Beyond these effects it is difficult to discover anything further so uniquely and so generally characteristic in his pianoforte style. He demands an absolutely equal skill in both hands, frequently throughout an entire piece. He calls for the most extreme velocity in runs of great length, sometimes in whole pages; and for as great speed in executing runs of double notes as in those of single. A study like the _Feux-Follets_ deals with a complex mixture of single and double notes. All these things, however, can be found in the works of Schumann, or Chopin, or even Beethoven. Yet it must be said that no composer ever made such an extended use of them, nor exacted from the player quite so much physical endurance and sustained effort. Moreover, against the background of his effects of the arm, they take on a new light, no matter how often they had a share in the works of other composers. It can hardly be denied, furthermore, that this new light which they seem to give his music, by which it appears so different from that of Schumann and even more from that of Chopin, is also due to the use to which he puts them. With Liszt these things are indisputably used wholly as effects. Liszt follows Thalberg, or represents a further development of the idea of pianoforte music which Thalberg represents. He deals with effects,--with, as we have said elsewhere of Thalberg, masses of sound. Very few of his compositions for the pianoforte offer a considerable exception, and with these we shall have to do presently. The great mass of études, concert or salon pieces, and transcriptions, those works in which he displays this technique, are virtuoso music. He shows himself in them a sensationalist composer. Therefore the music suffers by the necessary limitations mentioned in connection with Herz and Thalberg, with the difference that within these limitations Liszt has crowded the utmost possible to the human hand. His great resources still remain speed and noise. He can do no more than electrify or stupefy. It must not be forgotten that in these limitations lies the glory of his music, its quality that is heroic because it wins its battles in the world of men and women. It is superb in its physical accomplishment. It shows the mighty Hercules in a struggle with no ordinary serpent, but with the hundred-headed Hydra. Yet if he will electrify he must do so with speed that is reckless, and if he will overpower with noise he must be brutal. Hence the great sameness in his material, trills, arpeggios, scales, and chromatic scales, which are no more than these trills, arpeggios, scales, etc., even if they be filled up with all the notes the hand can grasp. Hence also the passages of rapidly repeated chords in places where he wishes to be imposing to the uttermost.