romantic excesses of interpretation and his reproducing piano recordings of his own
works bear this out at least to some extent.
Tausig pupil Oscar Beringer gave the British première of the Sonata in St James’s Hall
on 24 April 1880. The Atheneum observed: ‘regarding this Sonata opinions are not at all
likely to be unanimous.’
The second British performance was given by Jessie Morrison, a pupil of Frits
Hartvigson, on 12 May 1880.
Bülow again performed the Sonata, this time in Vienna on 22 January 1881. Liszt was in
Budapest at the time. The Viennese critic Edward Hanslick described the Sonata as ‘a
brilliant, steam-driven mill, which almost always runs idle.’ He was ‘bewildered, then
shocked, and finally overcome with irresistible hilarity ... Whoever has heard that, and
finds it beautiful, is beyond help.’
Bülow gave an all-Liszt recital in Budapest on 14 February 1881. He began with the
Sonata and continued with selections from the Swiss volume of the Années de Pèlerinage,
Paysage, Feux-follets, Waldesrauschen, Gnömenreigen, the second Polonaise and St
Francis of Paola walking on the waters. This was followed by a concert consisting of
Beethoven’s last five sonatas.
Liszt was present in the audience and wrote the next day to Denés Pázmándy, the editor
of the Gazette de Hongrie, which was a French language newspaper in Budapest
‘You want to know my impression of yesterday’s Bülow concert? Certainly it must have
been the same as yours, as that of us all, that of the whole of the intelligent public of
Europe. To define it in two words: admiration, enthusiasm. Twenty-five years ago
Bülow was my pupil in music, just as twenty-five years earlier I had been the pupil of my
respected and beloved master Czerny. But to Bülow is given to do battle better and with
more success than I. His admirable Beethoven edition is dedicated to me as the “fruit of
my teaching”. Here, however, the master learned from the pupil, and Bülow continues to
teach by his astonishing virtuosity at the keyboard as well as by his exceptional musical
learning, and now too by his matchless direction of the the Meiningen orchestra. There
you have the musical progress of our time!’
Liszt, in his letter to the Gazette de Hongrie, seems to have been hinting that Bülow’s
playing was objective rather than subjective. William Mason, in his memoirs, thought
that Bulow’s playing in general was ‘far from being impassioned or temperamental’.
Clara Schumann was more trenchant: ‘To me he is the most wearisome player, there is
no touch of vigour or enthusiasm, everything is calculated.’
Liszt’s English pupil Walter Bache performed the Sonata in his annual all-Liszt concert
on 6 November 1882. The Musical Times expressed the view that ‘the elaboration of this
rhapsody, mis-named a sonata, is to our thinking positively ugly.’