Liszt returned to Weimar every spring and summer and conducted many festivals and concerts, including the Beethoven centenary. He was also much interested in the National Academy at Pesth, so now he divided his time between Rome, Pesth, and Weimar. He wrote many brilliant piano pieces, among them his nineteen remarkable Hungarian Rhapsodies based on the melodies he heard from the gypsies. Besides composing music, teaching and helping other musicians and giving to the needy, he wrote essays and criticisms. In appearance Liszt was tall and thin with deep-set eyes and bushy eyebrows and a mouth which turned up at the corners when he smiled. His charm of manner won all who came in contact with him. A story is told of him that he as a youth was sitting to the artist Scheffer for his portrait, and fell into a theatrical pose, probably with his head thrown back and one hand thrust into the breast of his buttoned coat, which was characteristic. As this did not impress the painter, Liszt, realizing it, cried with much embarrassment, “Forgive, dear master, but you do not know how it spoils one to have been an infant prodigy.” In spite of Liszt’s outward affectation and posing, he had a noble character. He was simple and whole-souled, free from jealousy and the love of money. He died highly honored in 1886 at the age of seventy-five at a Wagner festival in Bayreuth. In fact it was difficult to tell who received more honor at Bayreuth, Liszt in the audience or Wagner at the conductor’s desk. LISZT’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS As a pianist, no one has surpassed Liszt and he revealed the piano’s possibilities. In addition to his pianoforte compositions, he made “arrangements” of symphonies, chorals, operas, songs and every other form, which brought them closer to the people. His arrangements are so brilliant, although over-decorated and cheap in effect, that he shows that the piano can almost reproduce the orchestra. Liszt was not as great a composer as he was a pianist and stimulator of other musicians, and much of his music was written for effect. Yet he was a great critic and his love of music for the future rather than of the past, led him to be sympathetic with young composers, for whom he opened the way. The people who gathered about him disliked old forms and were looking for new music in which he encouraged them. Among the musicians who were friends and pupils at Weimar, were: Joseph Joachim Raff, Peter Cornelius, Eduard Lassen, who took Liszt’s place when he left Weimar, Leopold Damrosch, the father of Walter and Frank Damrosch of New York, Alexander Ritter, the pianist and inspirer of so many great people, and hundreds of others. Liszt wrote many symphonic and choral pieces which showed marked originality. Although not as profound as Wagner, he helped Wagner so much that their names would be forever linked, even if his daughter Cosima had not been Wagner’s wife. RUBINSTEIN AND VON BÜLOW