man and a gentleman, and 1 always remarked in him that innate feeling which belongs only to the j delicate minded man, and during my several years' close intimacy with him, I was never shocked by a single unpolite action, still less by any rudeness towards mo or anyone else. I say this, because I wish at once to protest against all the calumnies which have been heaped up against this great artist, who has been guilty of no other fault but that of wishing to desert his proper r6le of pianist, instead of 'contenting himself with having casts made of his right hand to distribute as relics to his devotees. But I must first warn my readers, that, although I am an Italian, as well as a musician, I am quite incapable of criticising M. .Liszt as an artist, as I unfort unately cannot number myself amongst those privileged few who alone can thoroughly appreciate his music. I have never been able to understand it ; and he has said himself, that M. Camille Saint-Saens is the only Frenchman living (since M. Berlioz's death) who 'knows what true music is. Besides all this, M. Liszt's music has been sufficiently criticised and analysed, particularly in France ; so I shall only attempt to sketch the man himself, and endeavour to put the Abbe" back into his proper place, from which he has been unjustly first transported to the skies, and then thrown down into the mire, although I have not sufficient space to answer all the many incorrect things that have been said for and more especially against him. ' Had I but the pen of George Sand I would describe him to you as he was when he lived at Santa Francesca Romana at the foot of the Palatine hill, at the summit of which -I was born, and where I remained for more than twenty years. I was very proud of being occupied by him nearly all day long ; and in the evening, unless he went out visiting in the town, I had the pleasure of teaching him a little Latin. And as I myself was also an abbe, at that time (for we Romans were all abbe's ; in fact, we were obliged to be so if we would be of any consideration at all), I taught him Ms breviary, which we repeated together with all the fervour of which we were capable. All this was, however, strictly private ; for the Abbe used the greatest' precautions to avoid all profane eyes. This amusement soon proved to be a far more profitable lesson to me even than those I received from him on the piano. I saw that I was wasting both my Latin and my time. I should never have believed that he who had so much talent for creating harmonies should be so totally incapable .of . connecting tivo ideas together. The Abbe", though dreadfully conceited, was very "spirituel," but to j^jarn- a little rhetoric, enough Latin to say oyer • one's breviary without understanding it too well, to make oneself acquainted, be it ever so slightly, with, ecclesiastical affairs, all this would require a little reflection — five minutes' consideration, at least,, every day, airl that Liszt was unable -to give. Manjr is ]bhe time I have been obliged to rank Liszt far beneath all those Parisian workmen, who, according to his own account, have obtuse pars and consciences incapable of appreciating £he beauties of bis music, much less that of his Bon-in-law, Richard Wagner. ' The Abbe Liszt certainly has done many foolish things, which are the more remarkable because latterly they were committed within the. shade of the sanctuary. But, after all, thse follies were all disinterested, and it must riot be forgotten that he never attempted in the slightest manner to curry favour with anyone. M. Liszt's troubles have all arisen from what is so well expressed in the French saying, ' " Chassez ' le naturel et il revient an galop." Thus it happened that, the viery day after this extraordinary pianist took' it into his head to stifje the musician in a cassock, back came the musician as well as ever ; arid there he remains to this day, offering him' l sfelf as an object of curiosity to all the world. He apparently ignored tho fact that even moral revolutions are not made d. Veau dc rose. It was a simple enough circumstance •in, his restless life that led to his departure from his true vocation. When ho • came to settle at Rome, one of his .'relatives (then a bishop at $he court of Piua IX., and now a cardinal) invited^ him to stay at the Vatican. It was there, in the Sixtine Chapel (where, since the age of seventeen, I had occupied the honourable post of secretary) that I first met him. Miy superior, Cardinal Antonelli, with his lynx-like eyefl, thought on first seeing this virtuoso na£iv 'pfllly carried away by religious enthusiasm, to

profit by tyis universal celebrity, and accordingly gavili im a welcome a foßichlieu.

