FRANZ LISZT 337 freely found a new vent in boundless generosity. Hospitals, poor and needy, patriotic celebrations, the dignity and interests of art, were all subsidized from his private purse. His transcendent virtuosity was only equalled by his splendid munificence ; but he found — what others have so often experienced — that great personal gifts and prodigious dclat cannot possibly escape the poison of envy and detraction. He was attacked by calumny ; his gifts denied and ridiculed ; his munificence ascribed to vainglory, and his charity to pride and ostentation ; yet none will ever know the extent of his private charities, and no one who knows any. thing of Liszt can be ignorant of the simple, unaffected goodness of heart which prompted ,them. Still he was wounded by ingratitude and abuse. It seemed to check and paralyze for the moment his generous nature. F£tis saw him at Coblenz soon after the Bonn festival, at which he had expended such vast sums. He was sitting alone, dejected and out of health. He said he was sick of everything, tired of life, and nearly ruined. But that mood never lasted long with Liszt ; he soon arose and shook himself like a lion. His detractors slunk away into their holes, and he walked forth victorious to refill his empty purse and reap new laurels. His career was interrupted by the stormy events of 1848. He settled down for a time at Weimar, and it was then that he began to take that warm interest in Richard Wagner which ended in the closest and most enduring of friendships. He labored incessantly to get a hearing for the " Lohengrin " and " Tann- hauser." He forced Wagner's compositions on the band, on the grand-duke ; he breasted public opposition and fought nobly for the eccentric and obscure person who was chiefly known as a political outlaw and an inventor of extrava- gant compositions which it was impossible to play or sing, and odiously unpleas- ant to listen to. But years of faithful service, mainly the service and immense prestige and authority of Liszt, procured Wagner a hearing, and paved the way for his glorious triumphs at Bayreuth in 1876, 1882, and 1883. I have preferred to confine myself in this article to the personality of Liszt, and have made no allusion to his orchestral works and oratorio compositions. The " Symphonic Poems " speak for themselves — magnificent renderings of the inner life of spontaneous emotion — but subject-matter which calls for a special article can find no place at the fag-end of this, and at all times it is better to hear music than to describe it. As it would be impossible to describe Liszt's orches- tration intelligibly to those who have not heard it, and unnecessary to those wh< have, I will simply leave it alone. I saw Liszt but six times, and then only between the years 1876 and 1881. 1 heard him play upon two occasions only, and then he played certain pieces oi Chopin at my request and a new composition by himself. I have heard Mme. Schumann, Buiow, Rubenstein, Menter, and Esipoff, but I can understand that saying of Tausig, himself one of the greatest masters of technique whom Ger- many has ever produced: "No mortal can measure himself with Liszt He dwells alone upon a solitary height."
