"Children – go and create something new!"

23 September 2025

The world-renowned Liszt researcher Kenneth Hamilton has published an article in International Piano, in which he explores Julius Reubke's Sonata in B-flat minor—a piece he performed in June at the Liszt Museum.

Kenneth Hamilton reflects on a sonata by a young composer who died before his abundant gifts were fully developed, a pupil of Liszt whose surviving works give a hint of what might have been. Reubke was still only in his early 20s, yet he seemed immediately to have grasped the significance of his teacher’s formal and harmonic innovations – a closed book to most contemporary musicians – and to be capable of developing them along his own lines. Talented too as an executant, Reubke played both pieces to great effect, despite their daunting technical challenges. The critic Richard Pohl heard him give a private performance of the Piano Sonata:

"Playing us his sonata, bowed over the piano in his characteristic manner, sunk in his creation, Reubke forgot everything about him. And we then observed the pallor of his face, the unnatural shine of his gleaming eyes, heard his heavy breaths, and were aware how wordless fatigue overwhelmed him after such hours of excitement – we suspected then that he would not be with us long."

Pohl was right: Reubke, a should-have-been representative of the "New German School" died of consumption at the age of 24, leaving a legacy of just two remarkable works.

As Kenneth Hamilton states, it was an especially moving experience to perform Reubke’s Sonata in a hall where Liszt himself had once played and taught. Moreover—appropriately enough—the Liszt Museum is now buzzing with innovative ideas to expand access to the institution and broaden the scope of its work. Hamilton aptly closes his article by quoting Wagner: “Kinder – schafft Neues!” (“Children – go and create something new!”).

You can find the original article here.

Photos: Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music / János Posztós