| Series |
The Franz Liszt studies series ; no. 4
Franz Liszt studies series ; no. 4. ^A388707
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| Contents |
Part I: April-September, 1882. Chapter 1. Weimar, the little "Athens-on-the-Ilm" ; Wonderful advantages of Little Weimar ; Home of Goethe and Schiller ; The famous Grand Duke Carl August, "friend of Goethe" ; Carl Alexander and Liszt ; Waiting in doubt ; The master returns ; The ordeal ; Accepted ; Now a "pupil of Liszt" -- Chapter 2. The master is greeted by his pupils ; Like the levee of a sovereign ; The pupils "his children" ; Liszt taught in metaphor as did Christ ; Remarks brief but poignant ; Tells reminiscent anecdote ; An interesting characteristic of Liszt's and Chopin's music ; The master ill ; Von Bulow appoints himself as a substitute -- Chapter 3. Liszt's astounding circle of illustrious friends included the acme of genius in music, literature, and painting ; Liszt and nobility ; Emperors, kings, grand dukes, princes ; Women ; Love-affairs ; Conjugal life -- Chapter 4. The master plays, shows his youthful powers ; He grows reminiscent ; Misplaced writing map arouses anger ; When two men held the piano while Liszt practiced -- Chapter 5. A social hour with Liszt ; The master relates reminiscences ; How Raff caned von Bulow ; A musicale at Liszt's home -- Chapter 6. The master no pro-fes-sor ; Teaches by parable-like illustration ; Not lessons as usually understood ; Higher spiritual ideas and ideals ; Patient with worthy pupils ; How to sit ; Mannerisms tabooed ; His "seven warts" ; How "Trudel" came to grief -- Chapter 7. A young genius causes a sensation ; Indulgence toward feminine pupils ; The master again plays ; Liszt's meeting with Longfellow ; The poet's visit inspires a unique portrait ; Liszt's letter to Longfellow -- Chapter 8. Young d'Albert reveals himself as a composer ; The master plays again ; He illustrates "how I should play Bach" ; Is bewitching in his "Feux follets" etude ; Some "characters" for an imaginary play ; "Uninvited guests" and is "Liebster Baedeker" ; Maltreatment of Beethoven causes a storm ; A test in sight-reading drives pupils to cover -- Chapter 9. The "Musikalischer Kaffee" of the starlings ; Quaint Dickensian characters: the Stahr sisters ; The master humiliates conceit ; "One-day flies" ; Tells an anecdote ; Godfather ; Liszt leaves abruptly when asked to play -- Chapter 10. MacDowell and Liszt ; Positive opinions on Brahms and Massenet ; Sight-seeing diversions aplenty in little "Ilm-Athens" ; Concerts, divertissements ; Christus -- Schiller's home ; Artists' lives not always as pure as their art ; The annual Liszt concert at Jena (familiarity known as Das Wurst-Fest, "sausage festival") -- |
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Chapter 11. Liszt the originator of modern orchestral conducting ; The Grand Duke Carl Alexander visits the lesson ; Speaks English and says of young d'Albert "wonderful, astounding" ; Pupils of all nations, a babble of languages ; A haughty Russian prima donna pianist ; The master takes a fling at the critics ; Human in dislikes ; Liszt illustrates how he would play an Italian canzona -- The Altenburg ; Liszt and women ; The boy Tausig designs a private purgatorium ; The Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein ; Brilliant musicales ; George Eliot and Thackeray, visitors ; The Countess of d'Agoult and Liszt's children ; Wagner and Ollivier, sons-in-law ; Satellites, parasites and gossips! ; The finale of a romance ; The "Three night owls" -- Chapter 13. The revelation of Parsifal ; Bayreuth, Wagner's ideal home ; Four hundred attend "love feast" to the composer ; He scents a stampede ; A reception at Wagner's home ; Artists and visitors interviewed -- Chapter 14. Another exceptional ; The lion in a rage ; The master laughs at intrigue episode ; Liszt improvises! ; Proud of visit from Pope Pius IX ; Doves visit the class ; A favorite pupil's tears ; The master regains his good nature ; Sets all laughing -- Chapter 15. Liszt's diary of 1876 ; Last in which he made regular notes ; Fascinatingly reveals the intimate Liszt ; A momentous year ; Wagner's joviality -- Chapter 16. The master gives a lesson of three hours and forty minutes ; How to phrase Beethoven's music ; Again improvises! ; Shows patience with a poor pupil ; Young d'Albert's wonderful sight-reading ; The master