THE MUSICIAN OF THE AGE.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 277, 12 June 1886, Page 4

THE MUSICIAN OF THE AGE.

I"BY THE REV. H. B. HAWEIS.*|

April Oth, 1«86, was a iKy never to be forgotten in the annals of the Royal Academy of Music. A few minutes after three, the music theatre being by that time densely packed with students, professors, and a few others, Liszt, accompanied by the President,. George Macfarren, Walter Bache, Sainton, &c., entered the room. The moment his noble head, with its thick white hair, was seen a roar of applause rose on every side. He looked like a figure out of one of the old engravings of Sebastian Bach or Mozart, truly a man wfyo already belongs to another age than ours—an age of art creators, painters, poets, and musicians since passed away, himself among the mightiest of them. No sooner had he fiften his seat than a little girl with an enormous flower wreath in the form of a lyre advanced towards him. The wreath was placed on a table in front of him. Liszt bent down tenderly and kissed the child—who, I am told, is the infant phenomenon of the Academy—on her forehead. A kiss to be remembered, like the kiss Beethoven gave to Liszt, who played before him as a boy. I could describe the excellent and interesting programme patiently enough had Liszt not been there, had Liszt not played. But in my own mind up to a certain moment, or in the minds of every one then present, expressed or unuttered, there was but one thought—" Would Liszt play ?" " If he does," I wispered to Mr Burnet, the violinist, " mark me, it will be after young Webbe has finished the Liszt concerto." I am proud of the prophecy. Miss Dora Bright, who played Sterndale Bennett's Caprice in E with great elegance and finish; Miss Winnifred Robinson, pupil of Sainton, who, I am told, at short notice mastered C. Mackenzie's difficult violin concerto—each had descended to receiva the Master's encouraging word of approval as he rose and shook each aspirant to fame warmly by the hand. But the applause which greeted Webbe continued long after Webbe had gone, and the Master had resumed his seat. He rose twice, bowed all round, and sat down twice. Then something like an agony of despair and suspense seized upon the audience.. They leaned forward with renewed and more vehement applause. All eyes seemed magnetising Liszt with an intent, beseeching gaze. I never saw the wishing or willing game played with such effect. I never saw such a scene in a concert room or theatre. I have seen transports of enthusiasm at Bayreuth when Wagner appeared in front of the curtain on the last great day of " Gotterdammerungl have seen the people at St. James' Hall rise at Rubenstein; but I never saw anything comparable to what took place at the Royal Academy on Tuesday—when Liszt rose for the third time and instead of sitting down moved towards the platform. When he reached the piano, people were standing on their seats beside themselves. The ladies tore the daffodils and lilies from their bosoms and flung them at him, and a perfect shower of flowers greeted thfe venerable Master as he sat down. Then a stillness as of death fell on the excited assembly. Liszt looked into the air in front of him. He was grave, dreamy, and like one who saw before him the forms and visions of long ago. Inexpressibly tender, with a §igh as out of the past, the music stole softly from the keys. It was liis own exquisite transcription of Chopin's " Lithuanischer Liedit was not piano-playing; it was the whisper, the plaint, the meditation, of a soul—all the technique, though absolutely perfect and the touch beyond compare, was entirely forgotten, as he seemed to forget his fingers, and beckon to the dream figures that passed before him with expressive look and the kindling of a quiet eye that saw things behind the veil we could not see. But the mingled pathos and repose of the sweet memorial theme left the consummate delicacy of the Chopinesque musical embroideries unimpaired. The multitudes of little subsidiary notes slipped in like the spray of a fountain broken in the wind. Liszt seemed scarcely to heed them; they fell about him, those wondrous passages, like magic ; the noble face looked into the air—seemed to have nothing to do with the keyboard; the soul was far away in another world—a world of buried regrets—of loves long since grown cold in the sepulchre—of youth blown out like the roses of past summers—aye, and a world of old familiar faces seen only now in dreams, but seen calmly, with the quiet eyes that had looked on splendour and decay, and taken the measure of each unappalled, but at the close of that " Lithuanischer Lied" there went upi

the piano something wholly indescribable—from the bass to the treble—a soft, melting flow of sound, not notes, but a mingling of notes. It was like a gently swelling ripple, that went welling np the keyboard and ceased only like a spent wave, breaking oil a lonely strand, and leaving a silence as of twilight and ineffable rest. Liszat played yet more, after the first burst of applause had subsided. Why attempt still further to describe that other improvised and majestic strain, that was like a legend out of the older time, told by some Merlin to a Vivien. A hardened critic—middle-aged, and not easily pleased—turned to me and echoed my own thoughts. " I should like to have cried outright," he said, " if I hadn't been ashamed!" As for myself, I not only felt like people all round me, moved to tears whilst Liszt was playing the " Lithuanischer Lied," but for at least two hours afterwards I had a peculiar choking sensation and perceptible quickening of the pulse as bits of it came floating into my head. The excitement of the students was unexampled. The two greatest tuosi who have ever appeared, as far as we can at all gather, are Paganini and Liszat. Few in that room could say they had heard Paganini—but Liszt, in one of his sweetest, solemnest moods, was, at all events, heard to perfection. I understand Rubinstein's saying, " There is only one pianist—Liszt." I understand Von Bulow's despair when he exclaimed, after listening to his great master, "What business have all we woodchoppers to play the piano, after him."