Franz Liszt ‒ Sources du concert n° 361

Liszt in Paris.

   The sudden sultriness of the weather, which has sent the Court to Fontainebleau and so many owners of country residences to the delights of la villegiatura, has brought out the gardens of this gay and brilliant city into the fulness of their floral glory. The salons of that portion of the beau monde which lingers on until the close of the Legislative chamber, are so laden with flowers as to be often oppressive, especially where the reception rooms happen to be small, and the company numerous as was the case at the soirée given last week to Dr. Liszt by M. de Lamartine.

   The prince of pianists being too rich and too grand to play any longer for money, has turned a deaf ear to all entreaties to allow himself to be heard in public. But having dined at the Tuileries, he condescended, after dinner, to play for his imperial hosts, and that to such purpose that the Emperor testified his delight and admiration by naming the artist, then and there, Commander of the Legion of Honor. Liszt has also played at the magnificent dramatic fete [sic] given by the Count de Morny by way of adieu to the gaieties of the expiring season ; and being an old and intimate friend of Lamartine, whose admiration of his powers is unbounded, and with whom ho has promised to take “a family dinner,” he graciously enpowered the poet to invite “a few friends” to come in after dinner and hear him play. M. and Mme. de Lamartine, greatly delighted with this permission, immediately sent off notes of invitation to as many of their “dear five hundred” as they thought their small salon in the rue Ville l’Evequc could be stretched into holding ; among others, to the principal editor of the Siécle [sic].

   By some error, this note, instead of being delivered to M. Havin, found its way into the compositor’s room ; and all the music-lovers of Paris were electrified, next morning, by reading in the columns of that popular journal, the following lines :

   “My dear Havin : Liszt who does mo the inappreciable honor of dining with me on Thursday next, consents to allow my humble parlor to hear those wonderful sounds so long unheard in Paris, and to witness the renewal of the old prodigy of Orpheus, who animated wood and metal at his pleasure ! ‘He that hath ears,’ &c, &c.

         “Yours ever,

LAMARTINE.”   

   In vain did the unfortunate poet address, in wild affright, a second note — this time, meant for publication — to the editor of the Siécle, explaining that his first had been metamorphosed into a public advertisement altogether by mistake, that his parlor was too small to hold more than the few he had already personally invited, and, by implication, imploring the public to stay away. The excuse offered by the unlucky mistake of the newspaper people afforded too good an excuse to be neglected, and the poet’s house, on the appointed evening, was literally besieged by crowds of persons utterly unknown to him, who had flocked thither in the hope of getting in, not only from every quarter of Paris but from every part of France. One eager malomane [sic]of Marseilles [sic] having caught sight of the tempting paragraph in the Siécle, consulted his watch, saw that he could just accomplish the journey in time, if he managed to catch the next train for Paris, had his valise packed in a twinkling, dashed off to the station, reached it in the “nick of time,” and reached the poet’s residence early enough to secure an entrance, which the greater part of those who came after him were, of course, unable to do ; Liszt’s enormous piano — which he takes everywhere with him — accupying a good part of the salon, and every available inch of space in the house being speedily crammed almost to suffocation.

   The great artist is just like his portrait ; little changed from the lion of twenty years ago, save that his hair is now almost white. No description could give any adequate idea of the amazing performance of this unrivalled artist, while those who have formerly heard and seen him play, it will suffice to say that his astounding power is the same as ever, but that he now plays with rather less of that frantic, maddening, thunder-bolt sort of force which led to tho utterance of the famous dictum of the musical criticism of that day : “Thalberg plays like a god, Cramer like an archangel, and Liszt like the devil !” Liszt played also at Prince Poniatowski’s, whose reception rooms were crowded almost as suffocatingly as the poet’s house. On both occasions the quantity of flowers in the rooms, though extremely charming to the eye, was positively oppressive, and was confidentially voted a nuisance by all the guests.