Thirty Years of Musical Life in London

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

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text excerpt

I first heard [Franz Liszt] play on April 6 [1886], when he went to the Royal Academy to hand over to the committee of management the sum of £1100, raised through the efforts of Walter Bache for the foundation of a "Liszt scholarship" at that institution. The shout of joy uttered by the students when he sat down at the piano was something to remember. It was followed by an intense silence. Then the aged but still nimble fingers ran lightly over the keys, and I was listening for the first time in my life to Franz Liszt. To attempt to describe his playing, after the many well-known Weimar pupils and distinguished writers who have tried to accomplish that task, would be mere presumption on my part. Even at seventy-five, Liszt was a pianist whose powers lay beyond the pale to which sober language or calm criticism could reach or be applied. Enough that his greatest charm seemed to me to lie in a perfectly divine touch, and in a tone more remarkable for its exquisitely musical quality than for its volume or dynamic force, aided by a technique still incomparably brilliant and superb.

excerpt from 'Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870-1900' pp. 180 (191 words)

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1439314018626