Theodor Leschetizky (Illustrated)

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,[Pg 2] 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[Pg 3] 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[Pg 4] 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 player, whom Chopin loved, of whom he thought highly, and who would assuredly have become famous had he lived. Leschetizky's readings of the lighter compositions of Chopin are for the most part inspired by the remembrance of what he assimilated from this gifted boy, and he has changed his rendering very little since those days. Czerny cared little for Chopin, either as pianist or composer, nor did he willingly teach his music. His mind was too limited to understand subtlety, and he felt for it the contempt the plain man always feels for what he cannot grasp.
At fourteen Leschetizky began to take pupils himself, and seems to have been a prodigy in teaching as well as in playing, for he had soon so much to do that his time was quite filled up. His father took two rooms for him next door, so that he might carry on his musical work without disturbing the household. He was very busy, for, besides the teaching and his[Pg 5] own practice, there were lessons from Sechter in counterpoint and, until his voice broke, he sang in a church choir two or three times a week. He played everywhere. He was known in Metternich's salon, to Thalberg, to the great Liszt, whom he worshipped, to the Court, to Donizetti, who encouraged his early attempts at composition, in fact to all the great artists who passed through Vienna.
It was at this time that he heard Schulhoff play one evening at Dessauer's house. It was a new experience. Hitherto he had heard nothing like it.