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!’
WEISS
Josef Weiss (1864-1918) was a German-Hungarian from Kashau in upper Hungary. He
is thought to have studied with Liszt, commencing with him in Budapest in 1876 at the
age of twelve. Although Gustav Mahler admired his playing, he was characterised as an
eccentric and was not particularly at ease performing in public. On 29 January 1910 he
threw a tantrum and walked out of a rehearsal of Schumann’s piano Concerto conducted
by Mahler.
He is listed as one of Liszt’s Hungarian pupils under the spelling ‘Joszef Weisz’ in Alan
Walker’s ‘Franz Liszt – The Final Years 1861 -1886’. He is similarly listed in ‘Appendix
Three: A summary catalogue of Liszt’s pupils and disciples grouped by nationality’ in
Carl Lachmund’s ‘Living with Liszt’. The editor, Alan Walker, states: ‘The catalogue
which follows, while based on that provided by Lachmund, has been considerably revised
in the light of modern research.’ Josef Weiss, under either spelling, is, however, not
mentioned by Göllerich as a Liszt pupil.
Weiss made Liszt discs and rolls. He also made a piano roll recording of the Liszt Sonata
on the Duca label but, even if it turned up, it is unlikely that there would be an
appropriate reproducing piano on which to play it back.
WITTGENSTEIN
Some time after the break-up of his liaison with Countess Marie d’Agoult, Franz Liszt
moved to the German provincial town of Weimar where he lived in the Altenburg, a
magnificent mansion with forty rooms. Not long after, a young Polish heiress, Princess
Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, arrived to join him. After Carolyne arrived, his official
address remained for a time c/- Hotel Erbprinz, Weimar, to preserve the proprieties.
Carolyne had been pressured by her father into marrying a Count Nicholas Wittgenstein
to unite Carolyne’s wealth with the Wittgenstein family’s titled nobility. Her father
owned vast tracts of the Ukraine and was fabulously wealthy. The marriage produced
much unhappiness and a daughter, Marie. Liszt had a short love affair with Carolyne
while he was in the Ukraine but then had to resume his concert tour. Carolyne later
escaped from her unhappy marriage with Nicholas to be with Liszt in Weimar. This was
not before she had flogged off as many of the family estates as she decently could and
transformed them into jewels. She took off with Marie and as many jewels as she could
sew into her corset without making it too uncomfortable.
Liszt was agreeable to marry Carolyne, who had left family and friends behind in the
Ukraine and made the dangerous journey to Weimar to be with him. His motives
included a desire to do the right thing by her and make her an honest woman, as well as
to placate his deeply religious mother Anna who was at the time living in the Altenburg.