no interest and once sneered the whole time while someone played Rameau’s Gavotte
and Variations. ‘Where is the beloved?’ he said with comic, languishing pathos at the
theme.
Once I believed that I had to play Mozart’s Fantasy in D minor for him to study
simplicity and soft tone production. When I began he made a threatening face: ‘Hm!
You did not need to suffer through any sleepless nights in order to play the piece’ and
then a rain of mockery befell the childlike work. When the D-major section began:
‘Now it is going on a picnic.’ He did not agree with the tempo, which was too fast for
him, and he checked the metronome mark in the Lebert edition. When it agreed with his
opinion he said, laughing loudly: ‘So, this time my stupidity agrees with Mr. Lebert’s
knowledge.’ [‘Göllerich reports that Motta played the Mozart Fantasy in D minor K 397
at a Liszt masterclass in Weimar commencing at 4 pm on Wednesday 9 September 1885.
Göllerich does not report any comments by Liszt at that masterlass.]
On this day I received no kiss. But I appeased him in the next lesson with a performance
of Bach’s ‘Goldberg’ Variations, which he had brought to our attention and which in
those days was completely overlooked by the pianists. (Even today its significance is not
appropriatedly respected.)
He was also very happy when I once brought his first polonaise in C minor. ‘Yes, yes,’
he said smiling, ‘only my second rhapsody is played.’
His remarks were almost only concerned with the purely musical: tempo, nuances,
rhythm. He seldom gave a poetic image as an explanation and never a technical
instruction. (He did not possess Bülow’s enchanting eloquence.) In earlier times he
certainly must have been more communicative, but Weissheimer says that at that time his
manner of teaching consisted more of example than of explanation. He sat at his piano,
the student at the other, and when he wanted to correct something he played the passage
as he wished to have it.
The following is worthy of note concerning his manner of interpretation: he desired that
someone play Chopin’s Polonaise in C-sharp minor. When someone finally was
prepared to take the risk, he interrupted him right at the beginning; ‘Yes, everyone plays
it so. But say, where is there a ‘piano’ at the beginning of the theme (after the brief
introduction)? The entire beginning of the theme must be played with the same power
and passion as the introduction, and the ‘piano’ and a calmer tempo come only in the
contrasting passage.’ Then he sat down and played the whole piece. He no longer had a
big sonority, but never again have I heard a piano sing like that or heard such a sparkling
non legato. Eight bars from the Adagio of Op. 106 was an absolute revelation: if you did
not hear it you will never know what penetration, what speech a piano tone is capable of;
it really cried out in pain. It was as if two great souls greeted each other sorrowfully: the
soul of Beethoven and his wonderful re-creator.
Source: Reprinted from ‘Der Merker’ (Vienna) October 1911 as Appendix B ‘Liszt as
Teacher: A sketch by José Vianna da Motta’ in ‘The Piano Master Classes of Franz Liszt