Music of the Great White Fleet

 

At first glance this image seems like a scene at any gentlemen's' club from a century ago. A few young men in military uniform are relaxing in a salon or library. There are assorted pictures hanging on a wall, newspapers and magazines on a table, and along the back of the room is an upright piano. Nothing unusual here. 

Except for two things. Their clubroom is not resting on solid ground but is actually afloat inside a battleship. And that piano is no ordinary musical instrument but a complex self-playing piano with a pneumatic mechanism able to reproduce music from cryptic rolls of paper.

These men were junior officers in the U. S. Navy and they had returned from a voyage around the world. And during the trip this player piano gave them a tiny bit of recreation whenever time permitted.

On this postcard we see a long line of the warships steaming through a choppy sea. A caption describes it as the U. S. Battleship fleet leaving Hampton Roads on its "around-the-World Cruise" and according to the back of the card, most, if not all, of them had a military-issued player piano onboard. There were 16 battleships in the fleet and they were all about to sail to South America and then continue westward across the Pacific Ocean to Asia and beyond. It was December 1907 and this expedition promised a peaceful display of naval prestige, as this was a rare time with no eminent threat of war. So someone decided it was appropriate for such a diplomatic mission to include music too. The AUTOPIANO company was ready to help.

Uncle Sam's Choice

   The most severe test to which a player piano can be subjected is aboard a ship, yet the officers and sailors of over 50 U. S. and Foreign Battleships have purchased Autopianos, and unhesitatingly express their appreciation of the enjoyment derived from this wonderful instrument.

   During the famous cruise around the world of the American Fleet nearly every Battleship possessed an "AUTOPIANO" for the amusement and education of the officers and crew.  That these instruments needed little of no repairing after having been exposed to every climate, is more conclusive proof of the remarkable durability of the "AUTOPIANO" and of its ability to give musical enjoyment and great satisfaction under any conditions.  The marvelous Autopiano gives pleasure to every member of the family because all can play it.

            The Autopiano Is Sold By

                 J. N. Adam & Co.
                  Buffalo, N. Y.

   To any one sending name and address of probable purchaser of an AUTOPIANO at the The Autopiano Co., 12th Ave., 51st to 52nd St., New York City, we will send set of postcards of warships carrying Autopianos.

The Autopiano Company of New York arranged for this naval connection to its "marvelous" instrument as a marketing scheme to gain advantage over its player-piano rivals. Dozens of different souvenir postcards of the fleet were printed and used to solicit customers. My first image came from a postcard in this series. It is possibly the only one that shows an interior shiproom and an   Autopiano.

The full picture shows more plumbing pipes and steel rivets than usually found in hotel salons or gentlemen's clubs. The postcard is captioned:

Junior Officers Mess Room
U. S. S. Connecticut
This Autopiano when photographed
on May 12, 1911 had been in use
on this Ship over 4½ Years.

One the back is a full description of the battleship and a testimonial to the Autopiano.

U. S. S. Connecticut (Battleship)

Displacement, tons 16,000.  Speed, knots 19.  Cost, $8,000,000.  Length, 450 feet.  Beam, 76 feet, 10 inches.  Draught, 24 feet, 6 inches.  Main Battery, 4 - 12 inch guns, 8 - 8 inch guns, 12 7-inch guns.  Secondary Battery, 28 Rapid Fire and Machine Guns.  Complement, 856 men.

Uncle Sam's Choice.

   The AUTOPIANO on board the United States Battleship Connecticut, Flagship of the Atlantic Fleet was and still is in the Junior Officers' Mess Room as shown on this interesting picture. 

   This AUTOPIANO when photographed on May 14th, 1911 had been in use for over four and a half years, and that it has more than proved its worth is evidenced by the following letter from one of the Junior Officers:

                                            Napeaque Bay, Long Island,  May 24th, 1911.
Mr. R. W. Lawrence, Pres.,  The Autopiano CO., N. Y.
            Dear Sir:—
                The AUTOPIANO purchased from you which has been in the possession of the Junior Officers' Mess for the past four and a half years, has given excellent service during that time.  It has been used constantly but retains its good action and tone.  Change of temperature and Climate does not seem to affect it.  We are highly pleased with it, and it seems good for many years of service.            Very truly yours,
                    (Signed)   ELMER D. LONGWORTHY,
                                        Midshipman, U. S. Navy.

The Autopiano Is Sold By

E. B. Guild Music Co.

Topeka, Kansas

The U. S. S. Connecticut appears on another postcard in the Autopiano series in a sepia tone illustration. The picture has a copyright 1904 by E. Muller. The Connecticut was built in the Brooklyn NY Navy Yard and was launched on 29 September 1904. Exactly two years later in 1906 it was commissioned and considered the most sophisticated ship in the US Navy.  

