THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF GREAT MUSICIANS _By_ RUPERT HUGHES Author of "Contemporary American Composers," "The Musical Guide", etc. _ILLUSTRATED_ VOLUME II. _1903_ CONTENTS CHAPTER I. FRANZ LISZT II. RICHARD WAGNER III. TSCHAIKOVSKI, THE WOMAN-DREADER IV. THE HEART OF A VIOLINIST V. AN OMNIBUS CHAPTER VI. ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK VII. MUSICIANS AS LOVERS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS MISS SMITHSON _Frontispiece_ FRANZ LISZT GEORGE SAND, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY L. COLAMATTA PRINCESS CAROLYNE VON SAYN-WITTGENSTEIN AND CHILD RICHARD WAGNER RICHARD AND COSIMA WAGNER RICHARD WAGNER AT BAYREUTH DÉSIRÉE ARTÔT LOUIS SPOHR NICOLO PAGANINI HENRIETTA SONTAG MADAME MALIBRAN GEOFFREY RUDEL MARTIN LUTHER AND CATHERINA VON BORA MUZIO CLEMENTI HECTOR BERLIOZ CHARLES GOUNOD GIOACCHINO A. ROSSINI OLYMPE PELISSIER, AS "JUDITH" IN THE PAINTING BY VERNET GIUSEPPE VERDI FRANZ SCHUBERT ROBERT SCHUMANN CLARA WIECK, AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN CLARA AND ROBERT SCHUMANN CLARA (WIECK) SCHUMANN THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF GREAT MUSICIANS VOLUME II. CHAPTER I. FRANZ LISZT "Liszt, or the Art of Running after Women."--NIETSCHE. Liszt's life was so lengthy and so industriously amorous, that it is possible only to float along over the peaks, to touch only the high points. Why, his letters to the last of his loves alone make up four volumes! And yet, for a life so proverbially given over to flirtations as his, the beginnings were strangely unprophetic. He had reached the mature age of six before he began to study the piano; compared with Mozart, he was an old man before he gave his first concert--namely, nine years. Then the poverty of his parents and the ambition of his father found assistance in a stipend from Hungarian noblemen, and he was sent to Vienna to study. When he was eleven years old, after one of his concerts, Beethoven kissed him. He survived. Then on to Paris and duchesses and princesses galore. Here he became a proverb of popularity as "Le petit Litz"--the French inevitably gave some twist to a foreign name, then as to-day, when two of their favourite painters are "Wisthler" and "Seargent." Liszt's childhood was therefore largely fed upon the embraces and kisses of rapturous women, even as was the young Mozart's, the difference being that it became a habit in Liszt's case. Even then he used to throw money among the gamins, as later he scattered it in how many directions, with what liberality, and with what princeliness, and from what a slender purse!