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332 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS FRANZ LISZT By Rev. Hugh R. Haweis, M.A. (l8ll-l886) F 1 'ranz Liszt was born in 181 1. He had the hot Hungarian blood of his father, the fervid German spirit of his mother, and he inherited the lofty inde- pendence, with none of the class prejudices, of the old Hungarian nobility from which he sprang. Liszt's father, Adam, earned a modest livelihood as agent and accountant in the house of Count Esterhazy. In that great musical family, inseparably associated with the names of Haydn and Schubert, Adam Liszt had fre quent opportunities of meeting distinguished musicians The prince's private band had risen to public fame un ier the instruction of the venerable Haydn himself. The Liszts, father and son, often went to Eisenstadt, where the count lived ; there they rubbed elbows with Cherubini and Hummel, a pupil of Mozart. Franz took to music from his earliest childhood. When about five years old he was asked what he would like to do. " Learn the piano," said the little fel- low. Soon afterward his father asked him what he would like to be ; the child pointed to a print of Beethoven hanging on the wall, and said, "Like him." Long before his feet could reach the pedals or his fingers stretch an octave, the boy spent all his spare time strumming, making what he called " clangs," chords and modulations. He mastered scales and exercises without difficulty. Czerny at once took to Liszt, but refused to take anything for his instruction. Salieri was also fascinated, and instructed him in harmony ; and fortunate it was that Liszt began his course under two strict mentors. He soon began to resent Czerny's method — thought he knew better and needed not those dry studies of Clementi and that irksome fingering by rule — he could finger anything in a half-a-dozen different ways. There was a moment when it seemed that master and pupil would have to part, but timely concessions to genius paved the way to dutiful submission, and years afterward the great master dedicated to the rigid disciplinarian of his boyhood his " Vingt-quatre Grandes Etudes " in affectionate remembrance. Such a light as Liszt's could not be long hid; all Vienna, in 1822, was talk- ing of the wonderful boy. "Est deus in nobis" wrote the papers, profanely. The "little Hercules," the "young giant," the boy "virtuoso from the clouds," were among the epithets coined to celebrate his marvellous renderings of Hum- mel's " Concerto in A," and a free " Fantasia " of his own. The Vienna Con- cert Hall was crowded to hear him, and the other illustrious artists — then, as