Letters of Franz Liszt Volume I Part 26

F. Liszt

Weymar, January 28th, 1854

108. To Dr. Franz Brendel

Dear Friend,

I have lately been over-occupied, and in addition to that I have been working somewhat, so that I have never had a free half-hour for correspondence.

I send you today the score and pianoforte edition of my "Kunstler-Chor." By next autumn I hope that half a dozen other (longer) scores will be in print. "Ha, der Verruchte!" ["Ah, the wretch!"] we can then say, as in "Tannhauser." Happily, however, no journey to Rome is necessary to obtain my absolution. We only wish to have done with so much outcry and tasteless chatter.

I shall beg David to put off my Leipzig rehearsals for a couple of weeks, as I cannot well get away from here now, and must also have the parts written out afresh. If David does not arrange it otherwise I shall probably come in the latter half of March.--.

Cornelius is telling you more fully, at the same time with this, what I have talked over with him.--Griepenkerl has been here a couple of days, and yesterday read his drama "Ideal and Welt"

before our Grand Duke. The company was much the same as at Schlonbach's reading.--.

About your book I am very curious, and beg that you will send it me immediately. With regard to the opportunity for the paper I can tell you something when I come to Leipzig. In the course of next summer a monthly paper will make its appearance here, out of which much might grow. This is between ourselves, for the public will learn about it later.

Remember me most kindly to your wife, and remain good to

Your very sincere and grateful friend,

F. Liszt

Weymar, February 20th, 1854

P.S.--If you see Count Tyskiewicz please repeat my invitation to him to come for a couple of days to Weymar. If he is free next Thursday, that would be a good day. We have a concert here at which the "Kunstler-Chor" and a new orchestral work of mine ("Les Preludes"), the Schumann Symphony (No. 4.), and his Concerto for four horns will be given.

109. To Louis Kohler

My very dear Friend,

I come late--yet I hope you have not forgotten me. I am sending you, together with this, the score and pianoforte arrangement of my chorus "an die Kunstler," ["To the artists."] and also those numbers of the Rhapsodies which have been brought out by Schlesinger. The "Lohengrin" score you have no doubt received two months ago from Hartel, whom I begged to send it you direct--also the "Harmonies" from Kistner, and the last number of the "Rhapsodies" from Haslinger. At the end of the year you shall get some still greater guns from me, for I think that by that time several of my orchestral works (under the collective t.i.tle of "Symphonische Dichtungen" [Symphonic Poems.]) will come out.

Meanwhile accept once more my best thanks for the manifold proofs of your well-wis.h.i.+ng sympathy, which you have given me publicly and personally. You may rest a.s.sured that no stupid self-conceit is sticking in me, and that I mean faithfully and earnestly towards our Art, which in the end must be formed of our hearts'

blood.--Whether one "worries" a bit more or a bit less, as you put it, is pretty much the same. Let us only spread our wings "with our faces firmly set," and all the cackle of goose-quills will not trouble us at all.

That your article has been rudely and spitefully criticized need not trouble you. You presuppose your reader to have refinement and educated feeling, artistic acuteness, a fine perception, and a certain Atticism. These, my dear friend, are indeed rare things--and only to be found in very h.o.m.oeopathic doses among our Aristarchuses. Sheep and d[onkeys] have no taste for truffles.

"Good hay, sweet hay, has not its equal in the world," as the artist-philosopher Zettel very truly says in the "Midsummer Night's Dream"! Moreover, dear friend, things didn't and don't go any better with other better fellows than ourselves. We need not make any fancies about it, but only go onward quietly, perseveringly, and consistently.

