Franz Liszt

The pianist in me has taken safest shelter in your immortal piano performances. Unfortunately, there will always be some critics to pass their own self-satisfied judgments.

Clara Schumann, for example, tersely states: "A smasher of pianos."

Felix Mendelssohn adds: "He performed works by Beethoven, Bach, Handel and Weber in such a pitiably imperfect style, so uncleanly, so ignorantly, that I could have listened to many a middling pianist with more pleasure."

Am I not lucky that I will not dare to play Bach, Beethoven and Handel? I would have played them infinitely worse and infinitely more destructively. Who knows, perhaps I would have rightly deserved the same.

Again, who in his right mind can dare to I ignore the high appreciation that you have received?

Robert Schumann comments: "He must be heard—and also seen; for if he played behind the scenes, a great deal of the poetry of his playing would be lost."