Mason, William, 1829-1908; Musicians -- United States -- Biography
When the young man left I went out with him, partly because I felt sorry
for him, he had made such a fiasco, and partly because I wished to
impress upon him the fact that Liszt could play the whole movement in
the tempo in which he began it. As I was walking along with him, he
said, "I'm out of money; won't you lend me three louis d'or?"
A day or two later I told Liszt by the merest chance that the hero of
the Op. 106 fiasco had tried to borrow money of me. "B-r-r-r! What?"
exclaimed Liszt. Then he jumped up, walked across the room, seized a
long pipe that hung from a nail on the wall, and brandishing it as if it
were a stick, stamped up and down the room in almost childish
indignation, exclaiming, "Drei louis d'or! Drei louis d'or!" The point
is, however, that Liszt regarded the man as an artistic impostor. He had
sent word to Liszt that he could play the great Beethoven sonata, not an
inconsiderable feat in those days. He had been received on that basis.
He had failed miserably. To this artistic imposition he had added the
effrontery of endeavoring to borrow money from some one whom he had met
under Liszt's roof.
OBJECTS TO MY EYE-GLASSES
I have mentioned that Liszt was careful in his dress. He was also
particular about the appearance of his pupils. I remember two instances
which show how particular he was in little matters. I have been
near-sighted all my life, and when I went to Weimar I wore eye-glasses,
much preferring them to spectacles. Eye-glasses were not much worn in
Germany at that time, and were considered about as affected as the mode
of wearing a monocle. The Germans wore spectacles. I had not been in
Weimar long when Liszt said to me: "Mason, I don't like to see you
wearing those glasses. I shall send my optician to fit your eyes with
spectacles."
I hardly thought that he was serious, and so paid no attention to him.
But, sure enough, about a week later there was a knock at my door, and
the optician presented himself, saying he had come at the command of
Dr. Liszt to examine my eyes and fit a pair of spectacles to them. As I
was evidently to have no say in the matter, I submitted, and a few days
later I received two pairs, one in a green and one in a red case. I
thought them extremely unbecoming, but I was very particular to put them
on whenever I went to see Liszt.
Not long afterward Liszt went to Paris, and when we called to see him
after his return, and he was talking about his experiences there, he
said casually: "By the way, Mason, I find that gentlemen in Paris are
wearing eye-glasses now. In fact, they are considered quite _comme il
faut_, so I have no objection to your wearing yours." As he did not ask
me to send him the spectacles, I kept them, and have them to this day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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