Addressed to the talented young pianist, born at Hermannstadt in
the Siebenburgen in 1830, died at Venice 1845, studied with
Chopin and Liszt in Paris in 1842-43, and created a sensation
with his concerts both there and in London, Vienna, and Italy.
According to Lenz, Liszt said of him, "When the youngster goes
travelling I shall shut up shop!"]
Compiegne, Wednesday Morning [1842 or 1843].
Dearly beloved conjurer,
How sorry I am to disappoint [Literally. "to make a false skip,"
a play-of-words with the next sentence.] you of our usual lesson
tomorrow! Your "false skips" would be a great deal pleasanter to
me! but, unless we could manage to put you where we could hear
you from the towers of Notre Dame to the Cathedral of Cologne,
there is a material impossibility in continuing our sort of
lessons, considering that by tomorrow evening I shall already be
at Cologne.
If I return, or when I return--I really don't know. Whatever
happens, keep a little corner of remembrance of me, and believe
me ever yours affectionately,
F. Liszt
Affectionate remembrances to your brother Joseph. Farewell again.
I embrace you affectionately.
37. To Franz von Schober in Paris
Berlin, March 4th, 1844
You are a dear, faithful friend, and I thank you with all my
heart for your kind letter. God reward you for your love to such
a jaded, worn-out creature as I am! I can only assure you that I
feel it deeply and gratefully, and that your words soothe many
spasmodic annoyances.
At the end of this month we shall certainly see each other in
Paris. Villers [Alexander von Villers, a friend of Liszt's,
attache of the Saxon Embassy in Vienna.] is coming also. In case
Seydlitz is still there make my excuses to him, and tell him
that, owing to my delay at Dresden, I only got his letter
yesterday. I will answer him immediately, and will address to
Lefebre, as he tells me to do. I have had several conferences
with the H[ereditary] G[rand] D[uke] and Eckermann. [The editor
of Goethe's "Gesprachen"] Our business seems to me to stand on a
firm footing. Next autumn the knots will be ready to tie. [Refers
probably to Schober's subsequent appointment at Weimar.]
My room is too full. I have got a tremendous fit of Byron on. Be
indulgent and kind as ever!
Remember me to the Sabatiers, and stick to me! Yours most
affectionately,
F. Liszt
38. To Franz Kroll
[Pupil and friend of Liszt's (1820-1877); since 1849 settled in
Berlin as a pianoforte teacher; rendered great service by his
edition of Bach's "Das wohltemperirte Clavier."]
My dear good Kroll,
What a first-rate man you are to me, and what pleasure your
letter has given me! Probably you already know that I also have
been figuring as an invalid these last five weeks.--God be
thanked and praised that I am already pretty fairly on my legs
again, without rheumatism in the joints or gout! In a few days I
shall begin my provincial tour (Lyons, Marseilles, Toulouse,
Bordeaux), and then towards the end of August by steamer to
Stockholm and Copenhagen. Weymar, our good, dear Weymar, will
again be our Christmas Day! Oh what beautiful apples and trifles
we will hang on our Christmas tree! and what talks and
compositions, and projects and plans! Only don't you disappoint
me, and mind you come fresh and well. Leave the bad looks to me,
and see that you fill out your cheeks properly. This winter we
must be industrious, and struggle through much work.
Your Mazurkas are most excellent and talented. You have put a
great deal into them--and, if you will allow me to speak quite
freely--perhaps too much into them, for much of it halts.