causes merriment when he interprets a pupil's interpretation -- Chapter 17. Liszt and autograph seekers ; The Turk gives a dinner in honor of Liszt ; The master receives gifts of pianos ; An eventful lesson ; "One must learn to bite while young" ; d'Albert does astounding feat ; An historic moment: Liszt, the greatest Beethoven player, reveals the mighty composer's profoundest adagio ; Fables as to Liszt's hands refuted -- Chapter 18. The master ill ; Thoughts of parting ; Dinner with Liszt ; Cognac on watermelon ; The master relates anecdotes ; A pilgrimage with Liszt to hear the organ on which Bach had played ; Young d'Albert's sensational debut recital ; Farewell, lieber Meister! -- |
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Part II: June-September, 1883. Chapter 19. An ideal winter in Berlin ; Many great artists heard ; Brahms plays and conducts ; Young d'Albert's famous debut ; Von Bulow makes sensational speech ; Happily in Weimar again ; A musicale at Liszt's ; The Starlings' Kaffee ; A pilgrimage with the master to Erfurt ; Posse, the harpist, bounds into favor -- Chapter 20. Our second year of lessons ; A talented young Russian ; Liszt quotes Wagner ; Lets a poor young girl have his upright piano ; Superficial curiosity callers anger the master ; Tears ; Famous conductors were his pupils ; Objection made to generalizations ; Weimarians prone to gossip ; Liszt's last class never equalled ; The master has a musicale for Herr Posse, the harpist ; Liszt tells how he once attempted to learn the harp -- Chapter 21. Another pilgrimage to Jena ; The annual Liszt concert ; Picnic sausage supper in Dr. Gille's garden ; The master visits us ; A musical afternoon at our rooms ; Liszt plays for us ; Orders the Droschke to "return in an hour-and-a-half," but keeps it waiting a further hour ; An idyllic finale to an ideal afternoon -- Chapter 22. The master's wavering moods ; He plays the Chopin preludes as an object lesson and mimics a pupil ; An amusing "Capriccio-intermezzo," in which the ladies are set to waltzing, causes merriment ; A bad day for English pupils ; Distinguished visitors ; Mrs. Scott-Siddons the English actress ; Lina Ramann, noted Liszt biographer -- Chapter 23. Posse, the harpist, gives a dinner for the master ; Then whist and a social hour at the master's home ; Liszt again visits us ; Another home musicale ; Liszt and Henselt ; Liszt's tolerance shown in his admiration of Henselt ; The "German Chopin" reciprocates ; Henselt's interesting letters to the author ; No longer composes, is but a "dried-out inkstand" ; Two dinners with Liszt at his home ; He tells of childhood days ; Czerny and Beethoven ; Recalls Spontini-Berlioz anecdote -- Chapter 24. Liszt explains the difference in playing Schumann and Mendelssohn -- Distinguished visitors present -- The master mimics Clara Schumann and Moscheles -- He gives time-beaters a fling -- Klindworth's stratagem inveigles Liszt into playing -- Sometimes is unjust then makes amends -- Fourteen Lisztianer on a frolic -- They visit Liszt at the Grand Duke's summer castle "Wilhelmsthal" -- The birth-house of Bach -- Martin Luther's rooms -- The castle Wartburg -- Chapter 25. Our third musicale -- Liszt plays -- Mrs. Siddons of London recites -- Posse plays for the first time the master's Angelus -- Liszt's mysticism nearly causes a break in friendship -- Another dinner for Liszt -- Spends the evening with several pupils at "Folksfest" ; Liszt tells how to play Schumann ; Intended to transcribe American airs ; He wins a bet from Rossini ; Relates reminiscent anecdotes ; "Too much America" ; Conceit and impertinence -- |
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Chapter 26. Liszt dines eighteen friends under the chestnut-trees ; A "Hoch" goes astray and is encored ; The irony of Mammon and the story of the displaced folio ; Liszt dines with a group of his pupils ; Himself gentle and humble, he has no tolerance for conceit ; Our American dinner for Liszt ; The master even makes a speech ; Joins in the hilarity ; Expresses gratitude to America -- Chapter 27. Liszt and George Sand ; A hitherto unpublished letter ; Three Americans dine with Liszt ; He plays "four-hands" with guests ; Liszt and Napoleon III ; How the Princess Metternich made a stiff English ambassador unbend ; Another "musikalischer Kaffee" of the Stahr sisters ; Liszt's Fantasie and Fugue on "B.A.C.H." for two pianos -- Chapter 28. Our last lesson-soiree of the second yeare ; A prodigy comes to grief ; Liszt will not give testimonials ; Axioms and precepts ; Reproves a king ; How society women feared Liszt ; The Baroness von Pellet explains ; And Liszt feared them ; Bache gives a farewell Bowle ; Liszt's brooding as to the hereafter ; Chapter 29. Siloti and Eckhof give a joint concert ; An epidemic of dinner-luncheon-kaffee-tea-breakfast-and-supper ; A supper party of sixteen at the Hofgartnerei ; Liszt shies at "13" and other omens ; Farewell again to the master, and the second year ; Liszt suspends his rule, and gives a testimonial -- Chapter 30. Carl Filtsch, an earlier prodigy pupil who perished in the bud ; Liszt's vast productiveness ; Rare unpublished autograph letters ; The author's Wagner-Liszt collection -- Chapter 31. D'Albert still the sensation ; Symphonies with one's meals ; American feminine violinists ; Scharwenka and other sedates in high jinks ; Christus in Leipzig ; The Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein in Weimar -- Part III: May-July, 1883. Chapter 32. The third year in Weimar ; Notable pupils of the 1884 class ; Rosenthal, another titan ; The class too much Americanized ; Liszt gives a great lesson on his Second Ballade ; "Do not make noise, make music" ; When Kullak and Henselt thought his music "impossible" ; Many times a godfather -- Chapter 33. The story of several locks of Liszt's hair ; Another dinner at the Hofgartnerei ; A prima donna revives anecdotes ; Gossip ; Continued disappearance of money worries Liszt ; Another pilferer is apprehended in the act ; The master shields "old and tried friend" -- Chapter 34. Saint-Saens and Viardot-Garcia visit Weimar ; Liszt plays, he improvises ; Where Chopin wrote bad basses ; The many "sons of Liszt" ; Friends bear the brunt of his moods meekly ; He satirizes the c-r-ritics ; A protege of his poet-friend von Bodenstedt ; Exhorts his disciples: "create memories!" ; "Illusions perdues" -- Chapter 35. The Stahr sisters "Musikalischer Kaffee" still thriving ; The two Lisztianer in an unusual memory test ; A concealed chorus mystifies the master ; Only photograph of Liszt in his studio ; His "Faust" and "Dante" symphonies ; Unveiling of Bach monument at Eisenach: the grand duke resents the committee's slight to Liszt ; A dinner Pathetique ; Our last parting -- Chapter 36. Failings and ailings increase ; Liszt would compose another piano concerto ; Farewell to England ; He plays for the last time in a friend's home -- Appendix one. Lachmund and his American circle: a selection from his correspondence ; Appendix two. From Caroline Lachmund's home letters to his family ; Appendix three. A summary catalogue of Liszt's pupils and disciples, grouped by nationality (1829-1886) ; Appendix four. Letter from Germany, by Carl Lachmund: "An American Dinner for Abbe Liszt," given in Weimar, September 1883. |
| Abstract |
Carl V. Lachmund (1857-1928) was an American pupil of Liszt; he studied with the Hungarian master in Weimar between the years 1882-1884. During that time he kept a diary which eventually ran to some 700 pages. This document gives one of the most exhaustive accounts of Liszt's keyboard instruction extant. Some time after World War I, and in response to a demand from a number of musicians with an interest in the matter, Lachmund decided to turn his diary into a book about his daily life with Liszt. In order to gather additional background material about a period now long past, he wrote to more than 200 musicians in America and Europe who had had some personal contact with the composer, and invited them to share their personal reminiscences. The book never appeared and his papers came to rest in the New York Public Library, with whose cooperation this book is now being published. The Liszt scholar Alan Walker has undertaken the task of introducing, editing, and annotating the Lachmund papers. He calls the diary an irreplaceable source of first-hand material which throws fresh light on the way Liszt taught the piano. Liszt also emerges from these pages as a great and noble human being. This book will interest all teachers, performers, and students of the period. It represents a major contribution to nineteenth-century studies. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 403-404) and indexes. |
| LCCN | 94036461 |
| ISBN | 0945193564 |
