re shovel hats. When
Liszt left me--we studied together with Czerny--they trooped after him,
their garments ballooning in the breeze, and upon their silly faces was
the devotion of a pet ape.

I mention this because I have never met a Liszt pupil since without
recalling that day in Weimar. And when one plays I close my eyes and
hear the frantic effort to copy Liszt's bad touch and supple, sliding,
treacherous technic. Liszt, you may not know, had a wretched touch. The
old boy was conscious of it, for he told William Mason once, "Don't copy
my touch; it's spoiled." He had for so many years pounded and punched
the keyboard that his tactile sensibility--isn't that your new-fangled
expression?--had vanished. His "orchestral" playing was one of those
pretty fables invented by hypnotized pupils like Amy Fay, Aus der Ohe,
and other enthusiastic but not very critical persons. I remember well
that Liszt, who was first and foremost a melodramatic actor, had a habit
of striding to the instrument, sitting down in a magnificent manner and
uplifting his big fists as if to annihilate the ivories. He was a master
hypnotist, and like John L. Sullivan he had his adversary--the
audience--conquered before he struck a blow. His glance was terrific,
his "nerve" enormous. What he did afterward didn't much matter. He
usually accomplished a hard day's threshing with those flail-like arms
of his, and, heavens, how the poor piano objected to being taken for a
barn-floor!

Touch! Why, Thalberg had the touch, a touch that Liszt secretly envied.
In the famous Paris duel that followed the visits of the pair to Paris,
Liszt was heard to a distinct disadvantage. He wrote articles about
himself in the musical papers--a practice that his disciples have not
failed to emulate--and in an article on Thalberg displayed his bad taste
in abusing what he could not imitate. Oh yes, Liszt was a great thief.
His piano music--I mean his so-called original music--is nothing but
Chopin and brandy. His pyrotechnical effects are borrowed from Paganini,
and as soon as a new head popped up over the musical horizon he helped
himself to its hair. So in his piano music we find a conglomeration of
other men's ideas, other men's figures. When he wrote for orchestra the
hand is the hand of Liszt, but the voice is that of Hector Berlioz. I
never could quite see Liszt. He hung on to Chopin until the suspicious
Pole got rid of him and then he strung after Wagner. I do not mean th