[131] These remarks, though severe, are just, if they are not allowed to apply themselves to _all_ of Mendelssohn’s work without proper discrimination. Many of his pianoforte works and songs are abundantly feeble; but we, in England at least, must always owe Mendelssohn a debt for having provided an easy path by which amateurs have been led, now for many years, towards the high and true romance of men like Schubert, Bach, and the others. But it is necessary, and indeed the special duty of an Englishman, to advise young persons who read this book, that Mendelssohn _at his best_ is what they should get to know, and that unless they have “Elijah” and “St Paul” by heart, the adverse criticism of the composer of those works is denied them. Even in these two great oratorios it requires no practised Diabolus to find their weaknesses--but what shall an honest man say of “Yet doth the Lord see it not,” or “The nations are now the Lord’s,” in spite of the wretched weakness of counterpoint in the fugal parts of the latter movement? The man who could write such things is a great man and a true “romantic.” [132] Cases of this kind are common in Purcell and Bach. Examples are easily quoted. One of the commonest with Purcell is the collision of ♮7 and ♭7 in perfect cadences. [Illustration: An Afternoon with Liszt. Lithograph by Kriehuber. Kriehuber. Berlioz. Czerny. Liszt. The violinist Ernst. ] Liszt and the Present Time At the beginning of the era of present-day piano-art, perhaps also at the culmination of all independent and advancing piano-art, stands Franz Liszt. The artistic phenomenon of Liszt is yet so near to us, that it is still misunderstood. Even to-day he has fanatical friends and bitter foes: blind assailants and diplomatic defenders. And through it all, the whole world of piano-playing stands under his influence. [Illustration: Photograph of Liszt, taken in Budapest.]