roll of octaves in chromatics in the bass of the piano. It was very
grand and made the room reverberate.

"Magnificent," said I.

"Did you ever hear me do a storm?" said he.

"No."

"Ah, you ought to hear me do a storm! Storms are my forte!"

Then to himself between his teeth, while a weird look came into his
eyes as if he could indeed rule the blast, "Then crash the trees!"

How ardently I wished that he would "play a storm," but of course
he didn't, and he presently began to trifle over the keys in a
blase style. I suppose he couldn't quite work himself up to the
effort, but that look and tone told how Liszt would do it. Alas,
that we poor mortals here below should share so often the fate of
Moses, and have only a glimpse of the Promised Land, and that
without the consolation of being Moses! But perhaps, after all, the
vision is better than the reality. We see the whole land, even if
but from afar, instead of being limited merely to the spot where
our foot treads.

Once again I saw Liszt in a similar mood, though his expression was
this time comfortably rather than wildly destructive. It was when
Fraulein Remmertz was playing his "E flat concerto" to him. There
were two grand pianos in the room; she was sitting at one, and he
at the other, accompanying and interpolating as he felt disposed.
Finally they came to a place where there was a series of passages
beginning with both hands in the middle of the piano, and going in
opposite directions to the ends of the keyboard, ending each time
with a short, sharp chord. "Pitch everything out of the window!"
cried he, and began playing these passages and giving every chord a
whack as if he were splitting everything up and flinging it out,
and that with such enjoyment that you felt as if you'd like to bear
a hand, too, in the work of demolition! But I never shall forget
Liszt's look as he so lazily proposed to "pitch everything out of
the window." It reminded me of the expression of a big tabby-cat as
it sits by the fire and purrs away, blinking its eyes and seemingly
half-asleep, when suddenly--!--! out it strikes with both its
claws, and woe to whatever is within its reach!

[Illustration: BEETHOVEN]

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Melody has by Beethoven been freed from the influence of F