Byron at the Piano

Beverly Nichols once said of Britain's three writing Sitwells--Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell--that they had genius enough for two. If Sacheverell's latest book does not show the full two-thirds that is his family share, it does reveal him as a conscientious, able biographer who has brought back to life one of music's grandest, most glittering figures--Franz Liszt.*

Musically the first part of the 19th Century was an age of virtuosity. Berlioz, writing for the orchestra, mysteriously made instruments sound as they had never sounded before. And not even Rubinstein ever played the piano like Franz Liszt. When Chopin heard Liszt he wrote: "I wish I could steal from him the way to play my own etudes."

Son of a music-loving Hungarian steward to a princely house, Franz Liszt was an infant prodigy. When he was 11, deaf old Beethoven is reported to have kissed him for his playing. Liszt's father took him to Paris, where he studied, gave public and private concerts, astounded all comers. He was fair, good-looking, wore long hair. Father Liszt knew what he was talking about when he said: "With you, it is women I am afraid of."

Young Franz's first serious love affair was with Marie Catherine, Countess d'Agoult, a beauteous unmusical mother of three, whose elderly husband bored her. The year was 1833. She was 28, he, 22. They ran away to Geneva, spent eleven years of romantic vagabondage interrupted only by his concert tours. She bore him three illegitimate children of whom Cosima (named after Lake Como) was to achieve fame by deserting her devoted husband to marry his dearest friend, Richard Wagner.

Although Liszt was at work on some of his best compositions before 1847 most of his time was devoted to piano recitals. Everywhere but in England, which disapproved of Countess d'Agoult, he was an idol. Women wore his portrait on cameos, went wild over him, He was the first, the greatest of pianists. He was making approximately $60,000 a year, owned 60 waistcoats, 360 cravats.

By 1847 he had left Countess d'Agoult and met her successor, the cigar-smoking Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein. Although love affairs continued to play through his life like tarantellas, she remained his nominal mistress until his death. Only a last minute refusal from Rome to grant her a divorce prevented their marriage.

Shortly after he met his Princess, Liszt, at 36, amazingly gave up his fabulous concert playing, started an entirely new musical life during which he earned not a cent from playing or teaching. He had accepted a position as conductor and musical director to the Grand-Ducal Court at Weimar. To Liszt that meant two things--presenting the music of Wagner who was then penniless and unrecognized; composing music of his own.

In neither ambition was he greatly successful. Weimar heard Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser and Lohengrin but the last was the only one which Liszt presented for the first time. He perfected and published the best of his own music. For a time Weimar was the musical centre of Europe but its brilliance gradually began to dim. In December 1858, Liszt heard what were probably the first hisses of his career. He resigned immediately.

He was nearing 50 and his long greying hair gave him something of the diabolic appearance of Paganini. He went to Rome with his faithful Princess; in 1865, after he discovered they could not get married, he took minor orders in the Roman Church. But the Abbe Liszt had not given up music. By degrees his oldtime popularity returned to him. He was invited again to Weimar for a part of each year. Hungary formed an Academy of Music, put him in charge, greeted him so exuberantly that he played the piano for the populace from a balcony. Like an aged Byron he continued to have love affairs, during one of which he was almost shot. Finally in honor of his approaching 75th birthday he went on a final grand tour. As it had when he was 20, Paris greeted him hysterically. This time London, too, was cordial; Victoria invited him to Windsor Castle. All Europe held concerts in his honor. On his way from Luxembourg to Bayreuth to hear Tristan a honeymooning couple entered his second-class compartment, leaned gaily out of the open window. Franz Liszt caught a chill. At Bayreuth it developed into pneumonia. His last word: "Tristan!" The Princess died a year later.

Readers of Mr. Sitwell's biography will find an earnest attempt to discover Liszt's true place in the history of music. Mr. Sitwell's estimate: like Byron. Liszt was the embodiment of his art, a poetical figure if not a great poet. The greatest of pianists, he became at Weimar the first executive of music, paved the way for followers.

There are thousands of people still alive today who heard Liszt play, a few who knew him. But when the last of these shall have died, the legend of Liszt's piano playing will not be enough to keep his memory alive. Thereafter he will be remembered, if at all, by his compositions. Most often heard nowadays are his hackneyed Second Hungarian Rhapsody, his A flat Liebestraueme. Concertgoers know his B minor Sonata, a few of the Poemes Symphoniques, a half dozen of his arrangements and transcriptions. The immortality of his fame depends upon the repetition of those compositions, the possible resuscitation of other Liszt pieces now almost forgotten.

*LISZT--Sacheverell Sitwell--Houghton Mifflin ($4).

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