"Lohengrin" will be given here on the Grand d.u.c.h.ess's next birthday, April 8th. Gotze is coming this time from Leipzig, and sings the part of the Knight of the Swan. I hope that in May Tichatschek will undertake the role; he has already been studying the complete work for a long time past, and has had a splendid costume made for it. Perhaps you will be inclined to hear this glorious work here either in April or May. That would be very delightful of you, and I need not tell you how pleased I should be to see you among us again.--

Rafi is working hard at his "Samson," and tells me that he will have finished it by Christmas. Cornelius, whom I think you do not know (a most charming, fine-feeling and distinguished nature), has likewise a dramatic work, poem and music, in readiness for next season. We gave a good performance of Gluck's "Orpheus"

lately, and for the last performance of this season (end of June I think we shall still give the Schubert opera "Alfonso und Estrella," if those same theater influences which already made themselves prominent by the "Indra" performance when you were at Weymar do not decide against this work, so interesting and full of intrinsic natural charm!--Farewell, dear friend, and send speedy tidings of yourself to

Yours most sincerely,

F. Liszt

Weymar, March 2nd, 1854

110. To Dr. Franz Brendel

Dear Friend,

Herewith an article which I send you for your paper. "Euryanthe,"

which I conduct here tomorrow, is the occasion of it. Still a more general question is aroused in it, which I am to a certain extent constrained "to agitate" from Weymar.["Gesammelte Scriften" vol. iii., I.] I flatter myself that our ideas will meet and harmonize in it. At first I had prefaced it by a couple of introductory lines, which I now erase. Will you be so good as to introduce me yourself in the Neue Zeitschrift by a few words?

You will be the best one to make up this little preface. My name can be put quite openly with its five letters, as I am perfectly ready to stand by my opinion.

Tuesday morning I go to Gotha. The Duke's opera is to be given at the end of this month, or at latest on the 2nd April, and from the day after tomorrow till the first performance I shall be quartered at Gotha. In consequence of this I must unfortunately give up my excursion to Leipzig for the moment,--but I hope that David will allow another rehearsal in the Gewandhaus in the course of April, after the "Lohengrin" performance here with Gaze (on April 7th and 8th), which I must of necessity conduct. The news, which it appears some papers have published, that I was thinking of arranging a concert in Leipzig, belongs to the generation of ducks [geese?] who amuse themselves in swimming around my humble self. My visit to Leipzig has no other object than to make some of the musicians acquainted with one or two of my symphonic works. Should they be pleased with them, they might perhaps be given there next season. In any case, however, several of them will appear in score next autumn.

My time is exceedingly limited, and I must see about a great many things today which do not put one in the mood for correspondence.

Yours in friends.h.i.+p,

F. Liszt

Sat.u.r.day, March 18th [1854]

111. To Louis Kohler.

[Weimar, April or May, 1854]

My very dear friend,

I am extremely glad that you liked my article on "Euryanthe" and theater direction, and I thank you most truly for your warm and very encouraging letter. For many weeks past I have been imitating you (as you and others always set me a good example), and am publis.h.i.+ng several views on Art-subjects and Art-works in the Weimar official paper. By degrees these articles will swell into a volume, which shall then contain the complete set.

For the present I allow myself to send you my Sonata, which has just been published at Hartel's. You will soon receive another long piece, "Scherzo and March," and in the course of the summer my "Annees de Pelerinage, Suite de Compositions pour le Piano"

will appear at Schott's; two years--Switzerland and Italy. With these pieces I shall have done for the present with the piano, in order to devote myself exclusively to orchestral compositions, and to attempt more in that domain which has for a long time become for me an inner necessity. Seven of the Symphonic Poems are perfectly ready and written out. I will soon send you the little prefaces which I am adding to them, in order to render the perception of them more plain. Meanwhile I merely give you the t.i.tles:--

1. "Ce qu'on entend sur la Montagne" (after V. Hugo's poem in the "Feuilles d'Automne").

2. Ta.s.so. "Lamento e Trionfo"

3. "Les Preludes" (after Lamartine's Meditation poetique "Les Preludes").

4. "Orphee."

5. "Promethee."

6. "Mazeppa" (after V. Hugo's Orientale "Mazeppa").