The Shadow of Great Britain

”Constitutional Newspaper” Music Column, published August 5th, 1837.

”On the Art of the Piano and True Attainment”

Author: Arthur Hastings

Paris has long been famed throughout the world as a capital of the arts; the resplendent performances upon its stages and the heated discussions in every street and alley are the city’s habitual condition.

Be it the eighteenth century or the nineteenth, the musical stage of Paris has never lacked for figures radiant with brilliance.

François Couperin, in the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV, with his elegant and finely wrought keyboard pieces, established the very paradigm of the ”French style.”

Jan Ladislav Dussek, with his gentle and ardent playing, formed the first impression among Parisian audiences of the ”cantabile” character of the modern piano.

Friedrich Kalkbrenner not only ruled Parisian piano pedagogy for nearly twenty years, he also set new standards for the piano recital; even today he is revered by countless young pianists as the model of the Academic School.

And among these names, Mr. Franz Liszt is without doubt the most conspicuous.

His performances are overflowing with ardor, his technique is razor-sharp, and wherever he appears he can rouse a frenzy. Many critics have styled him the ”Paganini of the piano”; I consider such praise by no means excessive. Mr. Liszt upon the stage indeed possesses a power that strikes terror into the heart.

I am willing to confess frankly: if we speak of brilliance upon the stage, of the ultimate command of technique, I, as a fellow technician of the keyboard, must acknowledge my inferiority.

Mr. Liszt’s hands possess a power bordering upon the magical; this is something every colleague must face squarely.

Yet technique is not the goal of music.

It is a bridge, not a sanctuary.

The value of music has never lain in clamor.

Its mission is not to flaunt the agility of ten fingers, but to touch the depths of the human heart. It is precisely because the piano, as an instrument, can reconcile rational order with emotional plenitude that it has, within scarcely a few decades, emerged from the corners of private salons into the larger theatre.

For this very reason, the efforts of Mr. Sigismund Thalberg are worthy of mention.

His playing does not necessarily pursue dazzling postures, yet through limpid melody and well-ordered arrangement he can bestow upon the listener a satisfaction worthy of a great hall.

It is a serenity that arises from within, not a momentary vertigo. He may lack the tumult of Mr. Liszt, yet the sense of order and the beauty of melody in his art can lodge in the listener’s memory for a very long time.

Regrettably, I have lately read certain writings whose language is vehement, attacking Mr. Thalberg’s art with great severity. They declare his music hollow and mediocre, assert that his scores are filled with childish chords and chromatic scales, and even go so far as to insultingly claim that Mr. Thalberg’s music is devoid of thought.

Such criticism, in my view, is not just.

In the first place, music is not an arena for gladiators; if art is turned into a field of brawling, it forfeits the nobility that properly belongs to it.

Secondly, true musicians must always let their works speak for them. To my mind, a true master has no need to exalt himself by disparaging others. I understand that the applause of the stage is seductive. It can mislead one into believing that fervent acclamation is the measure of value. Yet history teaches us that fleeting enthusiasm does not endure.

Shakespeare did not necessarily win all hands while he still walked the earth; yet centuries later his plays remain the very foundation of the great theatres of London and Paris. It was not through some passing sensation, but by the inherent power of his works that he became a giant whose voice still resounds after hundreds of years.

Admittedly, Shakespeare secured his place in history by triumphing through sumptuous diction and language.

But if a pianist likewise seeks to gain renown by means of his prose, one cannot help but suspect that he has chosen the wrong profession.

Of course, in saying this I am by no means opposing technique.

In truth, I myself once excelled in displays of virtuosity, and in my youth often won applause with movements of formidable difficulty.

Yet as the years have passed, I have gradually come to understand that if technique is not borne up by melody and feeling, then it differs little from the jugglery of the street.

This was also the reason why a few years ago I chose to bid farewell to the concert stage.

At that time the Third Orchestra of the London Philharmonic Association had still reserved a pianist’s seat for me. It was an honor many dream of; if I had wished, I could easily have remained there, reaping applause and cheers on the strength of one dazzling transcription after another.

Yet I was keenly aware that the stage is not an Ancient Roman Colosseum where one competes in sheer volume of sound.

And so I ceded that place to Mr. Sigismund Thalberg.

For I perceived that he did not stake his victory upon extravagant gestures, but rather, through limpid melody and restrained rhythm, reached that quietest recess of the human soul.

I do not regard this as a ”loss”; on the contrary, it is the most dignified consummation I could offer to music. A true artist has no need, like certain people, to scramble to mount the platform before others, as though fearful of forfeiting the slightest halo, nor to stoop to disparaging colleagues in the newspapers in order to exalt himself. Such a victory may purchase a moment’s sensation, but it cannot win the respect of history.

And I am willing to concede: in technique I may not equal those figures famed for their outrageous feats. Yet if the value of music is reduced to the winning of a brief cheer, then such a victory is nothing more than flowers in a mirror or the moon in the water—never to become like a clear spring, which, though never thunderous, flows on and on without end.