treated their instrument as an interpreting medium, but as a poet, who executively employed the piano as his means of utterance and material for creation.  In mere mechanical skill, after every one else has ended, Liszt had still something to add, carrying every man’s discovery further.  If he was surpassed by Thalberg in richness of sound, he surpassed Thalberg by a variety of tone of which the redoubtable Viennese player had no dream.  He had his delicate, light, freakish moods in which he might stand for another Chopin in qualities of fancy, sentiment, and faery brilliancy.  In sweep of hand and rapidity of finger, in fire and fineness of execution, in that interweaving of exquisite momentary fancies where the work admits, in a memory so vast as to seem almost superhuman; in that lightning quickness of view, enabling him to penetrate instantaneously the meaning of a new composition, and to light it up properly with its own inner spirit (some touch of his own brilliancy added); briefly, in a mastery, complete, spontaneous, enjoying and giving enjoyment, over every style and school of music, all those who have heard Liszt assert that he is unapproached among players and the traditions of players.

In a letter from Berlioz to Liszt, the writer gives us a vivid idea of the great virtuoso’s playing and its effects.  Berlioz is complaining of the difficulties which hamper the giving of orchestral concerts.  After rehearsing his mishaps, he says:  “After all, of what use is such information to you?  You can say with confidence, changing the mot of Louis XIV, ’L’orchestre, c’est moi; le chour, c’est moi; le chef c’est encore moi.’  My piano-forte sings, dreams, explodes, resounds; it defies the flight of the most skillful forms; it has, like the orchestra, its brazen harmonies; like it, and without the least preparation, it can give to the evening breeze its cloud of fairy chords and vague melodies.  I need neither theatre, nor box scene, nor much staging.  I have not to tire myself out at long rehearsals.  I want neither a hundred, fifty, nor twenty players.  I do not even need any music.  A grand hall, a grand pianoforte, and I am master of a grand audience.  I show myself and am applauded; my memory awakens, dazzling fantasies grow beneath my fingers.  Enthusiastic acclamations answer them.  I sing Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” or Beethoven’s “Adelaida” on the piano, and all hearts tend toward me, all breasts hold their breath....  Then come luminous bombs, the banquet of this grand firework, and the cries of the public, and the flowers and the crowns that rain around the priest of harmony, shuddering on his tripod; and the young beauties, who, all in tears, in their divine confusion kiss the hem of his cloak; and the sincere homage drawn from serious minds and the feverish applause torn from many; the lofty brows that bow down, and the narrow hearts, marveling to find themselves expanding ’....  It is a dream, one of those golden dreams one has when one is called Liszt or Paganini.”