Music-Study in Germany: The Classic Memoir of the Romantic Era

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

240-241

text excerpt

I asked him [Liszt] to tell me how he produced a certain effect he makes in his arrangement of the ballad in Wagner's Flying Dutchman. He looked very "fin" as the French say, but did not reply. He never gives a direct answer to a direct question. "Ah," said I, "you won't tell." He smiled, and then immediately played the passage. It was a long arpeggio, and the effect he made was, as I had supposed, a pedal effect. He kept the pedal down throughout, and played the beginning of the passage in a grand rolling sort of manner, and then all the rest of it with a very pianissimo touch, and so lightly, that the continuity of the arpeggios was destroyed, and the notes seemed to be just strewn in, as if you broke a wreath of flowers and scattered them according to your fancy. It is a most striking and beautiful effect, and I told him I didn't see how he ever thought of it. "Oh, I've invented a great many things," said he, indifferently—"this, for instance,"—and he began playing a double 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, "Da KRACHEN die Bäume (Then crash the trees!)"

excerpt from 'Music-Study in Germany: The Classic Memoir of the Romantic Era' pp. 240-241 (266 words)

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