Arthur Friedheim plays Liszt, Rosenthal & Gottschalk







Arthur Friedheim was born as far back as 1859 in St. Petersburg. He had a formidable career, with many successes, and frustrations. In piano lore he was one of the finest and most important stars in the great Liszt galaxy, considered one of the uncontested giants of the keyboard - and he lived in an age of giants. His generation produced Paderewski, Scharwenka, Busoni, Essipova, Joseffy, Carreño, d'Albert, Rosenthal, Sauer, Siloti, and many others. Vladimir de Pachmann said, "Friedheim is the God of all pianists", and there were many who were moved in that direction. Friedheim's playing gave a sense of the comprehensive; a critic from 1912 wrote, "with Paderewski, one is charmed by his magnetism, poetic conceptions and tone colour; Rosenthal excels with his transcendental technique and great bravura, Busoni with his musicianship and versatility, while Pachmann captures his auditors by his magic tone production. But Friedheim seems to possess a combination of all these qualities that crown him as being the most satisfying from the artistic and musicians' standpoint."

Friedheim's youth was spent in the Russian Empire's glittering capital, St. Petersburg: as he wrote in his fascinating volume Life and Liszt, his family belonged to the category known as "intelligentsia". "I was nine years old when I made my début in St. Petersburg, I played John Field's E-flat concerto, an immensely popular work in Russia... when I stepped onto the stage to make my very first bow as a performer in public, the brilliantly-lighted hall was filled with a colourful, fashionable audience. My performance of the familiar concerto was greeted with considerable enthusiasm, but I can remember no particular emotion, either of timidity or elation, on that great evening."

After studying with Anton Rubinstein's pupil Carl Siecke, Friedheim became Rubinstein's piano pupil when he was fourteen years old. They were fruitful studies; Friedheim deeply admired Rubinstein and was awed by his piano playing when the master was in form. However, by the age of sixteen, Rubinstein's wayward temperament had become confusing to Friedheim. "His advice and criticism had begun to vary from day to day. He would say that I was going to be a successful pianist, then he could advise me to give all my time to composition. I decided to take all the advice he offered, and more, to become pianist, composer and conductor as well."

Friedheim decided to continue his education in The Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University. "Here I was in my element. I liked philosophy. Intense application was easy for me; yet I was gregarious and articulate and, because I was a good athlete, as well as a pupil of Rubinstein, and a pianist in my own right, I was popular."

He told the conservative Rubinstein that he wanted to go to Weimar to work with Liszt. In those years, Liszt's radical music left Rubinstein cold and angry. When someone asked Rubinstein where Friedheim had gone, he growled, "He went to Weimar - and to the devil." Friedheim hardly felt so. "I learned much from Rubinstein during the four years I was his pupil, but I was to learn far more from Franz Liszt, whose daring virtuosity had sounded the depths of music, both past and present, and who was now reaching out into the unknown... When I stood with exalted spirits in the presence of that august and legendary figure, Franz Liszt, my greatest hour had struck."

But, impressing Liszt was not easy, Friedheim relates, "he found my playing chaotic." This was on 18 August 1878. By early 1880, he once again encountered Liszt. This time Liszt was interested. "I played a piano concerto I had written, and Liszt, at a second piano, played the accompaniment at sight... I was so excited, so exalted, that I could not hide my emotion. From this joyous day in 1880 until the black moment of his death more than six years later, I was to be away from him only when I was out on concert tours."

Liszt was in the last chapters of his extraordinary life, and was now dividing his time between Weimar, Rome and Budapest. In Liszt, Friedheim would encounter a complicated man, an abbé of the catholic church, and a musician who had garnered all the splendours of the world, a person in increasingly poor health, and a visionary who made a never-ending impact on those who could appreciate him. Liszt in his later years often had spells of a mystical nature, where for days he would contemplate such wonders as the cypress trees and the fountains at the Villa d'Este, and turn the experience into sound.

Friedheim closely observed his new mentor and could write "all through life Liszt sensed the spiritual, could see and hear things and sounds beyond ordinary ken. He had the intuition, the mystic power to penetrate beyond the empyrean... Surely some occult factor is the only real key to Liszt's character, his art, and the manner in which he affected his audiences."

