Source: Lachmund pages 358 & 359.
In the same letter Mansfeldt tells the story surrounding the first public performance
which he gave of Liszt’s ‘Bagatelle without Tonality’.
Mansfeldt did not make any discs or rolls.
MASON
Life
William Mason (1829-1908) was born on 24 January 1829 and died on 14 July 1908. He
was a member of a prominent family of Boston musicians. When he was twenty he was
sent to Europe where he undertook advance piano studies with Moscheles in Leipzig and
Dreyschock in Prague.
On 14 April 1853 Mason arrived in Weimar and renewed contact with Liszt following an
earlier meeting. He became a pupil of Liszt and received lessons from him at the
Altenburg over a period of sixteen months. His fellow pupils included Bülow,
Klindworth, Bronsart, Raff and Cornelius. He missed meeting Tausig who arrived in
Weimar a year after he left.
He kept a diary which he consulted years later to write his ‘Memoirs of a Musical Life’.
His memoirs give us many fascinating glimpses into musical life at the Altenburg shortly
after Liszt completed his Sonata and at the time of its early performances. He heard Liszt
play the Sonata at the Altenburg in 1853 on three separate occasions: Saturday evenings 7
May and 4 June, and Wednesday morning 15 June 1853 which was the famous occasion
when Brahms nodded off.
After Mason left Weimar in August 1854 and returned to America he never saw Liszt
again, although he kept in touch from time to time by correspondence. He always
remembered with gratitude and affection those early years at Weimar, his musical
‘Golden Age’. When Mason returned to the USA he gave piano concerts but, tiring of
this life, he settled in New York where he taught, composed and wrote. It was there he
met Carl Lachmund and enjoyed a close friendship with him based on their memories of
Liszt. Mason did not make any discs or rolls.
Mason, Liszt & Brahms
American pianist and Liszt pupil William Mason, writing in 1900, gives us his memoirs
of musical life as a twenty-four year old at the Altenburg in 1853 shortly after the
composition by Liszt of his Sonata and at the time of its first performances. This is the
most detailed source we have of life at the Altenburg at this time.
Let us enjoy William Mason’s sparkling prose, perceptive observations and dry sense of
humour as he brings the Golden Age alive for us: