New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-10-16


IL found in MOscheles's diary:
His adj Iibitwn playing. which with the inte..
prefers Of his music degenerates into disregard
OF time. is with him only the most charninr
originality Of execution; the amateUrish ana
harsh modulations which strike me 80 disagree
ably when I am reading his compositions No
longer shock me, because his delicate nnEesY
glide lightly over them in fairyitke way: h,
pi0AO il soft that he does not need any stronR
forte to produce contrasts II II for this Reason
that does not miss the orchestral Effects
| which the German school demands from .
pianoforte player, but allows ones self TO b
carried away by singer who, little Con-
cerned about the accompaniment, entirely fol-
lows his feelings.
Chopin was a master OF eastIlsle- Schumana
tells of hearing him sing his e fiat nocturne:
Won LEM describes his playing Of Beethovens
sonata in A fat, Op. 26: He played II beauti-
fully, but not 80 beautifully as his own WORKS
not 50 as to take hold Of you, not ~ relief not
like a romance with cimacterfc development
from variation to variation He murmured
n.ezza roce. but incomparably In the eastie.aI
infinitely perfect in the connection OF phrases
ideally beautifully, but efemin0teiy'
Over against three great players who were
pia noforte virtuosi and nothing more the Phil
istines'' OF SchUmann's wrath-Friedrich Kak-
brenner G7s4?-1s49l, Henri Herr 70 give him
his GaIIicized name QSGG-'SSo, and Alexander
Dreyschock OS1S-'69)-I place the triuEnvirate
Of great virtUosi who were also great musicians,
List Thalberg and Tausig- II any man shall
undertake to say who OF these three was the
greatest pianoforte performer he shall be rock
of offence to the special admirers Of the two
others Only 2 portion of the musical world, and
that a small one, sat under the spell OF the
youngest of them, and only for a short space
for Tausis's scintillant career spanned only
dozen years while that of his elders comprised
each two generations. And List was TaUsigs
master as he was the muster, in practice or Ia
precept or in both. OF nearly ali the piansts Of
wide note during the last half century. There
were three distinct periods in LISTS career, the
first when he travelled through Europe as .
prodigy with the kiss of Beethoven on his brow,
and won all hearts much by his charming
naturalness of conduct by his phenomenal
skill upon the keyboard; the second when. the
ripened virtuoso, he carried everything before
him, bewildering the musicians no less than the
mere music lovers. widening the boundaries Of
the technicians. giving a new voice TO the piano
forte. breaking the seven seals of the Book Of
Revelation Of Beethoven. the Divine, stirnulat-
ing the manufacturers to augment the power and
the brilliancy Of the instrument that it might
withstand the assaults OF men with
And pulses OF a Tisan's heart:
and the last when -far from the maddins
crowd he gave himself up to the unselhah
labors of doubly-creative musician, COMPOSING
music and fashioning artists out OF the elect
who focked to him for instruction from all the
ends of the earth. All critical discourse touch
ing him runs out into metaphorical rhapsody
List is the latent history of the keyboard IN
struments and himself the crown OF the work."
cries Won Lanz: List is a phenomenon Of unt
versal musical virtuosity such had never
before been known. not simply pianistic mira
Gle" he says again, and still again and again:
1.-The pianist List is apparition not to Be
compressed within the bounds OF the house
drawn by schools and professors, List is the
past, the present and the future OF the uiann-