The Mentor: Famous Composers, Vol. 1, Num. 41, Serial No. 41

Editorial

A favorite phrase of ours has just come home to us in an oddly altered form. Its character has been completely reversed, and yet its value remains much the same. The phrase that we used referred to one of the advantages offered by The Mentor Association. We stated that The Mentor gives the facts that people ought to know and want to know about a subject, and we pointed out that a reader of The Mentor would find himself in a position to talk intelligently about many subjects that he had not understood before. Most people like to talk about things that they have come to know. We reckoned without one thoughtful reader, however, for he has come back at us with this: “I like The Mentor and it helps me. The more I read it the more I realize the value of having knowledge ready at hand. But it does not make me feel like talking more on various subjects, rather like talking less and listening more.”

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And so our phrase, completely changed in color, returns to us. We are satisfied—let our reader be assured of that—for the phrase is just as valuable in the form in which it returns as in that in which we sent it out. We congratulate our reader. He is on the way to the greater benefits in the field of knowledge. He wants to know in order to grow rather than to show.

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It is a great satisfaction to us to have readers bring home a phrase, especially when they amplify the idea themselves. Some time ago we called attention to the value of the odd moment, and we cited the case of a French woman who had employed so profitably her odd moments that in the course of a few years she had read during those moments an astonishing number of standard works. This has brought to mind several other striking illustrations of industry in cultivating the odd moment. Madame de Staël was a keen minded woman, actively interested in the public affairs of her time—and withal a very cultivated woman. In the midst of troublous social and political conditions she was a vigorous, energetic figure, and during all her activities she managed to accumulate a fund of information that was a source of amazement to her friends. “How do you gather all this knowledge?” she was once asked. “What time do you find to read? You seem to us to be busily engaged through all your working hours.” “You forget my sedan chair,” was Madame de Staël’s answer. While being carried in her chair she had as a companion a book or some bit of profitable reading, with which she mentally capitalized those brief intervals in her busy day.

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We have been informed that a very eminent American preacher read no less than one hundred books in the course of three years, at his dining table. During that period of time he had always a book beside him at the table, and, whenever delays occurred, he would advance a few pages. The inference from this is that the divine was either a very fast reader, or that his table service was very slow; but in either case the results accomplished are an impressive demonstration of the value of the odd moment.

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Suppose, now, that the essential information from lengthy books should be put into an article of not over 2,500 words, by a competent authority, and this material be put before you in a simple, readable manner, accompanied by illustrations. Would not that be the best possible mental fare for the odd moment? That is what The Mentor does. In the course of a year a reader of The Mentor gets the substance of the contents of many books. And it takes only a few minutes to read a single number of The Mentor.

FRANZ LISZT

Monograph Number One in The Mentor Reading Course

In Franz Liszt the lamp of genius burned brightly, and it lighted many halls in the Temple of Music. He was the most versatile of great musicians. He was the supreme pianoforte virtuoso. He was a conductor and champion of Wagner’s “music of the future,” teacher of great pianists, writer on music and musicians, and a composer of pianoforte pieces, songs, symphonic orchestral pieces, cantatas, masses, psalms, and oratorios.

He was born in Raiding, Hungary, October 22, 1811. At an early age, through the financial aid of a Hungarian magnate, he began a life of study. He first played in public at the age of eleven, and at thirteen made a tour through Switzerland, Paris, and the French provinces. He also went to England. At fifteen he was teaching and spending much of his time reading the religious, political, and literary works of his time. He was especially interested in the Saint Simonists and the romantic mysticism of Enfantin and the teachings of Abbe Lamennais. Defying public censure, he played compositions of Beethoven and Weber, a daring thing in those days.

His development as a virtuoso began in 1831, when Paganini, the famous violinist, first went to Paris. The success of Chopin, together with Paganini’s art, inspired him to practise. He transcribed many pieces, with a view to getting the effect of Paganini’s violin caprices on the piano, and perfect his own technic. He transcribed Berlioz’s “Symphonic Fantastique,” which ultimately led to the composition of his Symphonic Poems.

A few years later (1835) he met Comtesse d’Agoult, whose pen name was Daniel Stern, a friend and would-be rival to George Sand. Their friendship was world famous, and it exerted a great influence on the life and art of Liszt.

A patent of nobility was conferred upon him by the Emperor of Austria, and a sword of honor, from the magnates of Hungary, was presented to him in the name of the nation in 1840.

He then made a concert tour of all the leading cities in Europe, and made a great deal of money, much of which he gave to charity. In 1845 he completed the Beethoven Statue at Bonn, at his own expense, as the funds for this memorial had been accumulating very slowly.

Immediately following this period he began an active writing career, during which he wrote articles of permanent value on the early operas of Wagner and the work of Berlioz. He was one of the earliest supporters of Wagner, and remained loyal to him through life. He wanted to found a school of composers as well as pianists, and started a movement at Weimar which resulted in a private production of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” and “Tannhäuser,” as well as many pieces of Schumann, Weber, Schubert, Berlioz, and others.

Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein was collaborating with him at this time on many works. She was desirous of marrying the musician, who did not care to be joined to her, and to escape the match he retired to Rome, where he was ordained in 1865 by Cardinal Hohenlohe, and joined the Franciscan order. He received pupils gratis, and taught for several months of each year at the Hungarian Conservatory, Budapest. The last ten years of his life were spent at Bayreuth, where he died July 31, 1886.