Letters of Franz Liszt Volume I Part 12

Will you, Madame, give my best and most affectionate thanks to M.

Rondonneau, and accept my very respectful and devoted homage?

F. Liszt

Frankfurt, February 11th, 1846

P.S.--Being pressed for time, and owing, perhaps, to a stupid feeling of delicacy, I came away without paying my doctor.

If you think well, would you be so kind as to credit me with a napoleon and give it him from me: Madame Kreutzer will be my banker in Paris. Adieu till we meet again.

48. To Monsieur Grillparzer

[Original, without date, in the possession of the Baroness Mayrhofer-Grunbuhel at Klagenfurt. It might belong to the year 1846, during which Liszt arranged ten concerts in Vienna, from March 1st to May 17th, and lived there during a great part of the summer. From the same year dates a poem of homage to the incomparable magician of the piano from the great poet. This slight and unimportant letter is the only one of Liszt's found among Grillparzer's effects.]

Will you do me the favor, my dear sir, to come and dine, without ceremony, with several of your friends and admirers on Friday next at 3 o'clock (at the "Stadt Frankfurt")? I should be very much gratified at this kindness on your part. M. Bauernfeld leads me to hope that you will not refuse me. Permit me to think that he is not mistaken, and allow me to express once more my high esteem and admiration.

F. Liszt

Tuesday Morning. [1846?]

49. To Franz von Schober, Coucillor of Legation in Weimar

Prague, April 11th, 1846. [According to the postal stamp.]

Dear Friend,

Your commissions have been attended to. The Wartburg has been sent through Bauernfeld to the Allgemeine, and will, I trust, not have to warten [Wait; a play on the words Wartburg and warten. A treatise on the proposed completion of the Wartburg.] too long. I have sent a second copy of this article to Paris, where it is to appear in French garb. The report figures already in the Vienna Theater-Zeitung, a paper with a wide circulation (and none the better on that account!), where it makes quite a good appearance.

You would get the best connection with Frankfort through O. L. B.

Wolff (and through his medium, which is at any rate an honest and proper one, with the German Frankfurtes Journal, or the Oberpostamts-Zeitung, and even with the Didaskalia).

Talk this over with Wolff!

The same with the "ill.u.s.trated" Leipzig Journal, in which the article on the Wartburg should appear as soon as possible with an ill.u.s.tration. Wolff can also arrange that, and in case it were necessary, why, in Heaven's name, the sketch can be paid for. The State of Weimar will not be ruined by it. Pereat Philistia and its powerless foolery!!!

You have only to write a line to Brockhaus, and the columns of the Deutsche Allgemeine stand open to you. Your personal and official position in Weimar ent.i.tle you to this. Later on, in pa.s.sing through Leipzig, you can very easily consolidate this connection. My stay in Hungary (Pest) will probably be limited to the first half of May. I shall in any case see Schwab.

"Sardanapalus" [An opera planned by Liszt] (Italian) will most probably be produced next season (May) in Vienna.

My stay in Weimar this summer...?? [The continuation of the letter is missing.]

50. To Franz von Schober, Councillor of Legation in Weimar

Castle Gratz (at Prince Lichnowsky's)

May 28th, 1846

You are curious people at Weimar. You stride on towards a possibility, and as soon as the thing is well in train you take fright at it! However that may be, here are the instructions I have received from Paris, and if you still wish an article on the Wartburg to appear in a French paper you must conform to them, and therefore send to my mother's address (20, Rue Louis le Grand) the indispensable little notice.

The note from my Paris correspondent is as follows:--

"The article in its present form would not be suitable for publication in any French paper; it will be necessary to write another, explaining in a few words in what and how the Wartburg is historically interesting to Europe, and why Europe ought to interest herself in its restoration; then make a short architectural description of the castle; but above all do not forget that the article is to be read by Frenchmen, careless of what is happening in Germany, and utterly ignorant of German history and legend."

I continue:--

1st.--A short account, historical and legendary, of the Wartburg.

2nd.--How it has been allowed to fall into ruins.

3rd.--How it is to be restored.

Finally, plenty of facts and proper names, as M. de Talleyrand so well said. Agreed then! As soon as you have got this sketched out on the lines above mentioned (it will serve also for the ill.u.s.trated), send it to my mother by Weyland. My mother will already know through me to whom she has to give it.

There is nothing to be done with Schwab. His "Delirium" (as I call it) [It was a "Tellurium"] stood in my room for a week, and we stood there not knowing what to make of it. But never and no how could we bring that good Schwab to try to make us see any basis or proof of his calculation. My opinion is that, in order to take away the incognito from his discovery, he ought to send a sample to the Vienna Academy, and two others to the Berlin and Paris Academies, for trial and discussion. If I can help him in this matter with letters to Humboldt and Arago I will do it right gladly; but it is as plain as day that incompetent private sympathies are of no import in such a sensitive discovery, and therefore can do nothing. Meanwhile they have made a subscription of eight hundred guldens in money, and have bought the machine for the Pest Museum.

The relic with authentic verification is in the locked-up box at Wolff's. Beg the Herr Librarian (it would really make me ill if he is not appointed) to be so good as to find this relic--he will have no difficulty in recognising it--and to send it me to Haslinger's address, Graben, Vienna.

About my law-suit more anon in Weimar. Meanwhile thank my excellent advocate (does he take snuff?) warmly, and beg him to continue to keep me in his good graces.

If I know that it will be agreeable to his Grace [The former Hereditary Grand Duke and present Grand Duke of Saxony.] to see me in Weimar this summer, I shall come, in spite of the upset which this journey will occasion to me. You know how I am, heartily and personally, in his favor without any interest. I should like also to tell him many things, and for this a stay there in the summer with walks (which as a rule I can't abide, as you know) would be pleasanter and more convenient.

My stay in Pest might bear serious fruit, were it not that the Byronic element, which you combat in me, becomes ever more and more predominant.

Farewell and work hard! I cannot arrange any meeting with you. I am not my own master. In August I mean to make a peregrination to Oedenburg, and thence to Leo and Augusz (the latter in Szegzard).

If I come to Weimar it will be in July.

Address always to Haslinger's.

Adieu, my dear excellent Schober. Remain as good to me as you are dear!

Yours ever affectionately,

F. Liszt

Remember me most kindly to Ziegesar and Wolff.

51. To Alexander Seroff

[Russian musical critic and composer (1820-71)]

I am most grateful, my dear sir, for the kind remembrance you keep of me since Petersburg, [Seroff was at that time in the Crimea.] and I beg you to excuse me a thousand times for not having replied sooner to your most charming and interesting letter. As the musical opinions on which you are kind enough to enlarge have for long years past been completely my own, it is needless for me to discuss them today with you. There could, at most, be only one point in which we must differ perceptibly, but as that one point is my own simple individuality you will quite understand that I feel much embarra.s.sed with my subject, and that I get out of it in the most ordinary manner, by thanking you very sincerely for the too flattering opinion that you have formed about me.

The Overture to "Coriola.n.u.s" is one of those masterpieces sui generis, on a solid foundation, without antecedent or sequel in a.n.a.logous works. Does it remind you of Shakespeare's exposition of the tragedy of the same name (Act i., Scene I)? It is the only pendant to it that I know in the productions of human genius.