SELECTED, INTRODUCED, AND TRANSLATED BY JOSÉ ANTONIO BOWEN
The concerts of the Beethoven Bonn Festival in 1845 are perhaps the most completely documented performances of the nineteenth century before Bayreuth. The importance of the occasion drew musical guests such as Ignaz Moscheles, Jenny Lind, Marie Pleyel, Meyerbeer, Berlioz, and Louis Spohr, well-known writers about music such as George Smart, Charles Hallé, and Anton Schindler, and legions of the musical press including Maurice Schlesinger, Léon Kreutzer, and Jules Janin from France, François-Joseph Fétis from Belgium, and from Germany, Ludwig Rellstab and Karl Schorn. With Queen Victoria and Prince Albert making their first trip to the continent since her accession to the throne, and King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, playing host, the festival had royal news value and nearly the entire London music press corps was sent. 1
The following documentation presents a selection of articles and reviews from the English, German, and French press about the celebration. Most of these reports include both concert reviews and social news, everything from what happened at the parties to what was thought of the Beethoven statue, the unveiling of which was the main stimulus for the festival. Many of the papers ran additional stories on the queen. This sample focuses on recollections and reviews of the concert on the main day of the festival, at four o’clock on Tuesday, 12 August 1845, and specifically on Liszt’s performances as both soloist and conductor. Most German, Italian, and French newspapers published advance notices or reports on what was performed, but these are not included here. 2 General information about conditions at the festival, the rehearsals on Sunday, 10 August, and the hall are covered extensively in the review by George Hogarth, placed first. Since the English reports are the most numerous, substantially longer, and more detailed, they are generally quoted at greater length.
The press was prepared to be hostile to Liszt. The festival committee, headed by local musician Professor H. K. Breidenstein, had underestimated the magnitude of the event and was unprepared for the five thousand guests, the many celebrities, and the two royal families. Liszt had been raising money for the festival through benefit concerts for six years, but when he arrived in Bonn in July and discovered that no suitable concert hall was available, he offered to build one, paid for out of his own pocket with 10,000 francs. Although the concert hall was completed in time, the city was unprepared, overcrowded and suffering from a heat wave. Perhaps because he bore some of the blame for the poor planning, and was further accused of putting himself at the center of the festival, Liszt asked Spohr to do most of the conducting and participated in only three works. He performed the piano solo in Beethoven’s E-flat Concerto and conducted the Fifth Symphony on 12 August and his own Festival Cantata , written specifically for this occasion, on 13 August. In spite of this, many thought Liszt, as a virtuoso, was poorly suited for such a prominent role, and both he and the organization were condemned even before the festival began. In June, Schindler publicly proclaimed that Liszt did not have the necessary experience to conduct. 3 Ferdinand Hiller, Mendelssohn, and Schumann (the core of the conservative Leipzig establishment that would remain at odds with Liszt for the rest of his life) stayed away from the event entirely, and the Morning Post famously called it the “Beethoven Festival in honor of Liszt.” 4 According to J. W. Davison, some thought Beethoven would be “desecrated” by contact with the “romantic” Liszt. 5 Under the circumstances, it would have been remarkable for Liszt to receive any kind words at all.
While I have attempted to limit these samples to 12 August, some descriptions of the general circumstances appear, as these are critical for understanding how, despite the desire to find fault with everything Lisztian, many critics were still persuaded by his performances. Liszt’s conducting of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, for instance, received mostly positive reviews, surprising both his critics and “even his warmest admirers.” 6 With the eighty-three-year-old Domenico Dragonetti leading the basses, Liszt was able to conduct the daunting trio in the third movement as written (rather than with only one bass, as was the custom). Virtually every review praises the fidelity and spirit of the performance where most were expecting disaster. But we should not overstate the positive reactions. Many qualifications to the effect that “even his critics must concede” and “the orchestra was not in the least distracted by his unusual manner of conducting” suggest that Liszt’s conducting was generally controversial and less then entirely successful. 7 Yet this performance was at least successful enough to overcome the bad publicity of his earlier conducting reputation and the poor management of the festival.
