CHAPTER III - LISZT IN ENGLAND

Summary

Every one who witnessed the reception granted to Liszt on his visit to this country in 1886 must have been struck by the cordial—one might say, personal—form which that reception took. Such ovations had never been offered to an artist in England before—not, at least, since the days of Paganini. Quiet-looking and eminently respectable persons would stand on their seats and wave their umbrellas and hats and handkerchiefs in a frantic manner when Liszt entered St. James's Hall; and even before he entered that hall his arrival was announced by the shouts of the crowd outside, who acclaimed him as if it were a king returning to his kingdom, and not a mere musician, whom Lord Chesterfield and even Dr. Johnson would have generically and contemptuously described as “a fiddler.” There is no doubt that much of this enthusiasm proceeded from genuine admiration of his music, mixed with a feeling that that music, for a number of years, had been shamefully neglected in this country, and that now, at last, the time had come to make amends to a great and famous man, fortunately still living. It is equally certain that a great many people who were carried away by the current of enthusiasm—including the very cabmen in the street who gave three cheers for the “Habby Liszt”—had never heard a note of his music, nor would have appreciated it much if they had.