Although the dedication to me is both pleasing and gratifying, I
cannot help thinking that it would be to your interest not to
publish anything before next spring. Take advantage of being as
yet unknown, and give to the public from the beginning a proper
opinion of your talent by a collective publication. Write a
couple of pleasing, brilliant Studies--perhaps also a Notturno
(or something of that sort), and an effective Fantasia on some
conspicuous theme. Then let Schlesinger, Hartel, or Mechetti (to
whom I will most gladly speak about your works beforehand)
publish the six pieces--your Concerto and the C major Study,
together with the later pieces--all together, so that publisher,
critic, artist, and public all have to do with them at the same
time. Instead of dishing up one little sweetmeat for the people,
give them a proper dinner. I am very sorry I did not follow this
plan myself; for, after much experience, I consider it far the
best, especially for pianoforte works. In Weymar we will talk
more fully and definitely about this. Conradi [Musician and
friend in Berlin] is also to come. I don't require the Huguenot
Fantasia at present. He will have time enough for it in Weymar.
En attendant, [A German letter, so Liszt's own French expression
is kept] Schlesinger will give him a modest payment for the work
he has begun. Please kindly see about the enclosed letters for
Freund as soon as possible.
With all good wishes, I am, dear Kroll,
Yours most sincerely,
F. Liszt
Port Marly, June 11th, 1844
39. To Freund
[Autograph in the possession of Professor Hermann Scholtz in
Dresden.]
I am shockingly behindhand with you, my dear Freund, but I won't
make any excuses, although an illness of more than a month comes
rather a propos to justify me fully and even more.
Herewith letters and cards for Baron Lannoy (Haslinger will give
you the address), for Prince Fritz Schwarzenberg, and for Doctor
Uwe, Kriehuber, and Simon Lowy, who will soon be back in Vienna.
I shall be glad if you will give them in any case, whether now or
later. If you want to give me a pleasure you will go and see my
uncle Eduard Liszt, and try to distract him a little.
I detest repeating myself in letters so much that I can't write
over again to you my plans of travel up to the beginning of
winter; these I have just told Kroll in full, and you already
know them from Hanover.
Teleky, Bethlen (Friends of Liszt's), and Corracioni are here,
and form a kind of colony which I call the Tribe of the Huns!
Probably Teleky will come and pick me up at Weymar towards the
middle of February, and we shall go together to Vienna and Pest--
not forgetting Temesvar, Debreczin, and Klausenburg!
I hope then to find you in Vienna, and shall perhaps be able to
give you a good lift.
Meanwhile acknowledge the receipt of these lines: enjoy yourself,
and remain to me always friend Freund. [A play on his name
Freund, which means friend.]
Yours most sincerely and affectionately,
F. Liszt
Port Marly, June 11th, 1844.
40. To Franz Von Schober.
Gibraltar, March 3rd, 1845.
Your letter pleases me like a child, my dear good Schober!
Everything comes to him who can wait. But I scarcely can wait to
congratulate you and to see you again in Weymar [as Councillor of
Legation there]. Unhappily it is not probable that I can get
there before the end of next autumn. Keep me in your good books,
therefore, until then, and accept my best thanks in advance for
all you will have done for me and fought for me till then, both
in Weymar and in Hungary!
With regard to Vienna, Lowy writes me almost exactly the same as
you. To tell the truth I am extremely thankful to the Vienna
public, for it was they who, in a critically apathetic moment,
roused and raised me [When he came from Venice to Vienna in the
spring of 1838, to give a concert for the benefit of his
Hungarian compatriots after the inundations, on which occasion,
although Thalberg, Clara Wieck, and Henselt had been there before
him, he aroused the utmost enthusiasm.]; but still I don't feel
the slightest obligation to return there a year sooner or later.
My Vienna journey will pretty much mark the end of my virtuoso
career. I hope to go thence (in the month of August, 1846) to
Constantinople, and on my return to Italy to pass my dramatic
Rubicon or Fiasco.
So much for my settled plans.
What precisely is going to become of me this coming spring and
summer I do not exactly know. In any case to Paris I will not go.
You know why. My incredibly wretched connection with _____ has
perhaps indirectly contributed more than anything to my Spanish-
Portuguese tour. I have no reason to regret having come, although
my best friends tried to dissuade me from it. Sometimes it seems
to me that my thoughts ripen and that my troubles grow
prematurely old under the bright and penetrating sun of Spain...