Even this triumph, however, was overshadowed by his performance of the “Emperor” Concerto with Spohr conducting. Where critics were again expecting the virtuoso Liszt, they were astonished by what was perceived as a different style of playing. The reviews praise Liszt, but are notable for the almost universal descriptions of his “unusual calm” and the “lack of liberties.” 8 “Instead of altering and exaggerating almost every passage,” a surprised critic wrote, “he altered but few, and exaggerated none.” 9 For another critic, Liszt’s playing “from book” was an unusual and welcome deviation. 10 Schindler himself, so ill-disposed toward Liszt, had to acknowledge that the performance “might have completely satisfied the composer himself.” 11 Did the knowledge that Schindler and other Beethoven arch-conservatives were in the audience alter Liszt’s usual style or did Beethoven simply require a different approach? On another occasion, a concert in London in 1841, Moscheles concluded that Liszt altered his style to fit that of the audience.
When he [Liszt] came forward to play in Hummel’s Septet, one was prepared to be staggered, but only heard the well-known piece which he plays with the most perfect execution, storming occasionally like a Titan, but still, in the main, free from extravagance; for the distinguishing mark of Liszt’s mind and genius is that he knows perfectly the locality, the audience, and uses his powers, which are equal to everything, merely as a means of eliciting the most varied kinds of effects. 12
Perhaps to make the same point, Liszt was reported to have “played from book ” at this performance. 13 Whatever the cause, critical praise for this performance (even as a deviation) was almost unanimous and, more important, consistent, with only Morris Barnett accusing Liszt of taking “liberties” with Beethoven. Practically the only musical performance Barnett was happy with was a fantasia on airs from Weber by violinist Carl Möser. In fact, Barnett was responsible for the much-quoted joke calling the events in Bonn “The Beethoven Festival in honor of Liszt!” He is quoted at greater length below to make clear his anti-Liszt agenda.
Given the expectation of “liberties” or the “altering and exaggerating almost every passage ,” to say nothing of the blame heaped on Liszt for the disorganized management of the festival, most critics were prepared to echo Barnett in condemning Liszt’s performances. But Liszt had a heightened reverence for Beethoven that was well-noted by his students.
Amy Fay wrote:
He always teaches Beethoven with notes, which shows how scrupulous he is about him, for of course he knows all the sonatas by heart. He has Bülow’s edition, which he opens and lays on the end of the grand piano. Then as he walks up and down he can stop and refer to it and point passages, as they are being played, to the rest of the class. 14
Liszt was a showman who never missed an opportunity to make a visual impression, thus surely he understood the impression that using a score would have upon his students or the audience at the Beethoven Festival. These reviews, however, give the impression that Liszt’s scrupulousness about the text was combined with a serious approach to the deep poetic feeling of Beethoven—again, something at odds with the virtuoso’s reputation for mere surface effects. Berlioz’s comment that Liszt’s performance was “poetic and yet always faithful” was echoed by others. 15 The critic at the Literary Gazette , for example, noted the combination of “great passion” and an unusual “feeling for classical music.” 16
The Beethoven Festival provided Liszt with an opportunity to demonstrate a combination of deeper feeling and adherence to the text that would become standard in Beethoven interpretation. The reviews offered below demonstrate a remarkable unity of expectations between Liszt and the critics about how to play Beethoven. Such unity would even be remarkable if the performer had been, say, the conservative Mendelssohn. That Liszt, a virtuoso with a reputation for stunning effects and liberties with the text, should be praised at all for his performances of Beethoven in Bonn reflects a growing consensus about Beethoven interpretation that continues to this day.
Most reviews of this period included a concert program. The example below is adapted from the Musical World. The Beethoven Festival opened on Sunday, 10 August, with Louis Spohr conducting the Missa Solennis and the Ninth Symphony. The next day a new steamboat (the Ludwig van Beethoven , of course) was launched and there was a public ball. Tuesday morning began in the cathedral with the Mass in C, followed by the unveiling of the statue and an afternoon concert at four. After parties in the evening, the festival concluded on Wednesday with an “Artist’s Concert” that featured Liszt’s Festival Cantata. A rowdy party, where fighting broke out, followed at the Golden Star Hotel.
Tuesday, 12 August, four o’clock
| FIRST PART. | |
|
CONDUCTOR |
Dr. Spohr |
| OVERTURE, Coriolanus | Beethoven |
| CANON (from Fidelio ) | Beethoven |
| CONCERTO in E-flat—pianoforte—Dr. Liszt | Beethoven |
| INTRODUCTION, 1 & 2 from Mount of Olives | Beethoven |
| SECOND PART. | |
|
CONDUCTOR |
Dr. Liszt |
| SYMPHONY in C Minor | Beethoven |
| STRING QUARTET in E-flat, no. 10— | Beethoven |
|
Herren Hartman, Derkum, Weber, and Breuer |
|
| FINALE to the second act of Fidelio | Beethoven |
The Morning Chronicle (London), 13 August 1845 (George Hogarth)
Bonn, Friday afternoon, August 8.