Will's Cigarette card,
Famous Inventions No. 23, Auto-Piano
Source: New York Public Library Archive

Like the battleship Connecticut, a player piano was also a marvel of modern technology. The first successful instrument was called the Pianola. Invented in 1896 by Edwin S. Votey, it combined a standard piano with pneumatic actuators that followed a code of perforated holes punched into a long roll of stiff paper. A person "played" it by using their feet to pump pedals attached to bellows, not unlike a parlor reed organ, that pressurized the mechanism. This complicated action was added onto an already complex system for the piano which still functioned even if the player-piano was now used. 

Sectional illustration of player piano interior action,
1909 William Braid White
Source: Wikimedia

Here's a schematic sideview
of the mechanism of a player piano.

1. Pedal.
2. Pedal connection.
3. Exhauster (one only shown).
4. Reservoir; high tension
(low-tension reservoir not shown.)
5. Exhaust trunk.
6. Exhaust tube to motor.
7. Air space above primary valves.
8. Secondary valves.
9. Striking pneumatic.
10. Connection from pneumatic
to action of piano.
11. Piano action.
12. Pneumatic motor.
13. Trackerboard (music roll
passes over trackerboard).

Player-piano music rolls were 11¼ inch wide and were mass produced by several companies that initially followed a standard format for playing only 65 notes. By 1903 one company had a catalog of over 9,000 titles. In 1908 the industry adopted a new standard with 88 notes, the same number of notes as on an ordinary piano. Newer player-pianos like the Autopiano were modified to accept this increased range.

_ _ _ _

The Autopiano Company was just one of hundreds of manufacturers of pianos, reed organs, and player pianos that flourished in America at the turn of the 20th century. The company was based in New York City and began operations in 1903 at a huge factory that had 300,000 square feet of space and occupied two blocks along the Hudson River. Within a short time it was producing 10,000 instruments a year, all player piano types with pneumatic controls. The company quickly established a reputation in the industry for making for a superior product that was robust in any kind of climate, dry or humid. Soon it was exporting Autopianos to music lovers around the globe. 

This postcard illustration gives a fanciful bird's eye-view of the Hudson River in New York.  A caption identifies it as "The Atlantic Battleship Fleet passing the Autopiano Factories."

The card was never posted but on the back there is a message to Edith Lerris (?) from Myrtle Brenner (?). Either Myrtle was only six years old or never mastered penmanship.

A note to
you
dont it
look it.
it is a dish
of honey
and cheese
for you

Even opera divas like Luisa Tetrazzini (1871–1940), pictured on this next postcard, endorsed the "marvelous Autopiano—the piano that anyone can play." Tetrazzini was an Italian coloratura soprano who performed in major opera houses around the world and became one of the highest paid artists of the early 20th century. The Italian-American dish, chicken tetrazzini, was named in her honor.

                                                    San Francisco, Cal.   

        The Autopiano Co., New York, N. Y.

        GENTLEMEN:
   The Autopiano is a blessing to humanity.  It should be in every home, for it brings with it the culture and refinement which only the compositions of the great masters afford.  I find I can play the great operas with the same feeling and expression with which I sing them.  I love to play it—it is wonderful—there is no player piano to equal it.        Faithfully yours,
                                                                    Luisa Tetrazzini

Porch Brothers, Inc.
Johnstown, Pa.

In 1910 Madame Tetrazzini became embroiled in a contract dispute with her manager Oscar Hammerstein who wanted her to perform in New York while she insisted on San Francisco. Her concert fee was also part of the disagreement. During a press conference she declared, "I will sing in San Francisco if I have to sing there in the streets, for I know the streets of San Francisco are free." She prevailed and fulfilled her promise to San Francisco. So on Christmas Eve 1910, on a stage erected in front of the Chronicle newspaper building and accompanied by an orchestra and chorus of 50 singers, Madame Tetrazzini sang for thousands of people. Her concert was especially memorable to San Franciscans because the city was still suffering from the devasting effects of the terrible earthquake of 1906.

This second postcard of the Autopiano factories shows the building lit at night with more battleships using searchlights out in the Hudson River. The caption reads: "The Autopiano factories work over-time to supply the demand for this marvelous Player Piano". I can easily imagine that a few navy midshipmen like Elmer D. Longworthy worked overtime too, acting as Autopiano Co. agents in foreign ports

Grant NE Perkin County News
26 February 1909

In 1906-07 as the Autopiano company began suppling the U. S. Navy with its musical instruments, the navy was preparing its fleet for an historic voyage around the world by order of President Theodore Roosevelt. The fleet consisted of 16 battleships divided into two squadrons, along with various smaller escort and support ships. Eventually the expedition would have 30 ships in all, manned by 14,000 sailors. It was later given the nickname "The Great White Fleet" because the ship hulls were painted white. The U.S.S. Connecticut was the flagship of the fleet and probably got the best paintwork. The expedition began on December 16, 1907 and finished on February 22, 1909. 

