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MUSICAL AND LITERARY MISCELLANY.
205
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Knew from whence it deriv'd the fair prize,
For silently, silently swelling with pride.
It reflected ber back to the skies 1
LISZT.
Franz Liszt was born at Raiding, a village in
Hungary, on the 22d October 1811, the year of the
comet. His parents drew a prognostic from this
coincidence, regarding the future career of their son.
Adam Liszt, the father of Franz, wa« not a profes-
sional musician, but an enthusiastic amateur, and
one of Haydn's most intimate iViends. He held
an employment in the administration of the domains
of prince Esterhazy, son of the old Prince Esterhazy
who had received Haydn in his youth, and had
made him his chapel master. Adam Liszt was a
pood musician, and a good pianist, and played
many diB'erent instruments. His ambition was to
become an artist, but he could not command the
necessary means, being always kept poor by ad-
ministering to the wants of fourteen or fifteen bro-
thers and sisters. The disappointment of his wishes
in this respect gave him great chagrin and rendered
him morose and melancholy. But he was soon
consoled by the extraordinary aptitude for music
which he discovered in the child Franz ; and from
that moment determined to devote his whole life
to his musical education and advancement. When
an infant, Franz was very delicate, and was so
ill, when about two years old, that they gave him
up for dead, and had his coffin made. From
his infancy he showed a strong devotional turn
of mind, and this was only interrupted for a short
time by circumstances attending his after residence
in Paris. His father gave him his first lessons
on the piano-forte. He continued to practise from
six to nine years old, when he first performed
in public at Qidenburg, where he played Ries'
Concerto in E fiat, and improvized. At JPresburg,
whither his father soon after took him, Franz found
useful protectors in several noblemen, especially in
Count Thaddeus Amadeus, and Count Zapaty.
These noblemen, gave him a pension for six years
uf 12,000 or 15,000 francs. A year after, Adam
Liszt determined to give up his place under Prince
Esterhazy, to sell bis efl'ects, and to goto Vienna
with his wife and son. At Vienna Franz was
placed under Czerny the pianist. There, too,
Salieri gave him some instructions. At this time
he could play at sight any piano-forte music. When
he had been eighteen months at Vienna, he gave
a concert at which Beethoven was present. Bee-
thoven spoke to him encouragingly, but with that
tone of reserve which was habitual to him in the
latter years of his life. In 1823, Adam Liszt took
his son to Paris, in order to have him entered as
a student in the Conservatory there. They carried
letters of recommendation to Cherubini from Prince
Metternich, but Cherubini refused to receive Liszt
as a pupil in the Conservatory, becmise he was a
foreigner. This was a great disappointment to old
Liszt. Meantime Franz's talents and performance
made him the idol of the Parisian ladies. He was
flattered, caressed, and spoiled ; and his father
foreseeing the bad consequences of this, resolved to
put him under a system of hard training. He forced
him, after each meal, to play over twelve of Bach's
fugues. In the month of May 1824, Franz's father
took him to London, where his playing surprised
everybody. He returned to Paris in September.
In 1825 he revisited England, and at the end of
that year he produced an opera at the Royal Academy
of Music iu Paris, " Don Sanche, ou le Chateau
d' Amour." It was performed four times, and very
well received. In 1826 his father and he made a
tour through the French provinces. The same
year he returned to Paris, and began to study
counterpoint under Reicha. He became fond of
solitude, and would shut himself up for six months
together to study. His devotional feelings became
more strong than ever, but took a most extraordinary
turn in his admiration of suicide, without his seem-
ing to be aware of this monstrous contradiction.
At this time he went often to confession, and thought