FRANZ LISZT.

The Spoiled Favorite of Fortune.—­His Inherited Genius.—­Birth and Early Training.—­First Appearance in Concert.—­Adam Liszt and his Son in Paris.—­Sensation made by the Boy’s Playing.—­His Morbid Religious Sufferings.—­Franz Liszt thrown on his own Resources.—­The Artistic Circle in Paris.—­Liszt in the Ranks of Romanticism.—­His Friends and Associates.—­Mme. D’Agoult and her Connection with Franz Liszt.—­He retires to Geneva.—­Is recalled to Paris by the Thalberg Furore.—­Rivalry between the Artists and their Factions.—­He commences his Career as Traveling Virtuoso.—­The Blaze of Enthusiasm throughout Europe.—­Schumann on Liszt as Man and Artist.—­He ranks the Hungarian Virtuoso as the Superior of Thalberg.—­Liszt’s Generosity to his own Countrymen.—­The Honors paid to him in Pesth.—­Incidents of his Musical Wanderings.—­He loses the Proceeds of Three Hundred Concerts.—­Contributes to the Completion of the Cologne Cathedral.—­His Connection with the Beethoven Statue at Bonn, and the Celebration of the Unveiling.—­Chorley on Liszt.—­Berlioz and Liszt.—­Character of the Enthusiasm called out by Liszt as an Artist.—­Remarkable Personality as a Man.—­Berlioz characterizes the Great Virtuoso in a Letter.—­Liszt ceases his Life as a Virtuoso, and becomes Chapel-Master and Court Conductor at Weimar.—­Avowed Belief in the New School of Music, and Production of Works of this School.—­Wagner’s Testimony to Liszt’s Assistance.—­Liszt’s Resignation of his Weimar Post after Ten Years.—­His Subsequent Life.—­He takes Holy Orders.—­Liszt as a Virtuoso and Composer.—­Entitled to be placed among the most Remarkable Men of his Age.

THE GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS.

THE VIOLIN AND EARLY VIOLINISTS.

The Ancestry of the Violin.—­The Origin of the Cremona School of Violin-Making.—­The Amatis and Stradiuarii.—­Extraordinary Art Activity of Italy at this Period.—­Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius.—­Something about the Lives of the Two Greatest Violin-Makers of the World.—­Corelli, the First Great Violinist.—­His Contemporaries and Associates.—­Anecdotes of his Career.—­Corelli’s Pupil, Geminiani.—­Philidor, the Composer, Violinist, and Chess-Player.—­Giuseppe Tartini.—­Becomes an Outcast from his Family on Account of his Love of Music.—­Anecdote of the Violinist Veracini.—­Tartini’s Scientific Discoveries in Music.—­His Account of the Origin of the “Devil’s Trill.”—­Tartini’s Pupils.

I.