The Schumann "Etudes Symphoniques," here chosen for illustrating this
capricious and humoristic master, is also a most astonishing work. It
is in the form of a theme and variations, but the variations almost
require the newspaper libel-saving reservation "alleged," since the
theme in some of them is not referred to at all, while in others it
occurs but for occasional measures here and there. Except for the
monotony of key, this piece might as well have been called "studies" as
variations. Nevertheless it is a most delightful example of Schumann's
imagination and of tone-poetry for pianoforte. Each variation or
successive movement is a new leaf from the world of the ideal. Nothing
more contrasted, no more agreeable succession of moods, no more
imposing example of poetic treatment of the pianoforte is to be found
in the entire literature of the instrument. It is a work which the
more one hears the more one likes it. It is curious, now that this
work is so often played, to remember that Schumann wrote concerning it
to a friend that he had just been writing a set of variations which
interested him very much, but he doubted whether they would ever be
played in public. Naturally, he said, it is unfit for such a position;
it is for the musician in his closet. Yet of all the Schumann piano
works this one probably is oftenest played, the immortal fantasia in C
not excepted.

The other pieces here omitted from comment have perhaps already
received sufficient attention in the earlier programs where they first
appeared.

It will be quite possible for the player to substitute still other
numbers in place of some of those here, or to rearrange the matter here
presented, for the sake of using pieces which one can play well. In
arranging the programs, however, it is desirable to preserve an
agreeable succession of keys, a due contrast of moods, and a fitting
illustration of the masters concerned.

CHAPTER X.

LISZT.

FRANZ LISZT.

Born October 22, 1811, at Raiding, Hungary.
Died July 31, 1886, at Bayreuth.

Unquestionably, Liszt was one of the most interesting personalities of
musical history. This began to show itself in his early childhood.
Born at Raiding in Hungary, the boy had piano lessons at the age of
six, his father having been a good musician himself, playing easily and
well upon the piano and many other instruments. At the age of nine the
boy appeared in concert with such success that, a