U.S.S. Connecticut (BB-18), circa 1906
Source: Wikipedia

The mission of the Great White Fleet was largely diplomatic as the fleet would be paying courtesy calls to ports of many countries. But President Roosevelt also intended it as a display of America's new battleship fleet, demonstrating America's military prowess and naval capabilities as a major power in a world that was dominated by colonial empires. And the United States was the newest nation to join that club.

Map of the voyage of the Great White Fleet, 1907-1909
Source: The Internet

This map shows the route that began and ended in Hampton Roads, the great harbor on the James River between Norfolk and Hampton, Virginia near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Notice that the fleet travelled around Cape Horn in South America as the Panama Canal was still under construction and would not be finished until August 1914. The placenames in red are where the fleet re-coaled the ships. Once it reached San Francisco, the fleet replaced two battleships before continuing across the Pacific. 

As the result of the Spanish-American War and the annexation of Hawaii in 1898, the route included stops at the new U. S. territories of Hawaii, Samoa, Guam. and the Philippines. On its return leg the fleet took a short cut from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal, rather than going around Africa. The expedition took 14 months and covered 43,000 miles while making calls on twenty ports on six continents.

The U. S. S. Florida (BB-30) was pictured on another Autopiano postcard. Like the postcard of the U. S. S. Connecticut there was information about the ship on the back of the card as well as a promotion of the Autopiano Company by the Orton Bros. music store of Butte, Montana. 

U. S. S. Florida (Battleship)

Displacement, tons 21,825.  Speed, knots 21.  Cost, $6,000,000.  Length, 521 feet, six inches.  Beam, 88 feet, 2 inches.  Draught, 28 feet, 6 inches.  Main Battery, 10 - 12 inch guns, 16 - 5 inch guns.  Secondary Battery, 10 Rapid Fire and Machine Guns.  Complement, 1014 men.

The Florida was larger and more powerful than the Connecticut but it was not launched until May 1910 and was commissioned on 15 September 1911, so this ship was not part of the Great White Fleet of 1907-09. Evidently the Autopiano Company profited by this kind of patriotic advertising and expanded its promotion into the next decade. 

I should also note that many crews of the battleships included a navy band. I've written a story about photos of two of them, including the Florida, in The USS Florida and USS Arkansas Navy Bands. 

The Autopiano battleship series included a picture of the U. S. Battleship Colorado, also known as Armored Cruiser No. 7, which also did not accompany the Great White Fleet in 1907-09. In November 1916 while being overhauled the ship was renamed Pueblo, in order to free up her original name for use by a newer bigger battleship Colorado. This card promoted sales of the Autopiano by a music dealer, J. H. Troup, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 

Likewise this next ship, the Protected Cruiser "New Orleans" (CL-22) was not part of the Great White Fleet either but supposedly still had an Autopiano onboard. It was a much smaller and older ship than the previous battleships. Commissioned in March 1898, the ship was immediately  put to service in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and later was assigned to the Asiatic Fleet in Manila, Philippines. The back of the card offered Autopianos sold by Weiler Bros., of Quincy, Illinois.

The next battleship in the Autopiano series was the U.S. Armored Cruiser New York (ACR-2) which also wasn't a ship in the Great White Fleet. Perhaps this was because of its age as its keel was laid in 1890 and at the time of the 1907-09 expedition the New York was laid up for an extensive refit that was not finished until 1909. Presumably it then got a new Autopiano too.  Maybe purchased from W. H. Rider of Kingston, New York.

Another in the Autopiano series was the Armored Cruiser St. Louis (CA-2) which was launched in 1905 but was already stationed on the west coast in 1907 when the Great White Fleet left on its voyage. The St. Louis was built for $2,740,000 which seems a bargain, especially because a top of the line Autopiano cost $600 then. The recipient of this postcard might have got a better deal from the J. E. Lothrop Piano Co. of Dover, New Hampshire.

Finally I finish with the U. S. Battleship Wisconsin (BB-9) which did join the Great White Fleet in 1908 for the second leg of its voyage when it switched with the U.S.S. Maine in San Francisco. This Illinois-class battleship was launched in November 1898 and commissioned on 4 February 1901. This postcard encouraged music lovers to get a marvelous Autopiano from the Yahrling-Raynar Piano Co. of Youngstown, Ohio.

