Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/549

 Somewhat apart from the rest of this group stands Adolf Henselt (d. 1889), born in Bavaria in 1814, who was first trained at Munich by Frau von Fladt, but studied also with Hummel at Weimar and Sechter at Vienna. He became known as a phenomenal player in 1837, and from 1838 was in court service at St. Petersburg and in high repute as virtuoso, teacher and composer. He seldom traveled, and for 50 years was famous only by report outside of Russia. He gave excessive attention to abnormal stretches in legato, for which he devised peculiar studies. Although he adhered generally to the old-fashioned securing of tone by finger-action only, his style was much more emotional and poetic than others of his group, and also approached the massiveness of Liszt. He is best known by a concerto, many fine études and some beautiful short works.

Among noted women pianists were Louise (Dumont) Farrenc (d. 1875), from 1821 the wife of the flutist and historical student J. H. A. Farrenc and from 1842 professor at the Paris Conservatoire, producing a great variety of orchestral, chamber and piano music; Luise (David) Dulcken (d. 1850), sister of the great violinist and wife of F. Q. Dulcken, who from 1828 became conspicuous at London, being the teacher of Queen Victoria; Marie Léopoldine Blahetka (d. 1887), a member of the Viennese group, who from 1840 lived at Boulogne; and Louise Japha (Langhans), a pupil of the Schumanns at Düsseldorf, who, after concertizing with her husband, was from 1863 prominent at Paris and from 1874 at Wiesbaden. The last two were gifted in composition.

201. Liszt and the Orchestral Style.—Side by side with Chopin's comparatively short and pathetic career ran the first half of Liszt's long and showy one. Like Chopin, he brought into music a decidedly new national flavor, also eastern, but from untamed Hungary instead of humiliated Poland. Like him, he developed precociously into a masterly virtuoso and early sought Paris as headquarters. But, unlike him, he stood forth, even in youth, as a consummate swayer of audiences and master of men, as an interpreter of the whole range of piano literature, and ultimately as a versatile composer and an imperial force in musical progress. Before 1850 his work was closely linked with Chopin's, but later was still more intimately interwoven with Wagner's. His eminence is partly due to his readiness to appreciate great art wherever found and to throw himself generously into its furtherance. His power of absolute creation and the message that he brought were not so significant as his breadth of sympathy and his power of leadership. As a player he speedily reached a place of incontestable supremacy, and then as a teacher he stamped a deep impression upon the whole texture of musical thought.