Letters of Franz Liszt Volume II Part 37

Your letter was only returned to me from Tivoli yesterday evening.

I shall remain here, or at the Villa d'Este, till the end of January.--

157. To Breitkopf and Hartel

Very dear Sirs,

The kind reception you gave the last sending of my somewhat c.u.mbersome ma.n.u.scripts and revisions pleased me greatly. I will always gladly do what I can to not increase the publishers'

worries, and henceforth print only what has been carefully worked out and will prove tolerably acceptable.

With regard to the form in which the Songs and Wagner- transcriptions are to be published, you may act altogether as you think best. I did certainly think that the convenient and neat edition in small octavo would be preferable (like the last edition of Chopin and my "Etudes transcendantes"): hence in from 5 to 6 little volumes:--

1. Beethoven (The "Adelaide" and other Songs); 2. Mendelssohn (6 Songs); 3. Robert and Clara Schumann; 4. Robert Franz; 5 to 6 (?). Wagner-transcriptions.

This would in no way prevent the songs and pieces of several pages (such as the "Adelaide," Mendelssohn's Songs, the "Tannhauser-March," the "Rienzi-Fantasia," etc.' being sold singly--in the same small 8vo form which, candidly speaking, I always like best. As long ago as the year '39 I induced Haslinger to publish Schubert's songs in an edition of this kind--and at that time it seemed rather a doubtful innovation. Also about placing the words below the music. I wish this, for the sake of the poetical delivery in all of the songs, except the "Adelaide,"

because the poem roams about rather too freely in rococo style.

Let us leave "the flow'ret at the grave" to bloom on quietly without retouching it again.

I must unfortunately again trouble you to send me all the proofs.

It is a matter of great moment to me to have the things arranged as accurately and as appropriately for the piano as possible. And for this I require the last proofs, in order finally to revise them in reading and playing them over. (For the printer's consolation be it remarked that no new alterations shall now crop up again; my zeal in correcting shall be confined to making some pedal marks and fingerings.) First of all I should like to try over Sgambati's duet arrangement of the "Ideale" with him; and you will doubtless do me the favor of sending me the proof sheets st.i.tched together before I leave here (at the end of January).--

I leave the matter concerning the small honorarium confidently to your well-known kindly disposition, and remain, very dear Sirs,

Yours respectfully and most obediently,

F. Liszt

Villa d'Este, November 24th, 1874

158. To Count Albert Apponyi in Budapest

[From an undated rough draft of a letter in the possession of Herr O. A. Schulz, bookseller in Leipzig. (The date has been ascertained from a letter to Mihalovich.)--The addressee was the well-known Hungarian statesman.]

[Villa d'Este, December 6th, 1874]

Dear and Very Honored Friend,

Your excellent letter of the 27th November reached me here yesterday evening. I hasten to give you my very sincere thanks, and to add a frank reply on the question of the Academy of Music.

First of all I think the "moyen violent" [violent means] of Huszar, which will deliver us from barren t.i.ttle-tattle, is right; let us throw the Seeschlange [sea serpent] into the Danube, and if he wants an epitaph here is one: "It is better to do nothing than to do stupidities."

Now, are we the stupid ones?--The Government is much interested in this affair; the Sovereign's decision has been obtained; I know not what official publication has followed. You yourself, dear Count, have brilliantly persuaded the Chamber of Deputies that the said Academy would be of use in raising Art in Hungary; my necessary humble reserve has been taken by the public as consent.--Is it possible now to take no account of such precedents, and to draw back when it is a question of advancing?

I do not think so, and I am quite of your opinion, as wise as it is opportune.

In spite of the difficulties of a position embroiled with divers worries, and in spite of the scantiness of the financial means, we ought to stick to our affirmative position and not in the least to give way.

As to my "personal convenience," which you are good enough to take into such kind consideration, permit me to a.s.sure you anew that I aspire to one only blessing--quiet time for work in my own room. Orare et laborare. The point of honor, which no one understands better than yourself, attaches me to Hungary, our country. May I fulfil there all my duty of grat.i.tude!--

I shall be back at Pest (Fischplatz) on the 10th February, and shall rejoice to hear the Ballade of our valiant friend Mihalovich, to whom I shall write tomorrow.