1912 Pacific Medical Journal

In 1912 the Autopiano company claimed it had instruments on seventy five ships of the U. S. Navy and that 30th regiment U. S. Infantry had taken 20 Autopianos to Alaska. Even the Pope had an Autopiano in the Vatican. (Which brings to mind an odd image of his Holiness sitting on a piano bench vigorously pumping his legs to sing along to the latest music roll, presumably a hymn tune.)

In 1917 the Autopiano Company installed its instruments in over 100 army training camps as America prepared to join the war in Europe. The company was one of the largest producers of musical instruments which were known for being reliable and expressive devices for playing music. But all the player-piano companies were competing against another medium that was rapidly gaining strength. The 78rpm gramophone record.  

In several ways a gramophone/victrola and a player-piano were alike. Both were mechanical marvels that produced music on demand from prerecorded performances. Both used a special media, a disc or a paper roll, that encoded the music invisibly. Both were promoted by famous composers, song writers, and musicians. Both became enormously popular creating a consumer demand that turned music into a consumable commodity which resulted in thousands of new titles produced every week. And as Autopiano advertising boasted, both player-pianos and gramophones required no musical skills and could be played by anyone.

The big differences between the two mediums was that a player-piano like the Autopiano required continuous physical action by a human to play music, while a gramophone needed only minimal effort to crank the motor spring and set down the needle. But more crucial difference was that a gramophone record reproduced the exact sound of voices and instruments while a player-piano just sounded like a like a piano. 

My first experience of music came from a little black and tan RCA 45rpm record player that my mother let me play using a stack of records she must have acquired when she was in high school and college. A few years later my dad got hooked by the hi-fi stereo craze and I discovered jazz, opera, and orchestral music on 32rpm discs. Soon I began buying my own records and still have a large collection though I admit I rarely listen to them. I try not to think about the crypt that stores my collection of cassette tapes since I no longer have a machine that can play them. 

When compact discs first came out in the 1980s everyone was amazed that they were so small and light weight, compact as they say, compared to the heavy albums of vinyl records. Yet today, 40 years after buying my first CD, I've thrown away most of the clunky boxes that they came in and store my CDs in clear plastic envelopes. Unfortunately I can't use them in my car anymore as the "entertainment center" can't play them. Instead I've converted—ripped countless music albums from CDs into digital files on a flash drive. This means that most of the time I don't know the title of a song or the name of the artist performing. How do you turn off random shuffle play? Now even flash-drives are old fashioned. Who needs messy digital files when music can come straight from the Spotify or Apple clouds. 

The average lifespan of the seven battleships used to promote the Autopiano was about 27 years, skewed by the cruiser New York lasting 42 years. Despite their size, or maybe because they were so immense, battleships were not built to last and all these ships ended up being cut up for scrap long before the start of the next war. I wonder if those Autopianos were saved from demolition.

The Autopiano company endeavored to remain independently solvent but in the 1920s it was bought by the Kohler and Campbell piano company. The new owners continued manufacturing player-pianos into the 1930s but like many businesses that depended on consumer demand, it was unable to survive the Great Depression and closed its Autopiano factory forever. Everyone was listening to the radio anyway.

But once upon a time, young navy midshipmen tapped their feet and swung to music on the rolling sea as they sang along to music coming from the marvelous, fantastic Autopiano.  Did the company supply them with enough music-roll titles? How many times did they listen to the same tune on a trip around the world?

 

To demonstrate the sound and machinery of a player-piano
     here is a video of a 1905 Autopiano Player Piano, made of white oak,

that was beautifully restored by the craftsmen at Pianosnthings.
Notice how the little levers under the keyboard control the music
and the foot pedal action almost turns the Autopiano
into some kind of fitness equipment found at a gym. 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where music sometimes comes in a sepia box.

Our Music Room

Even without the Bösendorfer piano,
the premier piano manufacturer of Wien, Austria,
we know that this is a musician's studio room.
Flanking a painting of a mountain landscape are
two oval portraits of Beethoven and Mozart.

 

 

 

Further over on the wall is another framed print,
out of focus but still recognizable to musicians
as a portrait of Franz Schubert.
Atop the piano is a cello bow
next to sheet music marked Grieg,
for the great Norwegian composer and pianist, Edvard Grieg.

L. van Beethoven, W. A. Mozart, F. Schubert
Source: Wikimedia

 

 

The full photo shows a cello leaning precariously on a chair.
To one side is a splendid double sided wooden music stand,
designed for playing duets, or trios with the piano.
Together with the ornate coal fireplace,
the floral wallpaper, and the Persian carpets
it makes a charming interior photo,
a portrait really,
of a musician's favorite place.

 

Along the edge of this photo postcard
is a short phrase in German.

Unser Musikzimmer ~ Our music room

 

 

 

 The postcard is addressed to:
Hochwohlgeboren (High wellborn) Herr Karl Mrasek
of Wien IX, Liechtensteinstraße 64, III Stock (floor).
The message begins Lieber Onkel! ~ Dear Uncle!
and is dated 28 January 1928.
The handwriting is challenging for me to decipher
but the writer, possibly Karl's niece, signs it 
Resi(?) und Sigmund.

 

1928 city directory of Wien, Austria

There are four men named Karl Mrasek in Wien's 1928 city directory, but only one at that address. He is listed with an occupation of Pen. (using the odd symbol for long s in the Germanic Fraktur typeface) which I interpret as Pensioner or Retiree. Herr Mrasek is also listed in the 1915 Wien directory at the same address on Liechtensteinstraße, but then his occupation was Pvt. Bmt. which stands for Privatbeamter ~ private official, which was a term for a clerk in a non-governmental organization or company.

  

Today the building at Liechtensteinstraße 64, Wien, Austria still stands and Google's street view gives us a perspective looking up. If I'm not mistaken, Herr Mrasek lived on the floor second-down from the top, as the III Stock, or 3rd floor, would not count the ground floor.

 

 

 

Liechtensteinstraße 64, Wien, Austria
Source: Google Maps

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photo of Resi and Sigmund's Musikszmmer is, of course, not in their uncle Karl's building, and there is really nothing in the photo to actually place it in Wien. Since the postcard's stamp and postmark were unfortunately removed long ago, their music room might just as well be in an apartment in Prague or Berlin, or even Paris. But even if it's not in Wien but somewhere else, with Wien's most famous composers on the wall it surely was a small refuge of Austrian musical culture.  

 

 

 

But what about the portrait on the piano
behind the potted plant?
 

It's position is nearly centered.

Onkle Karl could not miss it
as the whole set has been so carefully arranged.
I believe it must be a portrait of Resi.
Was she Karl's niece?
Or was Sigmund Karl's nephew?
And did Resi play the piano or the cello?
Some mysteries are best left unsolved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where no one can have too many books
as long as they have a library card.

Liszt at Home

It's a room, perhaps a parlor or office in a residential house.
An old man with long white hair pauses
at his cluttered desk to turn towards the camera.
He wears slippers with
something like a dark dressing gown,
and has an expression of mild annoyance.
Papers and books are scattered around
on small tables and atop a piano.
Heavy drapes are drawn back from sunlit windows
to nourish numerous houseplants.
 

It's a curious photograph to see on a postcard.

Who is this?
Is he someone famous?
A writer? A cleric? A statesman?

 

 The caption on the back offers only the simplest description.
Weimar. Franz Liszt. Original-Aufnahme (original image).

It was sent in fact from Weimar, East Germany on 13 June 1961.
The writer, Otti, offers Frau Grimm
1000 thanks for the money from Hamburg.

 

 

 

By coincidence the postmark of 1961
was 150 years after the old man's birth in 1811,
and 77 years after the original photograph
was taken inside his home in 1884.
It was an office in a way.
It was his music room.

 

 

 

Liszt's Music Room at Weimar, 1884
Source: Wikimedia

He was the celebrated pianist, composer, and conductor,
Franz Liszt, (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886),
one of the greatest musicians of the 19th century. 

 

  

 

Franz Liszt, 1843
photograph by Herman Biow (1804–1850)
Source: Wikipedia

 

In this earliest known photograph from 1843, we can see Franz Liszt in his prime. It shows his distinctive profile, the one most familiar to anyone who heard him perform seated at a piano. He is clean-shaven with straight brown hair cut in a longer style then fashionable with artists. 

 

The next example shows Liszt in 1872 performing a recital in Budapest for the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I, who sits in the front row with Crown Prince Rudolf, Archduchess Gisela and other members of the royal family. The piano is positioned to allow us to see that is a Bösendorfer piano, made in Vienna. Since 1830, it had been the official piano of the Austrian Emperor, for whom nothing but the best would do.

 

Liszt giving a concert for Emperor Franz Joseph I,
on 18th March 1872 on a Bösendorfer piano.
Painting by Franz Schams (Austrian painter, 1823 - 1883)
Source: The Internet

Franz Liszt was born in 1811 in the village of Doborján, in the Kingdom of Hungary. However today, as a result of a treaty following WW1, the town is now called Raiding and is in eastern Austria. As a young child, Liszt demonstrated extraordinary musical gifts and was given his first instruction on the piano by his father, Adam Liszt (1776–1827). Adam played several musical instruments and had once been in service to the Hungarian Prince Esterházy, Nikolaus II.  At the court, Adam got to know the great composer, Franz Joseph Haydn, (1732–1809), who for many years was the Kapellmeister, or music director, of Prince Esterházy's court orchestra.

