His name is V., and he is dreadfully nervous. Liszt kept
up a running fire of satire all the time he was playing, but in a
good-natured way. I shouldn't have minded it if it had been I. In
fact, I think it would have inspired me; but poor V. hardly knew
whether he was on his head or on his feet. It was too funny.
Everything that Liszt says is so striking. For instance, in one
place where V. was playing the melody rather feebly, Liszt suddenly
took his seat at the piano and said, "When I play, I always play
for the people in the gallery, so that those people who pay only
five groschens for their seats also hear something." Then he began,
and I wish you could have heard him! The sound didn't seem to be
very loud, but it was penetrating and far-reaching. When he had
finished, he raised one hand in the air, and you seemed to see all
the people in the gallery drinking in the sound. That is the way
Liszt teaches you. He presents an idea to you, and it takes fast
hold of your mind and sticks there. Music is such a real, visible
thing to him that he always has a symbol, instantly, in the
material world to express his idea. One day, when I was playing, I
made too much movement with my hand in a rotary sort of a passage
where it was difficult to avoid it. "Keep your hand still,
Fraulein," said Liszt; "don't make omelet." I couldn't help
laughing--it hit me on the head so nicely. He is far too sparing of
his playing, unfortunately, and like Tausig, sits down and plays
only a few bars at a time generally. It is dreadful when he stops,
just as you are at the height of your enjoyment, but he is so
thoroughly blase that he doesn't care to show off before people and
doesn't like to have any one pay him a compliment about his
playing. In Liszt I can at least say that my ideal in something has
been realized. He goes far beyond all that I expected. Anything so
perfectly beautiful as he looks when he sits at the piano I never
saw, and yet he is almost an old man now. I enjoy him as I would an
exquisite work of art. His personal magnetism is immense, and I can
scarcely bear it when he plays. He can make me cry all he chooses,
and that is saying a good deal, because I've heard so much music,
and never have been affected by it. Even Joachim, whom I think
divine, never move