Friedheim was now part of an entourage of extraordinary disciples, such as Rosenthal, Sauer, Krause, Lamond, Siloti, Thomán, Weingartner, Reisenauer, Stavenhagen and a trainload of lesser pianists descending on Weimar. The town was literally a pianist's paradise, but, because of the constant din of piano practice, there was a law that windows had to be shut, and practising could not take place at all hours. Pupils paid little attention, and fines were gladly paid in those pre-airconditioned years. Liszt must have given a sardonic smile at the thought that sleepy Weimar was in constant excitement from the pianistic fireworks of his "children".

As Friedheim tells us, "Here, in a room facing the street, was my piano. Here I laboured for six or seven hours almost every day. So stimulating to high aspiration and endeavour was the atmosphere, so great was the desire to excel, not only before the master but before one another, that we accomplished incredible things. All our playing was done, practically without exception, from memory. And, if Liszt suggested that one of us play a certain composition at the next lesson, the possibility of not having it ready never occurred to us."

For Friedheim, these were the years of wine and roses. He lived a life of enchantment. Liszt had cast a magical spell over him, and to be in his presence meant life to him. The progress and the horrors of the twentieth century seemed far away in the Rome of 1880 or in the beautiful Thuringian principality of Weimar.

Liszt took pride in Friedheim's playing. Albert Morris Bagby, a fellow student, reported, "It was in Weimar in August of 1885, Liszt had been playing whist with some pupils after the master class, and they were in a corner of the room putting away the tables and chairs. The master stood at the open window looking out across the hot-houses and the glorious park, serene, silent and alone. Suddenly, he spoke aloud, "How beautifully Friedheim plays!" Then, lifting his arms in a proud sweep, he gave a great cry, "Friedheim!""

In a letter from Rome to Liszt's dear friend Olga von Meyendorff he tells her, "Friedheim clearly stands out. He doesn't look like someone who's happy, quite the contrary, and I would like to help him with his career, but it is not often easy for talents to succeed, and this depends on capricious good luck. However, I hope that, if Friedheim is patient and perseveres, he'll succeed in carving out a place for himself." Friedheim doubtless never knew of this letter, and Liszt saw in him a kind of unhappiness that perhaps had in it the seeds of self-defeat.

Friedheim was a man of intellectual depth, and, like his colleague Moritz Rosenthal, was attracted to philosophy. Friedheim, a true Schopenhauerean, once told his student and friend, Arthur Bullock, that "the man who goes up in a balloon does not feel himself rising; he merely sees the world dropping further and further away at his feet." "But, Friedheim's pessimism," wrote Bullock, "was never defeatism... He never ceased to be a hard worker, a witty and charming, if rather silent, companion, and a quizzical gentleman of extraordinary learning and of searching, calm judgements."

There is also evidence that Friedheim was also temperamental; a person who did not always have "capricious good luck", and who made a series of rash judgements concerning his career. In reading Life and Liszt, one may read between the lines, to understand a few of Friedheim's obsessions and hatreds - one of them being his complete distaste for the music of Russia.

The most powerful concert manager in Europe, Hermann Wolff, thought so highly of Friedheim's conducting that he wanted him to be permanent conductor of "his" orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, when Hans von Bülow retired. Friedheim turned this plum down for trivial reasons. In 1898, when Anton Seidl died, he refused an offer to become music director of the New York Philharmonic. Once again he was asked to accept this position, when Mahler died in 1911. The reason given: he did not want to deal with the "despotic, ladies' committee".

It is little known that Friedheim was asked to compose a piano concerto for Carnegie Hall's inaugural concert in 1891. However, the conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Walter Damrosch demanded, for that momentous occasion, the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 be performed, and he felt Andrew Carnegie should ask Tchaikovsky to be guest conductor at the gala.

Friedheim, naturally disappointed, was however asked to play the Tchaikovsky concerto on that glamorous evening. The pianist hated the piece and refused. Instead, another Liszt pupil, Adele aus der Ohe, thrilled the audience, with the composer himself conducting. Friedheim did make an American tour in 1891, under the auspices of the Steinway Piano firm, but it turned out to be less than expected, with Steinway putting their money and effort into selling a young Pole, called Paderewski, who was about to astonish the world.