I have spent a considerable portion of today at a rehearsal, in the new concert room, erected for this special occasion. Its history is somewhat remarkable, and throws additional luster on the character of a man already distinguished, independently of his fame as an artist, for noble and generous actions. It was intended by the managers of the fête that the performances should take place in a military manège , or riding school, and this was announced in the program which appeared in all the journals. But Liszt, when he came to Bonn to take a leading part in the arrangements, insisted on a place being prepared which should not be unworthy of such an occasion. He had already subscribed 10,000F. toward the expenses of the fête , and he instantly put down 10,000F. more toward the erection of a fitting concert room. The consequence was that only last week its erection was begun, and it was completed in eleven days. It is, of course, a wooden building; but of magnitude sufficient to contain at least two thousand persons, besides an orchestra of several hundreds. It is somewhat low in the roof, and long in proportion to its breadth, but is really a noble room, and when brilliantly lit up (as it will be) must have a superb effect. It will be, too, a good room for sound: Staudigl, after the rehearsal today, expressed great satisfaction, particularly with the absence of echo. The orchestra is differently disposed from ours in England. Its front is raised not above five feet from the level of the room, the principal singers are in the middle of the front: the whole of the female choristers are drawn up on each side of the principals, in rows of two or three deep, with the tenors and bases immediately behind them. The whole of the instrumental orchestra are thus placed behind the chorus, with the exception of a few principal instruments, which are brought forward so as to be close to the principal singers. The effect of this arrangement I thought admirable; it greatly contributed to the singularly full and rich effect of the chorus, particularly of the female voices. In England, the chorus, be the performance what it may, is always overpowered by the instruments. This fault, to be sure, arises in part from the manner in which the instruments are played, but it also arises from the relative positions of the orchestra and the chorus. I hear much fault found, by some English critics, with this disposition of the performers, probably because it is different from what they have been accustomed to; for my part, I entirely dissented from them. The lowness of the orchestra in front, however, is really a fault; and there was another thing which seemed to be condemned unanimously. In front of the orchestra there is a pulpit or desk, exactly like an enormous beer barrel placed on end—a most clumsy and unsightly object, which completely hides a portion of the performers from the greatest part of the audience. It is ten times uglier than the pulpit of Mr. Surman, the worthy conductor at Exeter Hall; and even Spohr himself would have looked ridiculous in it, had not all sense of ridicule been excluded by his high reputation, his dignified aspect and demeanor, and the quiet yet powerful control which his baton exercised over the orchestra.
The pieces rehearsed today were Beethoven’s Ninth, or Choral Symphony; his second Mass, in D, and his pianoforte concerto in E-flat, which was performed by Liszt. The rehearsal was in some measure public, for any person was admitted for payment of a few groschen , and there was consequently a considerable audience. The first two pieces had been carefully rehearsed before, and, notwithstanding their enormous difficulty, went on, with few interruptions on the part of the conductor. Of the four principal singers in the Symphony and Mass, the names of three are unknown in England. Though I heard them in the room, they have escaped me at this moment, and no programs of the performers have as yet appeared. The fourth was Staudigl. Of these singers, as well as pieces, I shall have more to say hereafter; but I found that even the Philharmonic Society have yet to learn how to perform the Ninth Symphony. As to the Mass, it has not been even attempted in England. I am at length convinced that the alleged incomprehensibility of Beethoven’s latest works is more apparent than real; arising, not so much from the incapacity of the public to understand them, as from the inability of the performers to execute them so as to express their meaning and produce their effect.
Bonn is in a ferment; and enthusiasm for the memory of their illustrious townsman seems to pervade all classes of its inhabitants. They boast of him with well-founded pride, and point with veneration to the house in which he drew his earliest breath—a humble dwelling, but kept in good preservation. There is a concourse of strangers from all parts of Europe; many of our countrymen and countrywomen, of course.
