Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt Volume I Part 32

DEAREST FRIEND,

I have just returned from a trip, and find your letter. Thank G.o.d, I have not much to write in answer beyond expressing my joy that you are coming so soon. Sat.u.r.day, July 2nd, in the morning, or at the latest in the evening, I shall await you at the mail office. You might stay with me, but I am afraid you would not be comfortable, especially if you come with Joachim and Franz. All this we shall settle at once at the office. There is a good hotel, Hotel Baur. I shall let Kirchner and Eschmann know. Good Lord, how glad I am. Not another word by letter!

Au revoir.

Your

RICHARD WAGNER

Could you let me know by telegram exactly when you are coming?

We have beautiful weather.

116.

You see, dear friend, that I am approaching; and unless official impediments delay me one day, I start the day after tomorrow- Friday, July 1st--by the afternoon train for Basle, and arrive at Zurich by the mail-coach on Sat.u.r.day, early in the morning. At the latest, I shall be there on Sunday at the same hour. Joachim I expect here; Franz, I am sorry to say, will not be able to come till later on.

Your

FRANZ LISZT

CARLSRUHE, June 29th

117.

FRANKFORT, Tuesday, July 12th, 1853, 6 p.m.

UNIQUE FRIEND,

The Musical Festival at Carlsruhe will take place on September 20th, and I write you these few lines in haste to ask you to send me the altered pa.s.sage in the score of "Lohengrin" at Weymar.

If not inconvenient to you, I should be glad if you could lend me for six weeks your Zurich parts of the overture to "Tannhauser"

and the pieces from "Lohengrin" for use at the Carlsruhe festival; send them straight to Devrient. As the Hartels have not printed the parts, it will not injure their interests; and we shall at least be sure that the parts are correctly copied, as you have already used them at Zurich. From Weymar I shall bring the parts of the "Tannhauser" overture with me. At the two concerts of the Carlsruhe festival the orchestras and artists of the Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Carlsruhe theatres will co-operate.

As the performances take place at the theatre, the trebling of the parts will be quite sufficient, for the house does not hold more than fourteen or fifteen hundred people, and an orchestra of a hundred and ninety and a chorus of something like a hundred and sixty will consequently have a good effect. As soon as the programme is settled I shall send it to you; for the present I tell you only that the "Tannhauser" overture will make the commencement of the first concert and the "Lohengrin" pieces the close of the second. In addition to this, there will be two pieces by Berlioz, the finale of Mendelssohn's "Loreley," the Ninth Symphony, etc. Frau Heim will, I hope, on this occasion be the reporter for Zurich, and I shall do my best to put her in a good temper. Johanna sings this evening at a concert in the theatre for the benefit of a local actress. "Tannhauser" will not be given tomorrow. After the concert I shall see Schmidt, and shall inquire as to particulars. . . . In case J. is still here tomorrow, I shall pay my most humble respects to her. She appeared first as Romeo, and yesterday sang Fides for the benefit of the Pension Fund. With E. Devrient I spent a few hours yesterday at Badenweiler. He is going to visit you at Zurich, but can make no certain plans for the present, as he expects the Prince Regent at Badenweiler. His daughter suffers a great deal, and his wife also appeared to me in very weak health. Frau Meyerbeer also I met at Badenweiler. With Schindelmeisser I shall communicate by telegraph early tomorrow morning; and in case "Lohengrin" is given on Thursday, I shall run over to see it, and return home to Weymar on Friday.

Through your hat I nearly got into difficulties with the police at Carlsruhe, because its species and colour are considered specially suspicious, being accounted red, although grey. I was accidentally advised of this; nevertheless I have got on well so far, and shall always maintain that the hat is well-conditioned and loyal, because you have given it to me.

Apropos, neither of the two persons to whom I have hitherto talked about it was inclined to believe in your wholly unpolitical position and mode of feeling. It will certainly take some time before a more correct opinion of your circ.u.mstances and your whole individuality is arrived at.

My best compliments to your wife, and many thanks for the kindness and love she showed me during my stay at Zurich.

Do not forget either my most "well-conditioned" homages to Frau k.u.mner and her sister. To our Grutly brother and his wife say all the friendly and true things which I feel for them, and to Baumgartner give a good "shake-hand" (translated into musical Swiss) in my name. The days at the Zeltweg remain bright, sunny days for me. G.o.d grant that we may soon be able to repeat them.

Your

DOPPEL PEPS, alias "Double Extract de Peps," or "Double Stout Peps con doppio movimento sempre crescendo al fffff," which latter we shall live to witness at the performance of the "Nibelungen."

Once more I ask you if possible to grant the "Tannhauser" and "Lohengrin" parts to the Carlsruhe festival, and kindly to write a few words to that effect to Devrient. I am off to the concert.

