In the 1870s, when pianists had long hair and belabored the keyboard thunderously in the "grand manner," many of the world's promising pianists were still taking lessons from long-haired Composer-Pianist Franz Liszt. Of Liszt's pupils today, only a few white-haired oldsters survive. Of these survivors only one can still draw a crowd to a concert hall; a stocky, orange-whiskered veteran named Moriz Rosenthal.
On Nov. 13, 1888 Pianist Rosenthal, 25 and mopheaded, sat down to a piano in Manhattan's old Steinway Hall, crashed and rippled through Liszt's finger-punishing Don Juan Fantasia. Manhattan concertgoers,...
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