On Wednesday, June 6, I watched the arrival in Scotland of the Olympic torch and its accompanying party.
The weather in Cairnryan, to which the party had travelled from the torch's Irish tour, was wet, miserable and blustery. I was absolutely riveted to my seat; but not for obvious reasons. The arrival of the torch sparked an enormous resonance in my mind: I was thrown back 171 years to the arrival in Scotland of another Olympian party which had sailed, not quite to Cairnryan, but to Portpatrick, on a packet boat from Donaghadee.
I don't know exactly the weather conditions on that January day in 1841, but it was in the bitterest winter conditions that the party set foot on Scottish soil, following the Irish leg of their tour. They checked in at the hotel that stood above the harbour. There were six in the party: four Englishmen, a Welshman, and a foreigner. That foreigner was clearly the central figure and, equally, a man with a sense of presence, perhaps even one of that rare handful of characters who seem to have an aura about them. He was described, fancifully perhaps (or maybe not) as long-haired, "pale from the journey, and with deep-set smouldering eyes".
Franz Liszt had arrived in Scotland. Liszt, the greatest pianist of all time, already at 29 a living legend, a colossal superstar and the man who invented the symphonic poem and the celebrity superstar recital; the man who first turned the piano sideways so that women, drawn to him magnetically, would be even more aroused by his magnificent profile and long hair; the revolutionary thinker and composer, inveterate womaniser, later a minor abbe in the church, and tireless champion, throughout his long life, of new music and composers from Berlioz to Schumann and Wagner. Liszt had come to Scotland give a series of concerts in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The journey towards the central belt was fraught. According to an entertaining and rather quaintly written account in The Scots Magazine from 1965, the party had a series of (mis)adventures trying to get to Glasgow, including Liszt spending the night asleep in the coach, which had been stabled, while the rest of the party passed the night drinking whisky; the party missing the train to Glasgow and travelling instead on a "special" train, in fact an open-to-the-skies cattle wagon.
When the group did get to Glasgow their residence was at the George Hotel in George Square (any clues, anyone?) which is where, presumably, the Glasgow concerts were staged, and where their abiding impression of Glasgow, apparently, was of the "late-night snacks of toasted cheese".
Five times in four days they criss-crossed the central belt in a seven-hour coach journey (no ScotRail jokes, please) in hellish conditions. In Edinburgh the concerts were staged in the Assembly Rooms, with a grand finale in the Hopetoun Rooms. And all the while Liszt, with his legendary dexterity (ahem), was pulling the burdz while "frightening the piano". One night, when he was off duty while others carried the musical burden, he "embarrassed" the party by turning up at the gig with a troupe of "very dashing Scotch girls" and parking himself in the front row of the audience.
At the final Edinburgh concert he was observed "slipping away" with a certain Miss Steele, and was later spotted dining with Miss Steele and her mother, keeping them royally entertained. How Liszt eventually offloaded Mrs Steele to demonstrate to her daughter his universally envied and two-handed skill at contrary motion arpeggio-playing, not to mention his notorious ability to reach pleasure regions of which other musical virtuosi could only dream, is, alas, unrecorded.
Anyway, Liszt, born in 1813, living until 1886, and one of the most influential figures in the history of western classical music, survived our winter weather, the central belt, the vicissitudes of crossing that belt and, full of empty promises to return, headed off in his cleaned-up coach-and-four, aiming for Newcastle then London. Next time you're passing through George Square, doff your hat. Franz Liszt was here.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article