The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2

by Rupert Hughes
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OLYMPE PELISSIER, AS "JUDITH" IN THE PAINTING BY VERNET

GIUSEPPE VERDI

FRANZ SCHUBERT

ROBERT SCHUMANN

CLARA WIECK, AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN

CLARA AND ROBERT SCHUMANN

CLARA (WIECK) SCHUMANN





THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF GREAT MUSICIANS

VOLUME II.




CHAPTER I.

FRANZ LISZT


"Liszt, or the Art of Running after Women."--NIETSCHE.


Liszt's life was so lengthy and so industriously amorous, that it is
possible only to float along over the peaks, to touch only the high
points. Why, his letters to the last of his loves alone make up four
volumes! And yet, for a life so proverbially given over to flirtations
as his, the beginnings were strangely unprophetic. He had reached the
mature age of six before he began to study the piano; compared with
Mozart, he was an old man before he gave his first concert--namely,
nine years. Then the poverty of his parents and the ambition of his
father found assistance in a stipend from Hungarian noblemen, and he
was sent to Vienna to study. When he was eleven years old, after one of
his concerts, Beethoven kissed him. He survived. Then on to Paris and
duchesses and princesses galore. Here he became a proverb of popularity
as "Le petit Litz"--the French inevitably gave some twist to a foreign
name, then as to-day, when two of their favourite painters are
"Wisthler" and "Seargent."

Liszt's childhood was therefore largely fed upon the embraces and

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