Liszt’s playing was stupendous. At least two influences fired him not only to develop a technique which was limited only by the physically impossible, but to establish himself as the unequalled player of the age. Already as a youth when he first came to Paris this technique was extraordinary, though probably not unmatched. It was the wizardry of Paganini, whom he heard in Paris, that determined him to seek an attainment hitherto undreamed of in skill with the keyboard. This he achieved before he left Paris to journey away from the world in Switzerland and Italy. During his absence Thalberg came to Paris and took it by storm. Back came Liszt post-haste to vanquish his rival and establish more firmly his threatened position. The struggle was long and hotly fought, but the victory remained with Liszt, who, though he had not that skill in a kind of melody playing which was peculiar to Thalberg, towered far above his rival in virility, in fire, and in variety. We may thus imagine him established by force of arms as king of all pianists. He never relinquished his royal prerogatives nor could he tolerate a challenge of his power; but he proved himself most a hero in the use to which he put this enormous power. He chose the master’s highest privilege and made himself a public benefactor. It is true that he never wholly discarded the outward trappings of royal splendor. He played operatic fantasias like the rest; made, of his own, fabrics which were of a splendor that was blinding. But the true glory of his reign was the tribute he paid to men who had been greater than kings in music and the service he rendered to his own subjects in making known to them the masterpieces of these men, the fugues of Bach, the last sonatas of Beethoven, the works of Chopin. It was largely owing to Liszt that the general public was educated to an appreciation of these treasures, even that it became aware of its possession of them. It may be added that the pupils of this man, who was the most outstanding and overpowering of all the pianoforte virtuosi, made wholly familiar to the world a nobler practice of virtuosity in service to great music. Here, however, must be mentioned one great contemporary of Liszt’s, Clara Schumann, who, possessed of greatest skill, made her playing, in even greater degree than Liszt, the interpreter of great music. It is one of the richest tributes to Liszt as a pianist that he may in some respects be compared with that noble woman.