 

Franz Liszt rapidly acquired exceptional skill at the piano, and by age 9 was playing concerts. After the success of these first public performances, Adam took his son to Vienna where he arranged Franz to take lessons with Carl Czerny, a noted piano teacher who had studied with Ludwig van Beethoven. While there in 1822-23, young Franz also gave concerts and once met Beethoven, even though by this time Ludwig was too deaf to have heard anything Liszt played. For the rest of his life Liszt would be considered the successor to Beethoven's genius. Considering that Liszt's contemporaries included the great pianist/composers, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, (1809–1847); Frédéric Chopin, (1810–1849); and Robert Schumann, (1810–1856), this was a mark of how the public viewed his remarkable genius. 

Sharp-eyed readers may have spotted Beethoven's portrait on the wall of the music room hidden by the foliage. One of Liszt's biggest projects was making piano transcriptions of all of Beethoven's nine synphonies. These monumental works were not abridged and contained all of Beethoven's orchestral music, cleverly arranged by Liszt for 10 fingers. When published these transcriptions helped to further Beethoven's legacy at a time when his symphonies were not well known.

 

After some years presenting his son around Germany and Austria, Liszt's father Adam died in 1827, whereupon Liszt and his mother moved to Paris, which was then the center of musical culture in Europe. It was there that Liszt first heard Niccolò Paganini, the Italian violin virtuoso, and resolved to become his equal as a pianist. Readers may remember that Paganini had the same inspiring effect on the Norwegian violinist, Ole Bull, who I wrote about earlier this year in Ole Bull, Adventures in America, part 1. Ole and Liszt met in Paris and became lifelong friends and often performed together.

 

With hard work Liszt developed incredible new techniques and styles of playing the piano that transformed him into one of the most celebrated concert artists of his time, appearing at all the major centers of European musical culture. During the course of his life, as well as Ole Bull, Liszt also became the friend and benefactor of many notable musicians including Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka, and Alexander Borodin. Perhaps his closest connection was with the German opera composer Richard Wagner, (1813–1883), whose operas he promoted by conducting the overtures with his orchestra at Weimar. In 1864 Wagner began a scandalous affair with Liszt's daughter, Cosima, (1837–1930), who was then married to Hans von Bülow, (1830–1894), a conductor of Wagner's music and formerly one of Liszt's most talented piano students. Somehow Liszt continued a close relationship with Cosima, Wagner, and von Bülow, perhaps because his own life with Cosima's mother, Countess Marie d'Agoult, was just as unorthodox. Cosima had three children by Wagner and eventually they married, but needless to say, it was a very complicated era. 

 

On 31 July 1886,  Franz Liszt died at the age of 74 in Bayreuth, Germany. At the time, he was attending the Bayreuth Festival, hosted by his daughter , Cosima Wagner, who would continue the legacy of her late husband, Richard, for nearly 50 more years.

During his long career, Franz Liszt performed thousands of concerts, conducted some of the greatest orchestral music of the 19th century, and composed over 1,400 individual pieces of music, more than the combined works of Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms. His piano music took the instrument to new heights of virtuosity. His symphonic tone poems inspired countless composers to take up this dramatic orchestral form. To describe Liszt as a giant of music is not an exaggeration. Alan Walker, his most recent biographer, required three volumes to tell the life story of Franz Liszt.

What intrigues me about Franz Liszt is that decades after his death, his artistry was commemorated in a wide variety of picture postcards. A photograph of Liszt in his music room may be understandable in the 150th year of his birth, but there are a surprising number of postcards of Liszt that were produced long after his death. Let's start with another example of his famous profile.

 

 

 

This photo was taken late in his life and has the simple caption on the front.  Liszt. There is no other explanation of who he is, or why anyone would wish to share his photo. What is noticeable to those who knew him, is that he wears a simple clerical-like collar.

 

Throughout his life, despite several wayward transgressions, Franz Liszt was guided by a deep Catholic faith, especially during times of personal tragedy. In 1859 he suffered the loss of his son, Daniel, and then in 1862, his 26-year-old daughter Blandine also died. Liszt's reaction was to go into religious seclusion at the monastery Madonna del Rosario, near Rome. In 1865 he received the first four minor orders of the Roman Catholic church. Afterwards he was often referred to as Abbé Liszt.

This postcard was sent on 15 July 1910 to Frau O_? Händlemeier from someone with terrible handwriting.

 

 

 

 

 

Another portrait taken at about the same time has Franz Liszt's full name captioned on the front, but again there is no musical context. His collar is similar to what he wears in the previous photo, but I'm unsure if it really is a Catholic clerical collar. Perhaps Liszt preferred to dress in simple and humble attire to represent his devotion. The object hanging from a cord may be a set of pince-nez spectacles. This postcard was sent on 21 October 1911 with a Swiss postmark.