Yours from my heart,

F. Liszt

159. To Edmund von Mihalovich

Dear Excellent Friend,

I wrote the day before yesterday to Do, and was about to continue with a letter to you when a telegram called me subitissimo back to Rome. The thread of my ideas has not been broken on the journey, and I resume our conversation, a trois, on the long gestation--omen of abortion--of the Hungarian Academy of Music.

I trust that my very dear and honored friends will be convinced of my perfect disinterestedness in the question; the idea of an Academy is in no way mine if I become sponsor to it, it will be in self-defence and without any connivance at paternity whatever; I even refuse to help in the procreation of the marmot [brat]; and, far from making myself, before my time, in any way its champion or propagandist, I hesitate over the difficulties which are opposed to its birth. I have explained these many a time to my Budapest friends, and the difficulties have increased rather than diminished during these last three years...

1stly. The financial situation of the country appears to be such that one must scruple to burden the budget with an expenditure beyond urgent needs. My patriotism is sufficiently sincere and lively to counsel me to abstention, including every renunciation that is compatible with my strict duty.

2ndly. It would be a poor luxury to add a third music school to the two schools already existing (meagrely) at Pest. If one cannot emulate with honor the similar establishments of Vienna, Leipzig, etc.--what is the good of troubling any further about it? Now, to give a vigorous impulse to Art among us, we must first unite and fuse into one spirit a set of professors of well- known capability,--a very arduous and ungrateful task, the accomplishment of which demands much intelligence, and a sufficient amount of cleverness and of money.

Other minor, local considerations complicate the matter stilt further; I pa.s.s them over in silence today, and will not repeat myself any more except on one point,--my religious devotion to our country and our art. To serve them somewhat, according to the moderate degree of my talent, whether it be in working by myself at my ma.n.u.scripts (which is what I much prefer), or in cooperating with my friends in public things, this is my simple and exclusive desire, totally removed from the personal pretensions or anxieties of vanity which are wrongly imputed to me.

"Tiszta lelek, tiszta szandek, akar siker, akar nem." ["Pure soul, pure intention, whether the results be favorable or not."-- Maxim of Stephan Szechenyi.]

My friends are those who haunt the Ideal; there, dear friend, we "recognise" each other, and shall always do so,--but not "in the mud," ill.u.s.trated by a fascinating poet, too much celebrated and tainted by the triviality of vulgar applause--Heine. Amongst other things he had predicted that the Cathedral of Cologne would never be finished. "In vain will Franz Liszt give his concerts,"

etc.--

You know that Wagner is coming to Pest in Lent. It is only right that several of your compositions--especially the last, "Sello"-- should be performed in public at that time. Talk the matter over with Richter. I on my side will ring the "Bells." Please beg Abranyi to hurry with the Hungarian translation of Longfellow's poem (the Prologue to the "Golden Legend"), and to follow, not the German translation of the "Pianoforte score," which I have sent to Engesser, but the original English text. [Liszt had set to music the Prologue to the "Golden Legend," under the t.i.tle "Die Glocken des Stra.s.sburger Munsters"--"The Bells of Stra.s.sburg Cathedral."]

Yours in cordial friends.h.i.+p,

F. Liszt

Villa d'Este, December 8th, 1874

I will write tomorrow to the very gracious chatelaine of Horpacs.

160. To Carl Hoffbauer in Munich

[From a copy belonging to Dir. Aug. Gollerich.--Hoffbauer, born in 1850, became in 1872 Director of the Gesang-Verein in Munich, went to Frankfort in 1880, and put an end to his own life. He composed, among other things, the Operas "Cotzzata" and "Demetrius."]

[End of 1874.]

My hearty thanks for the kindly zeal with which you have taken up the "Christus Oratorio." But a performance of it in Munich appears to me so doubtful, and connected with so much trouble, expense, and difficulty, that I must for the present dissuade you from the undertaking. Besides, it would not be possible for me to accept your invitation for the end of February, as several engagements will keep me in Pest till Easter. And, if ever you give a performance of the Christus in Munich, I should much like to be present. As yet the whole work has been only twice heard, in Weimar and Pest (in May and last November, '73).