THE
MASTER 0407
At
age twenty, Franz Liszt was already a spectacular pianist. Paris had plenty of
virtuosi, but seeing a spectacular violinist perform took him to a new summit
of musicianship.
In
April 1832 Liszt attended a benefit concert for cholera victims. The performer
was Niccolo Paganini, who, to Liszt’s way of thinking, not only played the
violin better than anyone else, but played the instrument as well as it could
be played, and seemed to be at one with his violin.
The
stunned pianist wrote a letter to his student, Pierre Wolff, Jr., attributing
to Michelangelo an utterance generally believed to have come from Correggio:
For
two weeks now my mind and my fingers have been working like two lost souls.
Homer, The Bible, Plato, Locke, Byron, Hugo, Lamartine, Chateaubriand,
Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them,
meditate on them, devour them with fury. Besides this, I practice four or five
hours of exercises (thirds, sixths, octaves, tremolos, repetition of notes,
cadences, etc. etc.) Ah! As long as I don’t go mad, you will find an artist in
me. Yes, an artist such as the one you desire, such as is required these days.
“And
I too am a painter!” cried Michelangelo the first time he beheld a masterpiece.
Your friend, though insignificant and poor, can’t stop repeating those words
ever since Paganini’s recent performance. Rene, what a man, what a violin, what
an artist! Heavens! What sufferings, what misery, what tortures in those four
strings!
As
far as his expression and his style of playing are concerned, they come from
his very soul!
Liszt’s
new goal was to create a
piano repertory that would enable him to emulate some of Paganini’s most
dramatic effects – leaps, glissandos, and bell-like harmonies. But from
watching Paganini on that spring evening, he also learned that the artist
himself could become a work of art. Next we’ll see how Liszt dazzled
concert-goers with his showmanship…
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