Friedheim was a man easily insulted, and he could be impulsive and hot-headed. One of the oversights in his book, was his neglect to tell his readers of a quite dramatic incident that was uncovered and put in a note by Alan Walker, in the Third Volume of his Liszt biography: Friedheim was drunk in the lobby of a New York theatre, and Walker states, "It was claimed that Friedheim struck the doorkeeper, one August Bartenhauser, a violent blow; about half an hour later Bartenhauser became ill and had to be taken home. Later that night he died, and the police revised the charge against Friedheim to one of murder. The pianist was held without bail, pending a coroner's report... The coroner revealed that the dead man had a history of heart disease, and that Friedheim's blow was not the cause of death." Charges were dismissed, and, as Walker states, "The case must have had serious consequence for the pianist's professional life, to say nothing of his state of mind. His arrest and arraignment were reported in three separate editions of the Evening World on 21 April 1892."

It had been only one year earlier that Friedheim had arrived in New York, and, instead of performing in the large hall, was relegated to the small recital hall with an apology appended, telling the audience that "the management of the Arthur Friedheim Recitals respectfully request the indulgence of the audience for the inconvenience caused by the noises incidental to the completion of the main hall of this building, it being a matter entirely beyond our control." One wonders how many hammer blows competed with Friedheim's "Hammerklavier", or, one asks, why these three recitals were scheduled in the afternoon, when the large hall was being constructed, and not in the evenings? At least, Friedheim has the distinction of being the first artist of note to perform at Carnegie's recital hall. His programmes were gargantuan and of terrifying technical difficulty. They are worth noting:

Friday afternoon, 10 April 1891, at 2:30

Wagner-Friedheim: "Vorspiel", Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Beethoven: Sonata in D major, Op. 10, No. 3
Beethoven: Sonata in C major, Op. 53, Waldstein
Chopin: selected Préludes and Études
Chopin: Sonata in B-flat minor, Op. 35
Liszt: Phantasie on Mozart's Don Juan

Tuesday afternoon, 14 April 1891, at 2:30

All Liszt Program:
Sonata in B minor
Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, No. 3: Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 9, Pester Karneval
Légendes: No.1 St. François d'Assise: "La prédication aux oiseaux"
Légendes: No. 2 St. François de Paule marchant sur les flots Après une lecture de Dante (Fantasia quasi Sonata)
Études d'exécution transcendante d'après Paganini

Friday afternoon, 17 April 1891, at 2:30

Wagner-Friedheim: "Wotan's Zorn", "Abschied von Brünnhilde" from Die Walküre
Beethoven: Sonata in B flat major, Op. 106, Hammerklavier
Chopin: Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1
Ballade in F minor, Op. 52
Polonaise-fantaisie in A flat, Op. 61
Balakirev: Islamey
Liszt: Mephisto Waltz, No. 1
Phantasie on Bellini's La Sonnambula

Most of the newspapers were favourable to Friedheim, but the powerful and brilliant James Huneker, surprisingly, disliked Friedheim. Huneker, who in 1911 was to publish a biography of Liszt, was apparently not a Lisztian in 1891. It should be understood how radical and controversial most of Liszt's works were before the twentieth century. However, within two years Huneker would write, "Friedheim gave us the wonderful - I say 'wonderful' advisedly - B minor sonata of Liszt. I had never been a Lisztian, but I date my conversion from that time. The potentialities of the piano became living, sounding realities. It was a performance of power, fullness, symmetry and grandeur, of which I shall cherish the memory forever and a day." Years later, Huneker wrote, "in Friedheim are united all the artistic virtues best loved by the fraternity that fulfils a noble mission at an ignoble wage. Those critics who cry for uncompromising artistic sincerity, a technical equipment that seeks not to display but only to interpret, and a penetrating insight into the purpose, method and moods of composers - such exacting searchers have always found in Friedheim the actual embodiment of the ideal they profess to worship."

The pianist's happiest years were spent in London from 1897 to 1908. In London, he completed his opera Die Tanzerin which was well-received in Germany. In England he was head of the piano departments of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and The Guildhall School in London.

In 1908, he settled in Munich, and, on impulse, he moved his family to New York in 1910, where engagements quickly followed in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. (where he performed at the White House for the Tafts).