This recuption was all that was needed to induce M. Liszt to transpose his Hungarian Rhapsodies into an ascetic key, and to convert them into a grand overture for his ecclesiastical career. Ho then wished to rank no longer as pianist, but as a person of great authority both I ecclesiastical and (as Montaigne expresses it) " cardinable," that is to say, of the stuff of which cardinals are made. The very day after this sudden change he took upon himself the duty of announcing this' event to Home and all Europe by sending out, right and left, visiting cards worded thus: "L'Abbe Liszt, au Vatican." Unluckily, one of these cards reached the Pasquin statue (which undertakes, as Figaro says, to ridicule follies under whatever aspect they present themselves), and accordingly we saw presented on the walls of Rome a group of pretty girls, their hair all dishevelled, running with visiting cards in their hands t® " L'Abbe Liszt, au Vatican." Antonelli, seeing how completely he had been mistaken about M. Liszt, who had no influence whatever over so-callod society, and that he could have obtained more profit out of a chorister boy than out of this celebrated man, abruptly deserted him without taking any trouble to help the poor man who would thus be left neither one thing nor the other. To ruin the Abbe in Pius the Ninth's eyes, Antonelli had recourse simply to ridicule. The Pope, who was never any too fond of Liszt, even as a pianist, only smiled. • The last time I saw Pius IX., which was while I was still in his service, was in 1871, during the Commune. After having handed over to him the letter with which I had been entrusted, and after he had closely questioned me about Paris, from whence I had just come, he ended his clever conversation by saying, " And your Abbe" Liszt, havo you seen' him again? Was it possible for you to live all through the eiege of Paris without bread, and without the arch pianist?" The pontiff pronounced these words, " the Abbe Liszt," in a manner sui generis, the irony of which I cannot describe. Not long after Liszt had assumed the cassock, he had to leave the Vatican, and still wishing to live near a sanctuary, went to the Dominicans at Monte-Mario close to Rome. But in a very short while these monks, who were accustomed to solitude and study, also declined the honour of having in their abode this Louis XIV of the piano, who completely destroyed their tranquillity with the continual come and go of cassocked men, priests without cassocks, &o. Then it was that he came to live, as I have already said, at Santa Francesca Romana, where he was able to remain several years, thanks to a separate apartment which had been standing unoccupied for a long while, and which the mouks were very glad to let to this model lodger. My dear mother was very fond of Liszt, because she believed him to be a really sincere priest, and ho came very often to see us on the Mount Palestine, and to attend ma3s in our chapel of St. Sebastian. M. LL?zt very often came to lunch with vis after mass, and would sometimes play duets with me. It was by playing alone tnat he rendered us truly happy. In leaving our house or his own he gave to all the poor who were lucky enough to meet him, and I do not remember having seen him a single time refuse to give alms. In this manner did he show his sense of fraternity without ever speaking of it. I have a copy of Pascal's " Pensees" which he gave me, and In which he has shown his appreciation of the following passage (which is also a favourite quotation of mine) by putting a pencil mark against it : — " All bodies together and all spirits together, and all their productions, are not worth even the smallest particle of charity ; that is of an infinitely high order. Alt that does not lead to charity ia vain," &c. I left Liszt when I quitted Rome for the first time in 1870, and 1 corresponded with him all through the siege of Paris. I have only seen him once since then, and 'that was at the 1878 Exhibition. Ho had accepted M. Erard's hospitality, and there I shook hands with him for the last time. And this last time I found him just the same as the first, still as young and lively, still the plaything of false romance, and " like a stove that always heats but cooks nothing," as Voltaire said of La Harpo. He was spoilt by ignorance and pride, and believed himself to be more than a man, whereas, except at the piano, he was less than a woman, for a woman, even when ignorant, is always protected by a certain amount of common Kense. But here, aa this Abbe has so often been accused of hyprocrisy, I must say that I never knew a man, priest or no priest, more sincere than M. Liszt, who may be reproached with many faults, but never with hypocrisy. i\l. aa Pontmartin has intelligently remarked that thero are two separate kinds of sincerity— that which is_ lasting and that which is but temporary, and it is for this reason that the world so often accuses of duplicity men who are indeed double, ( but not in the sense of hypocrisy ; double, either from weakness or imagination, they exalt themselves when they speak, but are unable to act up to their self ■ assumed standard. By this admirable definition is explained the whole of M. Liszt's life. His wit has always been of 'an improvising character ; he never required either delay or rendezvous to say a clever word. 1 have been so fond of this unique man for hi 3 frankness towards his friends and his generosity. t!o the poor, that I asked myself whether, although thoroughly sincere, I may not have been somewhat too severe for such a privileged man, who came into the world not to think but to play. — Z. Falojoni, in the Queen.