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    Theodor Leschetizky
    Theodor Leschetizky
    Theodor Leschetizky
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    Theodor Leschetizky

    By Annette Hullah

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
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      Theodor Leschetizky - Annette Hullah

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Theodor Leschetizky, by Annette Hullah

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

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      Title: Theodor Leschetizky

      Author: Annette Hullah

      Release Date: October 8, 2013 [EBook #43915]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEODOR LESCHETIZKY ***

      Produced by Richard J. Shiffer and the Distributed

      Proofreading volunteers at http://www.pgdp.net for Project

      Gutenberg. (This file was produced from images generously

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      Transcriber's Note

      Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies.Text that has been changed is noted at the end of this ebook.

      Illustrations have been moved to appear between paragraphs, which may be on a different page than originally published. Page numbers listed in the illustrations section of the table of contents reflect their position in the original text.

      LIVING MASTERS OF MUSIC

      EDITED BY ROSA NEWMARCH

      THEODOR LESCHETIZKY

      "If you choose to play!—is my principle

      Let a man contend to the uttermost

      For his life's set prize, be it what it will."

      Browning

      THEODOR

      LESCHETIZKY

      BY ANNETTE HULLAH

      LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD

      NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMVI

      Printed by Ballantyne & Co. Limited

      Tavistock Street, London

      CONTENTS

      ILLUSTRATIONS

      CHAPTER I

      1830 TO 1862

      Theodor Leschetizky was born in Poland at the Castle of Lancut, near Lemberg, June 22, 1830. His father, a Bohemian by birth, held the position of music-master to the family of Potocka. His mother, Theresa von Ullmann, was a Pole.

      The Potocki had luxurious tastes. They were cultivated people, who cared for beautiful things, and were rich enough to have them. The Castle itself, a fine old building, stood in the middle of a large park, surrounded by trees and plenty of open land; it contained a picture-gallery and a private theatre. This was the home in which Leschetizky passed his childhood, seeing life as a delightful thing, full of grace and ease, which might have been quite perfect had there been no music lessons. But at the age of five he began to learn the piano, and had to study two hours a day from the beginning. He loved music intensely, and might even have loved practising; but his father, according to the parental custom of the day, was so extremely severe that the lessons were a misery to both, and, but for his mother's gentle help, might have ended in his hating the instrument altogether.

      In spite of such troubles, his progress was extraordinary. In four years he was ready to play in public, and made his first appearance at an orchestral concert in Lemberg. He played a Concertino of Czerny, and created a considerable sensation; but, he says, I cannot remember very much about the music, because at the time my mind was entirely taken up with the rats. Concerts were given so rarely in those days that any place was considered fit to play in. Leschetizky's first concert-room—probably a little more primitive than most—was built of wood; the light came in through the cracks, and the floor was full of holes, through which climbed the aforesaid rats in hundreds, running about fearlessly, not only during rehearsal, but at the concert itself.

      After this exciting début Leschetizky went about playing everywhere, and very quickly became famous as a wonder-child. Everybody talked about him and wanted to hear him; great ladies borrowed him for their salons when they could, and fêted and spoilt him, as great ladies always do—all of which he enjoyed as much as they did.

      When he was ten, his father, pensioned by the Potocka, took his family to live in Vienna, where they were already accustomed to spend the winter. Joseph Leschetizky's post in the Potocka household had given him the opportunity of meeting all the great artists of the time who frequented their salon; and in this way Theodore had been able to hear the best music from his earliest boyhood. For a year the boy continued to study at home with his father, after which he went to the great Czerny, whose school was so famous in those days, and to which many of the greatest artists, such as Liszt, Thalberg, Döhler, Kullak, and Hiller, had belonged.

      Himself a fine pianist, Czerny had been a pupil of Clementi and an intimate friend and pupil of Beethoven; a fact of which he was very proud, says Leschetizky. So often, indeed, did he speak of him to me that I always felt as if I had known him myself. In the same indirect way he became spiritually acquainted with Chopin, whose pupil Filtsch was his great friend. A little older than Leschetizky, Filtsch was already a beautiful

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