I have just seen the English Ambassador at the Court of Berlin, the Earl of Westmoreland, so long known, under his late title of Lord Burghersh, as a most distinguished amateur and patron of the art. His lordship is waiting the arrival of our Queen Victoria at the chateau of Bruhl, near Cologne, where the King of Prussia now is, and will attend our Sovereign, when, with their Prussian Majestics, she comes here to “assist” at the inaguration [sic ] of Beethoven’s statue on Tuesday next. This solemnity was to have taken place on Monday, but, on the above account, has been postponed till the following day. In place of it, it is said, there is to be a great performance of wind instruments, by an assemblage of military bands, in the park of the Chateau of Bruhl, to which the public will be admitted. In that case there will, I suppose, be a general rush from Bonn. I trust it will take place; for, to know what military music is, we must hear it in Germany.
At present I can only mention a few of the musical notabilités who are here. Of ours, the principal is Sir George Smart, who was specially invited. Mr. T. Cooke, Mr. Neath, and Mr. Moscheles were also invited, but they are not here, though the last-named is expected. Spohr and Liszt I have mentioned already. Spohr, as usual, is quiet, plain, and pleasingly benevolent in his manners: Liszt all ardor and energy—he is the life of everything, and is worshipped wherever he goes. His forthcoming cantata is exciting intense expectation. It is said to be sublime, and will apparently raise his name higher than ever. Schindler, the friend of Beethoven, and the author of the well-known life of the composer, is here—a modest, agreeable man, whose conversation is full of matter. He has just published a Supplement to his Life of Beethoven, which seems to contain many important particulars respecting his life and compositions. M. Fetis, director of the Conservatoire of Brussels, the celebrated musical historian and critic, is another of the distinguished persons I have met—also Felicien David, the author of the Désert , which has created so great a sensation in Paris and London—a very young man, of most interesting appearance and manners. He is at present engaged in the composition of an oratorio, which I doubt not will be a work of genius. He speaks of visiting London next season. Among the visitors there are likewise Mr. Gardiner, of Leicester, who has brought with him all his intelligent enthusiasm for the memory of a man whose genius he was among the very first to proclaim in England; M. and Madame Dulcken; M. and Madame Oury; and though last, not least, Meyerbeer. Mendelssohn is not here.
At the beginning of this report Kenney describes the entire day from six A.M. , including the preparations, the parade, the mass, and the unveiling of the statue, about which he notes: “The only fault to be found with the statue is that its vigor approaches too much coarseness and that its appearance is somewhat squatty.”
The concert went off with the utmost brilliancy, the room being still more crowded, if possible, than on the first occasion. Liszt’s execution of the concerto was in his best style, full of expression and fire, and the last movement was tumultuously encored. After the selection from the Mount of Olives , one of the ladies of the chorus came forward and placed a crown of laurels on the head of Dr. Spohr—a compliment which evidently took the great and venerable composer by surprise. He soon, however, recovered his usual undisturbed equanimity, and retired bowing with simple dignity to the applauding audience. With this concerto concluded the day’s proceedings, with the exception of a general illumination in the town, and serenading in the Markt-platz.
I wrote the above [part of the article] after the morning’s rehearsal; at which Beethoven’s C Minor Symphony and Liszt’s own Cantata were played, directed by himself. So many persons had resolved, beforehand, that this great artist should not be able to conduct, owing to the superabundant animation of his pianoforte playing and his tendency to “grace” the music under his care, that I suppose I may, for once, have put faith in the character which was a mere prophecy, and felt a little nervous. I need not: his conducting is the union, to a wish, of spirit and steadiness, of musical science and the power to inspire confidence. But having stated this, because it will surprise some in England, I will not dwell further on the rehearsal.
After the Overture to “Coriolan,” (scarcely heard, owing to the noise) Liszt played the Pianoforte Concerto in E-flat, possibly as it has never been played before—occasion, audience, orchestra and artists taken into account. I must not be considered as partial or partisan in pronouncing it the most superb pianoforte performance I have ever heard. Without a trace of those liberties in the shape of super-animation, change of passage, and the like, which all honest persons must have perceived, after a week’s acquaintance, were accidents merely—not essentials—to his playing.
Bonn, Sunday, August 10.