 

 

 

 

In both photographs the phrase, "warts and all" comes to mind, as one can not miss the warts on Liszt's face. The phrase is attributed to Oliver Cromwell, (1599–1658) when he was Lord Protector of England. Supposedly Cromwell instructed Sir Peter Lely, the artist commissioned to paint his portrait, "Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it."

It is interesting to compare these photos of an unvarnished Liszt to the portrait of him that I featured in my series last year on the Austrian artist, Hermann Torggler's Great Composers - part 2.  Torggler takes a sympathetic approach to draw out the personality of a revered old man, but also includes some of Liszt's facial roughness. I think all three portraits attempt to show Liszt more as a devout religious man, rather than the celebrated musician he was. 

This postcard was sent 21 November 1916 to Dr. Maria Grass of Innsbruck, Austria.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is hard to imagine the young romantic artist from this postcard photo of an old man seated before an upright piano. It is one of the few photos of Franz Liszt actually looking as if he is playing the piano. His name is captioned on the front of the card, but again there is no context to explain who this musical genius is. He could easily be mistaken for a music hall performer from when this postcard was posted in Germany on 25 October 1911.

 

The period of Liszt's concert tours in Europe was surprisingly brief, roughly from 1839 to 1847. But his performances helped define the concepts of a solo piano recital, a word that Liszt himself first coined for this kind of solo concert. His virtuosic showmanship also made him one of the first internationally known celebrities. Liszt's concerts were renown for how he captivated audiences, especially women, in a kind of mystical ecstasy. At the peak of his touring career, his concert schedule often put him on stage three or four times a week, and it is estimated that he played over a thousand concerts over this period. His first concert tours established both his fame and his wealth, which he generously turned into a lifelong habit of philanthropy.

 

One of the many useful genres on YouTube are music videos that feature a performance overlaid with the sheet music. Franz Liszt is well represented in this kind of video, and I thought including one would help demonstrate his genius as a composer and pianist. Here is a video of Liszt's Transcendental Etude No.5, Feux Follets performed by the fantastic Russian pianist, Evgeny Kissin. According to one commentator, the great Russian-American pianist Vladimir Horowitz, considered this short piece of Liszt's one of the most difficult to play. You do not have to read music to appreciate that each dot represents 1/10th of the fingers available to a pianist. Extra points if you can count the number of hemidemisemiquavers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This next postcard is an unknown artist's impression of Franz Liszt playing the piano as he imagines ghostly horsemen galloping across the sky. It resembles the previous photo of Liszt, minus the ghosts. The artist's signature is in the top right corner but is unclear except for a date 1914. The portrait is certainly not as good as Hermann Torggler's but it does convey a romantic notion of Liszt as the creator of fantastical music. 

The back caption says, Fr. Liszt. Rhapsodie hongroise.  There is a handwritten date of 18/XI~916 and the stamps and postmark are from Hungary, which was an independent part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. Liszt always identified as Hungarian, but the language spoken in his village and in his family was German. After he left his birthplace at age 9 he lost touch with native Hungarian speakers and never learned to speak or write Hungarian. As an expatriate who spent much of his life in Paris, he was most fluent in French. And of course, like any musician, he also knew Italian, and as a Catholic he understood Latin. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This bizarre portrait of Liszt (NSFW) sketches his profile from a photograph and adds a collage of naked women writhing about his face. There is also a facsimile of Liszt's signature and three measures from his well-known composition, the Rhapsodie Hongroise. It's a style of grotesque art postcard that was popular at the end of the 19th and early 20th century. I have found more portraits like this of other composers, presumably by the same artist, which I will show another time. Surprisingly this postcard does give more context as to who Franz Liszt was. 

The postcard was sent from Belgrade, then the capital of the Kingdom of Serbia, on 24 May 1909.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After he retired from concert touring in 1847, Liszt lived in Weimar, Germany, where he had been appointed Kapellmeister Extraordinaire to the court. This was the period when he settled down and composed most of his orchestral and choral music. He lived in this modest house with the Polish Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, (1819–1887). She was influential in helping Liszt write many publications, and also making connections to several important musicians, notably the French composer Hector Berlioz. This photograph comes from a postcard sent through the East German Post in September 1967.

 

Weimar was an important center for the German Enlightenment and Liszt was just one of several cultural figures associated with the city. The German writers Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, (1749–1832) and Friedrich Schiller, (1759–1805) also lived in Weimar. In this next Greetings from Weimar postcard the homes of Goethe, Liszt, Schiller, and the Goethe-Schiller Archive are all illustrated. It dates from 18 March 1899. The writer's atrocious handwriting is so obscure that I can't even guess what the language is. I looks more like shorthand code. The postman had a clearer address to read as it was sent Hier, meaning in the city of Weimar.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Another souvenir of Weimar has an illustraion of Franz von Liszt. Liszt was made a Ritter, or knight, by Emperor Francis Joseph I in 1859, which was intended to put him on a rank able to marry Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. However for complicated reasons involving her estranged husband, the Russian Tsar, and the Vatican it never happened, so Liszt never used this title of nobility in public.

