" It must have
given him a strange shock when an amateur asked him, at one of his
wife's concerts in Vienna, if he also was musical!
In her efforts to win appreciation for her husband, Clara was nobly
assisted by Liszt. Just like Wagner, Schumann was not at first very
favorably impressed with Liszt, owing to the sensational flavor of his
early performances. But he soon changed his mind, especially when
Liszt played some of his (Schumann's) compositions. "Many things were
different from my conception of them, but always '_genial_,' and
marked by a tenderness and boldness of expression which even he
presumably has not at his command every day. Becker was the only other
person present, and he had tears in his eyes." And two days later:
"But I must tell you that Liszt appears to me grander every day. This
morning he again played at Raimund Haertel's, in a way to make us all
tremble and rejoice, some etudes of Chopin, a number of the Rossini
soirees, and other things." Of other contemporary pianists Hummel,
"ten years behind the time," and Thalberg, whom he liked better as
pianist than as composer, are alluded to.
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