At ten o’clock there was another rehearsal at the Concert Hall. The pieces rehearsed were Beethoven’s Symphony in C Minor, and Liszt’s Inauguration Cantata, for the third time; both under Liszt’s direction. He conducts an orchestra as he does every thing else, with extraordinary fire and energy; endeavoring, with great vehemence and exuberance of action to convey to the band the expression and effect of every passage, and to bring their feelings into a state of sympathy with his own. More coolness, and a more methodical system of beating time, would carry an orchestra more readily through the first performance of a very complicated piece of music; and, in this respect, I am disposed greatly to prefer the conducting of Spohr and Mendelssohn; but Liszt certainly has, in a pre-eminent degree, the power of rousing and stimulating his performers—of throwing among them some sparks of his own fire. His Cantata is evidently a work of very high genius; but it is of great difficulty in performance, and he interrupted it so incessantly as to obscure its general effect, though the grandeur and beauty of many parts were sufficiently perceptible. He has done homage to Beethoven by introducing into it one of the great master’s most beautiful instrumental adagios, converted into a choral movement; but more of this Cantata afterward.
Bonn, Wednesday, August 13.
I like Liszt so much, that I am grieved that I cannot like his music and his performance better. I had this feeling while he played Beethoven’s concerto last evening, and still more strongly this morning; and I am unwillingly convinced that he never will acquire a permanent reputation either as a classical pianist or composer.
When I arrived at the Beethoven Hall Spohr had already mounted the conductor’s rostrum , saluted by a grand flourish of drums and trumpets from the orchestra and the general acclamations of the audience. It is quite true (if not quite just) that, as Janin observes in his second letter, the orchestra seemed impatient of other control than Spohr’s, and threw as many stumbling blocks in the way of Liszt as they could possibly do without giving direct offence to the fiery Hungarian. 17 Nevertheless, to the surprise of many, Liszt winked at the evident discourtesy, and by quietude and resolution accomplished his duties as conductor so admirably as to surprise even his warmest admirers, who had no more idea of his possessing the peculiar talent of directing an orchestra than of his displaying so thorough a knowledge of instrumentation as is evinced in the scoring of his Cantata, which, I can assure you, astonished me and others not a little….
The Concerto in E-flat, the cheval de bataille of all the Beethoven pianists, fared nobly in the hands of Liszt. It is almost as superogatory to speak now of the merits of Liszt’s pianoforte playing as of the beauties of the composition he interpreted. I shall merely, in answer to the abuses of sundry of his quondam friends, who feasted and lived at his expense (not for the first time), give a direct denial to their statements in regard to his manner of rendering the concerto on this occasion. Instead of altering and exaggerating almost every passage , he altered but few, and exaggerated none. Instead of giving way to gestures and affectations of manner, he was remarkably quiet and unassuming. In short, I never heard him play a better style—with more of the air of a master and less of the grimace of an étudiant. There were a few instances of what, in my humble opinion, might be called mistakes of the composer’s meaning, but these were totally eclipsed by the bold, animated, brilliant, and musician-like style of the general performance, which, at the end of each solo, and at its final close, was applauded with enthusiasm, and the pianist was recalled three times to receive new plaudits. The only thing that surprised me was that Liszt—a thing unusual with him—played from book —yet when we reflect on the turmoil and fatigue to which he had been exposed, day after day, by the blunders of the committee and the importunity of visitors and applicants for favors of every kind, it is matter for admiration that he could play at all—much more that he could play with energy and aplomb. However, Liszt may laugh at his detractors. In the estimation of those who think rightly and without prejudice he has covered himself with honor by his exertions in aid of the Beethoven Festival, which but for him might never have taken place. I attempt not to defend his faults, if he have any—which, since he is human and has been much flattered, is not impossible—but where praise can be so justly given it is unfair to withhold it. The question whether Liszt was the proper person to play so conspicuous a part in the proceedings at Bonn cannot be separated from the fact of his having been the chief promoter of them—and you might as well forbid an artist to play at his own concert, on the score of incapability, as forbid Liszt to figure at his own festival, on the score of unclassicality. Many who did not give a penny toward the proceedings (nor care, perhaps, much more for the memory of Beethoven) cried out in a fit of classical indignation—“And so, forsooth, because I give ten thousand francs, &c. I have a right to play at the Beethoven Festival—at which rate anybody who gives ten thousand francs may play—faugh!—that the great dead should be thus desecrated!” But the danger was easily avoided, for nobody except Liszt gave ten thousand francs, and as Liszt happens to be a tolerable pianist the desecration to the “great dead” was not so terrible after all. The boobies! Why a seat in Parliament has been bought for less money than Liszt gave toward the Beethoven fund, and he who sat in the seat was a fool. Liszt, who purchased his seat at the piano so dearly, will hardly be called a fool even by his enemies.
