Chapter 8 - Liszt in London, 1886

Summary

SYNOPSIS

During his three-week stay in 1886 at the home of Henry Littleton, the head of the music publishing firm Novello, Ewer & Co., Liszt visited Henry's son Alfred at the nearby residence, Dunedin House, an equally impressive property on West Hill, Sydenham: a corner house facing the home of future Antartic explorer, twelve-year-old Ernest Shackleton. Liszt was also an honored guest at a soirée hosted by Alfred de Rothschild, a director of the Bank of England and prominent patron of the arts at 1 Seamore Place, Piccadilly. Liszt had kept in touch with the Rothschilds from the early 1830s or even earlier.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS during Liszt's London visit of 1886

3 April Sunday evening: Liszt arrives at Westwood House.

4 April Stavenhagen plays Liszt's E-flat Piano Concerto, S. 125, during a lesson at Westwood House in preparation for his London debut at Crystal Palace on 10 April. Liszt attends a rehearsal of St. Elisabeth2 at St. James's Hall and in the evening is present at a choir practice at Neumeyer Hall, Bloomsbury.

6 April Liszt visits the Royal Academy of Music at Tenterden Street, Hanover Square, “to become the practical donor of the endowment of a Liszt scholarship for young composers and pianists … the funds for which, amounting to about £1,100, had been subscribed in a very brief period, thanks to the activity of Mr. Walter Bache, Mr. C. A. Barry, and other ardent partisans of the master.”3 In the evening Liszt is present at the performance of his St. Elisabeth in St. James's Hall.

7 April Liszt meets Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and performs an “improvisation,” a “rhapsody,” “The Miracle of the Roses” from St. Elisabeth, and Chopin's Nocturne in B-flat minor, Op. 9, No. 1.

8 April After a private evening dinner at the Langham Hotel, Liszt attends a reception given in his honor at Grosvenor Gallery, hosted by Walter Bache. Some 300-400 guests are present. During the proceedings a concert of Liszt's works is given after which Liszt plays his arrangement of Schubert's Divertissement hongroise. S. 425, and one of his own Hungarian Rhapsodies.

9 April Liszt spends the afternoon with his Hungarian friends Baron Bodog Orczy and family.