158.—COÖPERATIVE COMPOSITION.
In 1837 a certain charitably disposed Princess hit on a novel way to gather in money for the homeless Italian patriots then in Paris. Her plan was to bring into the musical market a composition which should be the combined work of six of the greatest pianists then before the world.
The theme that was chosen was a duet from Bellini's "I Puritani," and the composers who took part in this composite composition were Liszt, Thalberg, Pixis, Herz, Czerny, and Chopin—a brilliant array. From the number of composers this work was called the "Hexameron." Each one wrote a variation on the given theme and Liszt furnished the introduction and finale.
This was not the first time that Liszt had taken part in such composition. In 1823 Diabelli, the Vienna music publisher, issued a series of fifty variations on a waltz theme, by fifty prominent composers of the time. Among them were Czerny, Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Kreutzer, and Schubert. The twenty-fourth variation was by Franz Liszt, then eleven years old; and despite his youth, his variation is on a par with those of the older and more celebrated composers. This is the only one of Liszt's earlier compositions that has been preserved.