… The Symphony in C Minor was, on the whole, an excellent performance. Liszt conducted with spirit, and a manifest comprehension of the score—which as he knows the symphony by heart is not to be wondered at. The tempi of the various movements, however, appeared to me to be taken too slow, especially in the Finale —but Spohr, Moscheles, and Sir George Smart (three excellent authorities) assured me that I was wrong, and that I had been accustomed to hear them in London too fast—to which as my opinion was based purely on feeling I had nothing to reply.
Wednesday, August 13.
The concert of yesterday, despite the promise of its program, came but lamely off—the truth is that, with few exceptions, the artistes procured have not been of the first order. Not a single tenor has been engaged, or, with the exception of Staudigl, a bass who could be considered worthy to give expression to the music of Beethoven. Madame Tuczek, the principal soprano, has musical feeling, extended register, and considerable energy, but she sadly lacks refinement. Mdlle Schloss, who débuted
last season at the Ancient Concerts, has sung remarkably well, but the ensemble
has been course and slovenly. The chorus, particularly the female voices, is beyond praise—they combine the nicest precision with immense power. Their hearts were ardently in the cause—the band has been selected from all parts, and, taking into consideration their strangeness to each other, went through their difficult task respectably. The ninth symphony of Beethoven, however, is the solitary work to which we can award a verdict of entire satisfaction. The concert was conducted by Spohr and Liszt; the latter, though a distinguished pianist, is, without exception, the vilest conductor we have seen; the most perfect orchestra and the most accomplished instrumentalists must have suffered from his indecision, and want of knowledge of orchestral exigencies. The following is the program:
[Program listed here]
The hall was intensely crowded at an early hour. The Overture to Coriolan was feebly rendered—its stately grandeur and grand combinations were ignobly interpreted, and it was accordingly, but coldly received. The Canon from Fidelio was effectively given—the deep tones and classic style of Staudigl, and the fine quality of Madame Tuczek’s voice, ministered essentially to this charming morceau. The cheval de bataille of the night was Liszt’s performance of the celebrated Concerto in E-flat. Since I heard him in England his style has not improved: his powers of execution remain unimpaired, but much of the pleasure elicited by his really fine talent is marred by his coxcombry of manner and exaggerated action. Considering that Liszt himself has, with many, established a reputation for his poetical interpretations of the music of Beethoven, the many liberties he took with the text were evidence of no reverential feeling for the composer. The entire concerto seemed rather a glorification of self, than the heart-feeling of the loving disciple. He was, of course, much applauded, for here he is considered as the instar omnium of the festival. The selections from The Mount of Olives , from which much pleasure was anticipated, turned out to be but an air for the soprano and a single chorus. This was a sad breaking of faith. The Symphony in C Minor went smoothly, in consequence of the band never by any chance looking at Liszt, who conducted. In the scherzo so many changes were made in the time, that the feeling was entirely at variance with its intention—the exquisite movement was given totteringly, and the very reverse of the fine rendering when conducted by Spohr and Mendelssohn. The splendid triumphal march gained in dignity, from the more retarded manner in which it was taken, than has been customary at our Philharmonic Society. Nothing more splendid than this symphony can be conceived—its entire design is colossal, and the various phases of passion are expressed with poetical fervor and enthusiasm. The quartet for stringed instruments was played with delicacy, but lacked energy and simultaneity, and was far behind the similar performances in London.
The third and last concert took place this morning. It will seem by the following program how inconsiderate has been the haste with which all the proceedings have been mismanaged:
The cantata composed by Dr. Liszt is wholly worthless in design and execution. It is rechauffée of the opening of Mendelssohn’s Walpurgis Nacht , and a minuet of Beethoven. It is patchy, and went raggedly. The uncertainty of the composer’s baton deranged the time and confused the singers. The Queen, Prince Albert, the King and Queen of Prussia, and their suites, entered the Beethoven-hall just as this feeble work was finished; it was then repeated, I hear, at the desire of Prince Albert. The only other items of the programme which call for especial notice is the pianoforte playing of the celebrated Madame Pleyel. She is one of the finest performers in Europe. Her touch is firm and delicate, and the most extraordinary difficulties are achieved with marvelous facility. I believe she will visit London during the next season. A young man named Möser, élève of De Beriot, executed a fantasia from airs of Weber, with great purity of tone and command of bow; and Herr Ganz created a marked sensation in a solo on the violincello.