Johanna sings three songs by Schubert ("Wanderer," "Trockne Blumen," and "Ungeduld"), and I sing

[Figure: a musical score]

Pardon me if I have put the bars in the wrong places, and whistle it better for yourself. Address Weymar.

118.

DEAR, DEAR FRANZ,

Here I am in the capital of the Grisons; all is grey, grey. I must take rose-coloured paper to get out of this grey, just as a certain tinge of red glimmers through your grey hat. You see I am compelled to take to bad jokes, and may therefore guess at my mood. Solitude, solitude, nothing but horrible grey solitude, since you went away! Wednesday evening my Zurich people tried to dispel this grey solitude with their torches; it was very pretty and solemn, and nothing like it had happened to me in my life before. They had built an orchestra in front of my house in the Zeltweg, and at first I thought they were erecting a scaffold for me. They played and sang, we exchanged speeches, and I was cheered by an innumerable mult.i.tude. I almost wish you had heard the speech of the evening; it was very naive and sincere; I was celebrated as a perfect saviour. The next morning I left in company with St. George; since then rain has fallen incessantly.

Last night we found the only mail-coach from Coire to St. Moritz full, and had to make up our minds to stop here for another two nights and one day. Before leaving Zurich I fetched your Frankfort letter from the post-office; alas! it was the last joy which I took with me from deserted Zurich. Be cordially thanked for it, you dear, departed joy!

Today I inaugurate your new writing-case with a first "written"

communication to you. Let me talk of business; all else has become too terrible for my pen and ink since I possessed you wholly, heard your n.o.ble voice, pressed your divine hand.

Therefore to--business!

You shall have the parts; each of them is in a book which contains all the pieces of my Zurich concert; you will therefore have "Tannhauser" as well as "Lohengrin." But as your orchestra will be larger than mine, you will have to have them copied out; still I think they will arrive in time if I send them to Devrient not before the middle of August, after my return from St. Moritz; let me know whether you think the same. If you also want the voice parts and think the chorus ought to begin studying before the middle of August, I will send you them through my wife before the others; as to this also I want your instructions. The newly written score of the "Lohengrin" pieces, containing all the alterations, will be ready in four weeks at the latest. I therefore prefer to wait till then rather than send you the alterations on detached slips of paper, which would be of little use to you. About the middle of August the entire and properly arranged score will be sent to you at Weimar; but if you insist upon having the alterations separately at an earlier date, write to me, and I will obey. So, so, so, so! this is the business.

And now what remains? Sadness! sadness! After you had been taken from us I did not say a single word to George. Silently I returned home; silence reigned everywhere. Thus we celebrated your leave-taking, you dear man; all the splendour had departed.

Oh, come back soon, and stay with us for a long time. If you only knew what divine traces you have left behind you! Everything has grown n.o.bler and milder; greatness lives in narrow minds; and sadness covers all.

Farewell, my Franz, my holy Franz. Think of the wild solitude of St. Moritz, and send a ray of your life there soon.

My wife read your letter with me, and was delighted--She greets you cordially. George asks me to greet you, and thanks you for remembering him. He will soon be a poet for your sake. Farewell, dear, dear Franz.

Your

RICHARD.

COIRE, July 15th, 1853.

119.

X. is going to sing in "Tannhauser" at R. in about a fortnight.

She had to leave at once after the concert on July 12th, in order to attend to some starring engagements. I saw her first in her dressing-room at the theatre, where she had kindly invited me to visit her for a quarter of an hour after the concert. That quarter of an hour I employed in doing my duty as a doctor and apothecary in the "well-conditioned" line. I told her many and sundry things which she was able to understand. Before taking leave X. promised me to sing Ortrud and Elizabeth at Weymar in the course of next winter, which I accepted very thankfully. Papa X. has some plans for a German opera in London, and opines that your operas would have a fine effect there. I replied that the needful and indispensable would first have to be done for them in Germany. There is no hurry about London, and perfect success there is only possible when the ground in Germany has been firmly occupied.

To S. and M. I repeated once more that it would be scandalous not to give "Tannhauser" on this occasion, and S. went so far as to promise me that, in case of difficulties, he would announce "Tannhauser" with Frau Anschutz-Capitain in the intervals of the starring engagement.

Has Schindelmeisser sent you our Wiesbaden "Lohengrin" snuffbox?

As Ortrud was ill, "Lohengrin" could not be given this week. Frau Moritz is a very amiable and excellent woman and artist. She is studying Elsa and Senta, and is quite determined to make active propaganda for your operas. Moritz is going to read your "Ring of the Nibelung" this month at Wiesbaden.