think of his own sonata for he asked me again: “What Sonata?” He listened to the first
part without comment. Only in the D major ‘Grandioso’ section did he urge me on.
Before the ‘Andante’ he interrupted me and asked whether I would be willing to play the
Sonata next Sunday in his residence at a matinée. I left, overjoyed, and saw the world
lying at my feet. From then on I had permission to visit him every Tuesday and Friday
afternoon.
I always had the good fortune to see him alone. In the salons Liszt gave the impression
of a sophisticated, perhaps even somewhat affected, man of the world; in small company
or when alone with him, however, you felt the total impact of the greatness of his
imposing, venerable, incredibly ingenious personality. The gentle calm and the sublime
clarity of his judgment, the universality of his mind, the simplicity and innate nobility of
his comportment were incomparable.
Róbert Freund later established himself as a pianist and teacher in Zürich. His sister
Etelka Freund was also a pianist and teacher and, like Róbert, was a friend of Brahms.
August Stradal (1860-1930), the Bohemian pianist who later entered Liszt’s masterclass
in Weimar in September 1884, played the Sonata for the composer as a teenager in the
1870s.
Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) played for Liszt on 16 March 1873 at the age of seven and
later took lessons from the Russian pianist and Liszt pupil Arthur Friedheim (1859-1932).
Busoni became a distinguished Liszt scholar and pianist and often performed the Sonata
and other works by Liszt, although he never studied with Liszt himself. Later on, Busoni
taught Egon Petri who himself became a distinguished Liszt interpreter and teacher.
Liszt stayed with the Wagners at Bayreuth from 14 March to 3 April 1877. They
celebrated Wagner’s name-day on 2 April when Wagner gave Liszt a signed copy of his
newly published autobiography ‘Mein Leben’ and in the afternoon he sang the first Act
of ‘Parsifal’ with Liszt accompanying him on the piano. In the evening Liszt played his
Sonata. Cosima (who was Liszt’s daughter, Wagner’s wife and Bülow’s former wife)
wrote in her diary of a ‘lovely cherished day, on which I can thank heaven for the
comforting feeling that nothing – no deeply tragic parting of the ways, no malice on the
part of others, no differences in channels – could ever separate us three.’ ‘Oh, if it were
possible to add a fourth [Bülow] to our numbers here! But that an inescapable fate
forbids, and for me every joy and exaltation ends with an anxious cry to my inner being!
This was the last documented occasion on which Liszt played his Sonata. He never gave
a public performance of his Sonata and, unless the legendary wax cylinder turns up one
day, left no recording of his playing for posterity.
The composer, pianist and organist Camille Saint-Saëns performed the Sonata in an April
1880 concert in the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Liszt thought highly of Saint-Saëns as a
performer of Liszt’s piano works. Saint-Saëns often expressed his own dislke of