26. Last visit to England, 1886.

As Liszt’s 75th birthday approached, various countries came forward with plans to celebrate the event. Of the many invitations he received (some from as far away as St Petersburg), one held a special significance for him. For years his English disciple Walter Bache had mounted an annual Liszt concert in London at his own expense, and had drawn hostility for his trouble. When Bache pressed his master to return to Britain, after an absence of more than 40 years, Liszt found it impossible to refuse. Word spread quickly and invitations flowed in from Buckingham Palace, the Philharmonic Society and the Royal Academy of Music. Liszt became somewhat perturbed and wrote to Bache:

My very dear friend: They seem determined in London to push me to the piano. I cannot allow this to happen in public, as my 75 year old fingers are no longer suited to it, and Bülow, Saint-Saëns, Rubinstein, and you, dear Bache, play my compositions much better than what is left of my humble self.

Liszt spent nearly three weeks in England, in April 1886. He travelled from Budapest and arrived in Paris on 20 March, where a number of celebrations awaited him, including a performance of the ‘Gran’ Mass under Edouard Colonne in the church of St Eustache. For much of the time he was a guest of the Hungarian painter Mihály Munkácsy, who completed his celebrated oil painting of Liszt at this time. On 3 April Liszt left Paris and was met at Calais by the conductor Alexander Mackenzie and Alfred Littleton of Novello & Co. Together they crossed the English Channel to Dover where they were greeted by Walter Bache. The party then proceeded to Westwood House, Sydenham, where Liszt stayed for his entire sojourn as a guest of Henry Littleton, the head of Novello’s.

Despite his earlier resolve not to play the piano, Liszt performed a number of times, much to the delight of his many admirers. On 6 April he appeared at the Royal Academy of Music where he presented a cheque for £1100 to the principal, Sir George Macfarren. This large sum had been raised chiefly by Walter Bache (a professor of piano at the Academy) for the establishment of a Liszt Scholarship. Afterwards, in response to the cheers of the students, Liszt played (among other things) his Cantique d’amour. ‘No piano has ever sounded the same to me, before or since’, wrote the composer Orsmond Anderton, who was a student at that time. On 7 April Liszt appeared at Windsor Castle and played for Queen Victoria. They had last met 41 years earlier in Bonn, at the Beethoven Festival. Victoria wrote in her diary that he had then been ‘a wild phantastic looking man, who was now a quiet benevolent looking old Priest, with long white hair, and scarcely any teeth. We asked him to play, which he did, several of his own compositions. He played beautifully’.

The following evening Walter Bache put on a great reception for Liszt at the Grosvenor Gallery, to which more than 400 people were invited, representing the fields of music, art, literature and the church. It was there that Liszt was publicly reunited with Joachim, and their historic handshake was captured by the London Graphic (17 April). Sir George Grove attended and recorded his impressions of Liszt’s playing: ‘so calm, clear, correct, refined – so entirely unlike the style of the so-called “Liszt School”’. Typically, he attended two recitals given by his young pupils Frederic Lamond (15 April, James Hall) and Bernhard Stavenhagen (16 April, Princes Hall), who was making his London début. Liszt had by now become a familiar sight in London, with his snow-white hair and his abbé’s soutane; according to The Times (12 April 1886) the London cab drivers doffed their caps whenever he passed and addressed him as ‘Habby Liszt’.

Liszt arrived back in Weimar, via Paris, on 17 May. The burdens of old age were clearly visible. He was by now partially blind and his body was so bloated with dropsy that the students who met him at the railway station had to support him as he alighted from the train. The next day Cosima turned up at the Hofgärtnerei, a visit that took Liszt by surprise since she had had no contact with him since Wagner’s death in 1883. We lack a record of the conversation, but two things emerged. Liszt accepted an invitation to attend his granddaughter Daniela’s marriage to the art historian Henry Thode, on 4 July; and he also promised to lend his presence to the Bayreuth Festival later that same month. Cosima had taken over direction of the festival, which was on the verge of collapse, and the presence of Liszt had become a matter of urgent public relations. It is difficult to disagree with Liszt’s ironic description of himself as ‘Bayreuth’s poodle’. On 1 June Liszt travelled to Halle to consult the famous eye surgeon Alfred Graefe, who recommended the removal of a cataract on his left eye. An operation was scheduled for September, but Liszt died before it could be performed.

Liszt, Franz