In view of Liszt’s great personal influence, of his service rendered to the public both as player and conductor, of his vast musical knowledge, his enthusiasms and his prodigious skill with the keyboard, one must respect his compositions, especially those for the pianoforte with which we have been dealing. Therefore, though when measured by the standards of Bach, Mozart and Chopin they cannot but fall grievously short, one must admit that such a standard is only one of many, and furthermore that perhaps Liszt’s music may have itself set a new standard. Certainly in many ways it is superlative. It is in part the loudest and the fastest music that has been written for the piano, and as such stands as an achievement in virtuosity which was not before, and has not since been, paralleled. Also it is in part the most fiery and the most overpowering of pianoforte music. It is the most sensational, as well, with all the virtues that sensationalism may hold. These are, indeed, its proved greatness, and chief of them is a direct and forceful appeal to the general public. It needs no training of the ear to enjoy or to appreciate Liszt’s music. Merely to hear it is to undergo its forceful attraction. Back of it there stands Liszt, the pianist and the virtuoso, asserting his power in the world of men and women. However much or little he may be an artist, he is ever the hero of pianoforte music. So it seems fitting to regard him last as composer of nineteen Hungarian Rhapsodies, veritably epics in music from the life of a fiery, impetuous people. Rhythms, melodies, and even harmonies are the growth of the soil of Hungary. They belonged to the peasant before Liszt took them and made them thunderous by his own power. What he added to them, like what he added to airs from favorite operas, may well seem of stuff as elemental as the old folk-songs themselves: torrents and hurricanes of sound, phenomena of noise. The results are stupendous, and in a way majestic. As far as pianoforte music is concerned Liszt revealed a new power of sound in the instrument by means of the free movement of the arms, and created and exhausted effects due to the utmost possible speed. These are the chief contributions of his many compositions to the literature of the piano. His music is more distinguished by them than by any other qualities. In melody he is inventive rather than inspired. His rhythms lack subtlety and variety. Of this there can be no better proof than the endless short-windedness already observed in the sonata in B minor, which is to be observed, moreover, in the Symphonic Poems for orchestra. As a harmonist he lacks not so much originality as spontaneity. He is oftener bold than convincing. One finds on nearly every page signs of the experimentalist of heroic calibre. He is the inventor rather than the prophet, the man of action rather than the inspired rhapsodist. He is a converter into music oftener than a creator of music.