mong the very best
written since Schubert. Of his pianoforte and chamber music, too, it can
be said that everything is new, free from commonplace, and ultra-modern.
He has written mostly short pieces, and for that reason has had to wait
(like Chopin in his day) a long time for full recognition of his genius,
the critics not having yet got over the foolish habit of measuring
art-works with a yardstick. Like Chopin, moreover, Grieg has had the
ill-fortune of having his most original and individual traits accredited
to his nation and described as "national peculiarities." His music does
contain such peculiarities; but it is necessary to distinguish between
what is Norwegian and what is Griegian. Grieg's little pieces and songs
are big with genius.

The Hungarian Liszt is another immortal master who, beside the fruits of
his individual genius, contributed to the current of modern music some
of those exotic national traits which distinguish it from that of
earlier epochs when it was almost exclusively Italian, French, and
German. His fifteen Hungarian rhapsodies constitute, however, only a
small part of the invaluable legacy he has left the world. He was the
most many-sided of all musicians,--the greatest of all pianists, and one
of the best composers of oratorios, songs, orchestral, and pianoforte
works,--everything, in short, except operas and chamber music. He was
also the greatest of teachers and (with the exception of Wagner) the
greatest of conductors; as such, he carried out both his own and
Wagner's new and revolutionary principles of interpretation, which have
gradually made the orchestral conductor a personage of even greater
importance, in concert hall and opera-house, than the prima donna,
travelling, like her, from city to city, to delight lovers of music.

One might have expected that the prince of pianists, being at the same
time a composer, would do for the pianoforte what Bach had done for
choral and organ music, Beethoven for the symphony, Schubert for the art
song, and Wagner for the opera. But he could not, for Chopin had
anticipated him. In only one direction was it possible to go beyond
Chopin,--in that of making the piano capable of reproducing orchestral
effects. This, Liszt achieved in his own works and his transcriptions.
But, after all, the grandest pianoforte, while delightful as such, is
but a poor substitute for an orchestra. Hence it was natural that Liszt
should give up the pianoforte as his