3 - A Slow and Perilous Road to Vindication

Summary

This chapter focuses on Liszt's deliberations about whether to accept invitations to certain performances of his music. A deep-seated concern formed an important subtext for Liszt's case-by-case decision: his need for recognition of his contributions as composer as opposed to “mere” performer, particularly with respect to problematic works and locales.

This dilemma of self-image is brought into clear focus by a brief glance at Liszt's reaction to an invitation to play the piano for a charity benefit in Vienna in 1881. As will be discussed below, after his performance at a fundraising concert in Vienna four years earlier, Liszt decided to discontinue playing the piano in public, even for charity events. Nonetheless, individuals and organizations still requested that he perform at charity events, and he broke his resolve on three occasions in 1879 and twice in 1881. One of these was a benefit concert in Vienna on 9 April 1881, organized by Princess Marcelline Czartoryska in order to establish a school in Lemberg (Lviv), the capital of Galicia in Ruthenia, at the border of Poland and Hungary (the nucleus of Galicia lies within the modern regions of western Ukraine). Liszt remarked that he agreed to participate out of respectful courtesy due to the Princess, not because the concert interested him. As early as 30 January, he informed Carolyne that he wanted to withhold public announcements so as not to contradict his Viennese promise. He became more explicit when he communicated with Carolyne's daughter Marie on 2 February: the concert must take place “without street-corner billboards, for I took up my cross of pianistic publicity [for the last time] at the Beethoven Concert [in 1877].—” His reference to a “cross of pianistic publicity” makes clear that he was still struggling under the weight of his performer image some thirty years after he had ceased his virtuoso career. He wanted to be appreciated as more than a pianist, as he indicated to Marie on 30 March: “For them [Hanslick and the Princess Marcelline Czartoryska] and the rest, I must remain a famous pianist. Too bad for me if my idea differs from theirs.”