There was a grand dinner at the Goldnen Stern after the concert, at which above five hundred and sixty persons assisted. The affair was wound up with a riot, occasioned by a gentleman persisting to make speeches, despite the yells and sibillations of the company.
The entire arrangement of the Beethoven Festival has been marked with singular failure—socially and musically. Foreign artists of distinction have been treated with neglect, and the committee have earned for themselves anything but an enviable renown. The grand ball of tonight will close the festivities. I may sum up by saying, that it would have been more honest to have styled the affair “THE BEETHOVEN FESTIVAL IN HONOR OF LISZT!”
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
(Leipzig), August 1845
At the conclusion of the concert came the C Minor Symphony under Liszt’s direction and the finale from Fidelio. To judge from the rehearsal, where Liszt’s intention was to render the details of this composition according to his own intentions, here accelerated and there broadened, an unsettled representation of this work was to be feared. Fortunately, this was deceptive. Liszt conducted the orchestra indeed energetically but with calm, and left the performance to his intermittent signals, trusting the moment and the alert mind of the orchestra, and so this ingenious work enjoyed a thoroughly worthy, genuine, and lively presentation. Liszt indeed emotes with overflowing warmth, but always properly and truthfully; only the degree of feeling is limited by his changing mood. Liszt is, however, through and through an artist and, without wanting to ignore his weaknesses, it must be conceded that without Liszt’s gifted energy, and without the serenity provided by Spohr standing beside him, the festival would not have made the worthy and enthusiastic impression that it now enjoys in the greatest measure. 18
The concert in the evening presented again only works by Beethoven: 1) The C-Minor Symphony, conducted boisterously by Mr. Liszt, for the improvised conductor has called the usual manner of conducting an orchestra “rococo.” 19 Really! The orchestra, which already knows this wonderful work from memory, performed it all so well as if a rococo-conductor had been on the podium. The orchestra was not in the least distracted by his unusual manner of conducting. 2) The E-flat Concerto for pianoforte, performed by Mr. Liszt with unusual calm and deliberation. If other connoisseurs were not in agreement, one could blame the remarkable coquettishness with the pianissimo and other such effects which, due to the large hall, ought to have been omitted, but which I, for my part, thank Mr. Liszt for having controlled. 20
Liszt conducted very well, as even his critics must concede. He also performed the piano concerto in E-flat by Beethoven, and enchanted the world with his playing, for many who lack all trust in this unique musician to perform a Beethoven concerto in the right spirit, as one says, were completely converted.
The concerto was performed by Liszt. One can easily imagine the success. Spohr led the orchestra. As for the other pieces, Liszt conducted them, and in a truly sovereign way. I had heard the finale of Fidelio at the last concert of the Conservatory; but the execution was so poor that I could not judge this work myself….
Concerning the symphony, an artist whose opinion has much weight pointed out that Liszt took the movement of the andante a little more quickly than usual. I must say that Liszt satisfied me perfectly and I think I have guessed his intention. The Symphony in C Minor never enters the field of soft ideas and melancholic persons; it is somber, austere, violent. Allowing the charm of the first motive of this andante to come out spoils the effect of the energetic phrase that follows it; the slow execution takes the work out of its frame; it is, so to speak, like the change of color on the palette of a grand master. Perhaps the section gains from this, but the whole piece undoubtedly loses. As for the sound quality of string instruments performing in a 200-foot long hall, it is certainly the most unfortunate imaginable idea.
