Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/202

 336 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS ornaments which are woven like fine embroidery all about the pages of Chopin's nocturnes, and lift what in others are mere casual flourishes into the dignity of interpretative phrases and poetic commentaries on the text. People were fond of comparing the two young men who so often appeared in the same salons together — Liszt with his finely shaped, long, oval head and profil d'ivoire, set proudly on his shoulders, his stiff hair of dark blonde thrown back from the forehead without a parting, and cut in a straight line, his aplomb, his magnificent and courtly bearing, his ready tongue, his flashing wit and fine irony, his genial bonhomie and irresistibly winning smile ; and Chopin, also, with dark blonde hair, but soft as silk, parted on one side, to use Liszt's own words, "An angel of fair countenance, with brown eyes from which intellect beamed rather than burned ; a gentle, refined smile, slightly aquiline nose ; a delicious, clear, almost diaphanous complexion, all bearing witness to the harmony of a. soul which required no commentary beyond itself." Nothing can be more generous or more true than Liszt's recognition of Cho- pin's independent support. " To our endeavors," he says, " to our struggles, just then so much needing certainty, he lent us the support of a calm, unshakable conviction, equally armed against apathy and cajolery." There was only one picture on the walls of Chopin's room ; it hung just above his piano. It was a head of Liszt. It is no part of my present scheme to describe the battle which romanticism in music waged against the prevalent conventionalities. We know the general out- come of the struggle culminating, after the most prodigious artistic convulsions, in the musical supremacy of Richard Wagner, who certainly marks firmly and broadly enough the greatest stride in musical development made since Beethoven. In 1842 Liszt visited Weimar, Berlin, and then went to Paris ; he was medi- tating a tour in Russia. Pressing invitations reached him from St. Petersburg and Moscow. The most fabulous accounts of his virtuosity had raised expecta- tion to its highest pitch. He was as legendary even among the common people as Paganini. His first concert at St. Petersburg realized the then unheard-of sum of ,£2,000. The roads were crowded to see him pass, and the corridors and approaches to the Grand Opera blocked to catch a glimpse of him. The same scenes were repeated at Moscow, where he gave six concerts without exhausting the popular excitement. On his return to Weimar he accepted the post of Capellmeister to the Grand Duke. It provided him with that settled abode, and above all with an orchestra, which he now felt so indispensable to meet his growing passion for orchestral composition. But the time of rest had not yet come. In 1844 and 1845 he was received in Spain and Portugal with incredible en- thusiasm, after which he returned to Bonn to assist at the inauguration of Beet- hoven's statue. With boundless liberality, he had subscribed more money than all the princes and people of Germany put together, to make the statue worthy of the occasion and the occasion worthy of the statue. The golden river which poured into him from all the capitals of Europe now