The last eighteen years of his life were filled with many difficulties. At the outbreak of war in 1914, a fully-booked Canadian tour was cancelled because of Friedheim's German name. As he wrote, "who could have guessed at the reign of terror and hatred that was to be loosed on earth?... I might write a great deal about the things that happened to me because of my name." As war hysteria deepened in The United States, Friedheim found his career in a shambles, taking employment as a movie-hall pianist. Things were slow to improve, but, during the next few years, he taught a great deal, and, after the war, lived in Toronto for two years.

One of his piano students was Colin McPhee, by Friedheim's admission "the most gifted pupil I ever had", who later became a fine composer. In New York he taught Rildia Bee O'Brien, Van Cliburn's mother, who never ceased to admire Friedheim, the man and musician. After 1920 he performed infrequently. Josef Hofmann asked Friedheim to head the piano department at The Curtis Institute, but he declined.

In his later years, he edited music for Schirmer including his well-known edition of the Chopin Études, made piano rolls for the Aeolian Duo-Art, wrote his book on Liszt and completed his last composition "Transitions" for orchestra, which was performed in 1926. But music had taken a far different direction from that of his youth. Liszt still haunted him, "why do I still feel the thrill of my first meeting with Liszt and the joy that was mine when I was enrolled among his disciples? - Youth dreams mad dreams, and rare is the man whose desires find perfect fulfilment. One learns to stem the flood of one's too-extravagant visions, even to find peace when renunciation is required... I have walked in the path of the makers of music and dreamed their dreams. It all seems so clear now. And I am content."

Arthur Friedheim died in New York on 19 October 1932.

The Music

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 10 in E major.
Liszt wrote nineteen Hungarian Rhapsodies, and, with these works, he opened the door for a flood of music in national costume. The Rhapsodies exhibit Liszt's histrionic nature in breathtaking keyboard virtuosity. Their gypsy tang remains irresistible to concert audiences. No. 10 is shorter than most of the Rhapsodies, with its many delicate glissandos.

Liszt: Au lac de Wallenstadt is from Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage. The composer's love for nature is well-illustrated in the Suisse volume of the three books of Years of Pilgrimage, "The Suisse pieces are pure nature", writes Louis Kentner, "Lakes, springs, cowbells, church-bells, alpine horn - all these effects appear, drawn with astonishing precision by the hand of a master." Liszt and the Countess d'Agoult had rowed through the crystal lake, and the composer gives us a radiant description.

Liszt: Grandes Études de Paganini, No. 1, Tremolo
Liszt: Grandes Études de Paganini, No. 9, La Campanella
The six Paganini Études were an epoch-making event in the history of virtuosity. They are based on Paganini's Caprices. (No. 3, La Campanella, is from the Rondo of the B minor Violin Concerto). In addition to divining Paganini's infernal talents, Liszt took advantage of the piano's recent improvement in physical power, backed by iron, and of the increased flexibility of the Érard piano mechanism. The Paganini Études were completed by 1838, and dedicated to Clara Wieck. In 1851, he simplified them, without compromising their brilliance.

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C sharp minor
Of excessive popularity, the second Rhapsody has not faded in its effectiveness and the second half of the century has had thrilling performances by Gilels, Cherkassky and others.

Liszt: Légendes: No. 1 St. François d'Assise: "La prédication aux oiseaux"
Liszt: Légendes: No. 2 St. François de Paule marchant sur les flots
Liszt's genius for descriptive writing is nowhere better realized than in his two Franciscan Legends. No. 1, Saint Francis of Assisi "preaching to the birds", makes use of the keyboard's upper register, combining trills and melody in the same hand. Saint Francis of Paolo walking on the waves, in properly sympathetic hands, is a daring tone-poem, masterly in its piano writing.

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 9 in E flat major, Pester Karneval is a long, colourful and important Rhapsody, resplendent and very taxing technically.

Rosenthal: Papillons
Moritz Rosenthal and Friedheim maintained a close friendship since their student days with Liszt. Rosenthal wrote many sparkling and witty piano pieces. 'Butterflies' is grateful pianistically and fun to play.

Gottschalk: The Banjo (Fantaisie Grotesque)
The New-Orleans-born pianist composer had heard The Banjo played since his childhood. He may have heard it played by the famous New Orleans banjo virtuoso, Picayune Butler. By the 1850s The Banjo had achieved unprecedented popularity in The United States and Gottschalk's work is a deft translation to the piano, even including bits of Foster's popular hit of 1850, Camptown Races.

© 1998 David Dubal
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