To say that Liszt played it [the Beethoven Concerto] and that he played it in a grandiose, fine, poetic and yet always faithful manner, is to utter a veritable tautology; there was a storm of applause and orchestral fanfares that must have been audible even outside the hall. Then Liszt, mounting the conductor’s podium, directed the performance of the Symphony in C Minor, of which he let us hear the scherzo just as Beethoven wrote it, without cutting out the double basses at the beginning, as has been done for so long at the Paris Conservatory, and the finale with the repeat indicated by Beethoven, a repeat which is even today allowed to be omitted at the concerts of the same Conservatory. 21
1. Although many articles are unsigned, other sources allow us to determine the authors and where their reports appeared: Charles Kenney, Times; George Hogarth, Morning Chronicle and Illustrated London News (the latter with drawings by Robertson); Morris Barnett, Morning Post; Mr. Feeney, Morning Herald; Henry Chorley, Athenaeum; J. W. Davison, Musical World; French Flowers, reported, probably incorrectly, to be writing for London Gazette; and Charles Gruneison, Britannia. These attributions to journals are mine, largely based upon Davison and other reports. Charles Gruneison was the music critic of the Post until 1846, but it appears that he wrote reports of the Beethoven Festival for the Britannia. Davison, in the Musical World , says that Morris Barnett (who would succeed Gruneison as music editor at the Post ) wrote them for the Post. See Musical World 20, no. 35, 28 August 1845. For an extended list of musical editors and contributors to London papers in the mid-nineteenth century, see the Reviewer index in José Antonio Bowen, “The Conductor and the Score: A History of the Relationship Between Interpreter and Text in the Generation of Mendelssohn, Berlioz, and Wagner,” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1994, vol. 3.
2. My investigation of new sources continues and I hope to publish all of the accounts of the complete festival soon.
3. Kölnische Zeitung , no. 179 (June 1845).
4. The Morning Post (London), 18 August 1845. All further references are cited in context below.
5. Musical World 20, no. 40 (2 October 1845).
6. Ibid.
7. Frankfurter Konversations-Blatt , no. 233 (24 August 1845); and Illustrirte Zeitung (Leipzig), no. 116 (20 September 1845). For more on Liszt’s conducting, see José Antonio Bowen, “The Missing Link: Franz Liszt the Conductor,” Basler Jahrbuch für Historische Musikpraxis 24 (2000): 125–50.
8. Illustrirte Zeitung (Leipzig), no. 116 (20 Sept. 1845); and Athenaeum (London), 23 August 1845.
9. Musical World 20, no. 40 (2 October 1845).
10. Ibid. Davison thought it “a thing unusual with him,” but excused it on account of the turmoil and fatigue of recent weeks.
11. Anton Schindler, Beethoven as I Knew Him , trans. Constance S. Jolly, annot. Donald W. MacArdle, based on 3rd ed., 1860 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: 1966), p. 433. Schindler blames Czerny for corrupting Liszt’s “divine spark” with training in the “bravura style.” See pp. 416 and 432.
12. This edited version of Moscheles’s diaries, appears in Charlotte Moscheles, Life of Moscheles, with Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence , trans. A. D. Coleridge (London: 1873), vol. 2, p. 88.
13. Musical World 20, no. 40 (2 October 1845).
14. Amy Fay, Music Study in Germany from the Home Correspondence of Amy Fay , ed. Mrs. Fay Pierce (Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co., 1880; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1979), with intro. by Edward Downes and index by Roy Chemus, p. 238. Other students confirm this was not his usual practice. See José Antonio Bowen, “Liszt the Teacher,” Journal of the American Liszt Society 52/53 (Fall 2002/Spring 2003): 1–63; includes “An Annotated Bibliography of Students and Observers of Liszt’s Teaching,” with E. Douglas Bomberger, pp.44–63.
15. [Hector Berlioz], “Fêtes musicales de Bonn,” Journal des débats (22 August 1845 and 3 September 1845). See note 21 below for full citation.
16. Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences &c. (London), no. 1495 (6 September 1845).
17. Janin is the French critic Jules Janin, who wrote feuilletons for the Journal des débats of Paris.
18. This and the following four new translations from German periodicals are greatly indebted to Richard Green, whose poetic English translations so surpassed my own crude ones that I adopted his suggestions in almost every case.
19. This article was reprinted in Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Leipzig), 12 September 1845.
20. This is the “press report on a concert given as part of the Beethoven Memorial Festival” from the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in Ernst Burger, Franz Liszt: A Chronicle of his Life in Pictures and Documents , trans. Stewart Spencer (Princeton, N.J.: 1989), p. 156.
21. This was reprinted in Berlioz, Les Soirées dans l’orchestre (Paris: 1852). The English translation is Evenings in the Orchestra , ed. and trans. Jacques Barzun (New York: 1956; repr. Chicago: 1973), pp. 333–34. Cited here from a new translation by Kevin Bazzana, The Beethoven Newsletter 6/1 (Spring 1991), 6.