This postcard was sent on 1 December 1899 from Laibach, now known as Ljubljana, the capital and largest city of Slovenia.

 

 

 

This last postcard uses the same colored engraving of Liszt without his house in Weimar. I bought it partly for the writer's beautiful cursive handwriting. 

 

 

                                        29 V. 1899                                                                 29 V. 1899

illkommen Du herziges Pärchen. Ihr                   Welcome you sweet couple. your
allerliebsten Küherkinder von Thunersee!              dearest cowschildren from Lake Thun!
Sie hat mich ungemein gefreut, Deine                   She made me very happy, yours 
letze Karte, besonders, weil ich weiss, dass            last card, especially because I know that
ein lieber freund von mir sie gemacht hat.              a dear friend of mine made them.
Leider haben wir hier in unserin total                     Unfortunately we have here in our total
spiessbürgerlichen Ort nicht gross Ans-                 bourgeois place not big selection           
wahl in schönen Karten, und da muss                    in beautiful cards, and there must
ich denn etwas Originelles wählen;                       something original when I choose;
hoffentlich kommt darm Abwechslung                 hopefully there will be a change
da rin von unserer Reise, die wir in                       from our journey that we in
4 Hochen antreten. Hir Thuner                              4 highs complete(?). Hir(?) Thuner
werden natürlich am grossen Fest                         are of course at the big festival
Sonntags nicht fehlen dürfen; das wäre                 Not to be missed on Sundays; that would
doch zu schade !? Henn möglich                           too bad!? Henn(?) possible
kommen wir Samstag Abend. Hoffent-                let's come Saturday evening. Hopefully
lich wird die Stadtmusik nicht ver-                         the town music does not get 
fehlen uns abguholen. - ?  Viele herzl. Grüsse         missed to pick us up, -? Many heartfelt regards
an Dich u. alle die Lieben Deinen von Stemainut     to you and all the loved ones from Stemainut(?)    

 

The postcard was sent the next day, 30 May 1899, from Buchs, Switzerland to Fräulein Celine Fall of Thun, Switzerland.  Thun is a town on Lake Thun, in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland region, with dramatic views of the Alps. Buchs, about 120 miles east of Thun, is near the tiny principality of Lichtenstein. In 1899 you could send postcard from your Swiss hotel in the morning and expect it arrive later that afternoon, 120 miles away. That's a model of an efficient postal service!

 

 

Back in February 2014, I wrote a story entitled Brahms & Liszt, about two postcards of Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt. These were the first postcards of composers that I acquired for my collection. At the time I was curious about how each man's likeness was depicted without reference to their music, even though both Brahms and Liszt were incredible pianists and famous composers. Those postcards, like these I've featured today, only showed the person and nothing of their musical art. It seemed amazing to me that decades after their deaths, images of great musicians were purchased as souvenir postcards.

When I discovered these postcards of Franz Liszt, I felt they were commemorating something different. Maybe not so much Liszt the musician as Liszt the genius, or Abbé Liszt the devout man of piety. They seem almost a kind of religious talisman, maybe an icon of reverence or even veneration. What seems odd is that Liszt's celebrity as a pianist really hit its peak in the era before photographs, roughly 1840 to 1850. His compositions are generally too difficult for amateur pianists, so his keyboard music would likely only be heard in concerts when played by very skilled musicians. Nonetheless 100 or 150 years after his birth, Franz Liszt's portrait profile, his house, even his music room, were still memorable enough to share with a friend or relation. Why is that? I don't know that I have an answer.

In the International Movie Database, the useful compendium of cinema facts and trivia, there is an entry for Franz Liszt, (1811–1886). Under his Filmography are 405 listings for Soundtrack, and 40 for Music Department, going back to 1917. It's a shame that his agent couldn't negotiate for better royalties than the Emperor of Austria.

 

 

For one final perspective on the genius of Franz Liszt, I offer a performance by a contemporary pianist who I think most exemplifies the style and virtuosity of Liszt. Here is the Chinese pianist Lang Lang playing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 in C sharp minor at the Teatro Del Silenzio, in 2007. This is probably the most familiar music of Liszt as it has been used to accompany countless animated cartoons and circus acts. Lang Lang makes it seem easy but as we watch I think we get a good idea of how Franz might have played it as an encore too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where everyone is
In the Hall of the Mountain King.