Many kind messages to Eckermann and Wolff. [Professor Wolff,
editor of "Der poetische Hausschatz."] I will write to the latter
from the Rhine, where I shall at any rate spend a month this
summer (perhaps with my mother and Cosima). If he is still
inclined to return to his and your countries (Denmark and
Sweden), we can make a nice little trip there as a holiday treat.
Good-bye, my dear excellent friend. Allow me to give you as true
a love as I feel is a necessity of my heart! Ever yours,
F. Liszt
What is Villers doing? If you see him tell him to write me a line
to Marseilles, care of M. Boisselot, Pianoforte Maker.
41. To Franz Kroll at Glogau
Weymar, March 26th, 1845
My very dear Kroll,
The arrival of your letter and the packet which accompanied it
decided a matter of warm contest between our friend Lupus
[Presumably Liszt's friend, Professor Wolff (1791-1851).] and
Farfa-Magne-quint-quatorze! [For whom this name was intended is
not clear.] It consisted in making the latter see the difference
between the two German verbs "verwundern" (to amaze) and
"bewundern" (to admire), and to translate clearly, according to
her wits, which are sometimes so ingeniously refractory, what
progress there is from Verwundern (amazement) to Erstaunen
(astonishment). Imagine, now, with what a wonderful solution of
the difficulty your packet and letter furnished us, and how
pleased I was at the following demonstration:--
"We must admire (bewundern) Kroll's fine feeling of friendship;
we may be amazed (verwundern) at the proof he has given of his
industry in copying out the Mass; should this industry continue
we shall first of all be astonished (erstaunen), and by degrees,
through the results he will bring about, we again attain to
admiration (Bewunderung)."
I don't know how you will judge, critically, of this example, but
what is certain is that it appeared to be quite conclusive to our
auditory.
Ernst [The celebrated violinist (1814-65)] has just been spending
a week here, during which he has played some hundred rubbers of
whist at the "Erbprinz." His is a noble, sweet, and delicate
nature, and more than once during his stay I have caught myself
regretting you for him, and regretting him for you. Last Monday
he was good enough to play, in his usual and admirable manner, at
the concert for the Orchestral Pension Fund. The pieces he had
selected were his new "Concerto pathetique" (in F~ minor) and an
extremely piquant and brilliant "Caprice on Hungarian Melodies."
(This latter piece is dedicated to me.) The public was in a good
humor, even really warm, which is usually one of its least
faults.
Milde, who is, as you know, not much of a talker, has
nevertheless the tact to say the right thing sometimes. Thus,
when we went to see Ernst off at the railway, he expressed the
feeling of us all--"What a pity that Kroll is not here!"
For the most part you have left here the impression which you
will leave in every country--that of a man of heart, talent,
tact, and intellect. One of these qualities alone is enough to
distinguish a man from the vulgar herd; but when one is so well
born as to possess a quartet of them it is absolutely necessary
that the will, and an active will, should be added to them in
order to make them bring out their best fruits,--and this I am
sure you will not be slow to do.
Your brother came through here the day before yesterday, thinking
he should still find you here. I have given him your address, and
told him to inquire about you at Schlesinger's in Berlin, where
he expects to be on the 8th of April; so do not fail to let
Schlesinger know, in one way or another, when you get to Berlin.
As M. de Zigesar [The Intendant at Weimar.] I was obliged to
start in a great hurry for The Hague, in the suite of the
Hereditary Grand Duchess, I will wait till his return to send you
the letters for Mr. de Witzleben. I will address them to
Schlesinger early in April.
We are studying hard at the Duke of Coburg's opera "Toni, oder
die Vergellung," ["Toni, or the Requital"] which we shall give
next Saturday. The score really contains some pretty things and
which make a pleasing effect; unluckily I cannot say as much for
the libretto.
Your castle in the air for May we will build up on a solid basis
in Weymar; for I am quite calculating on seeing you then,
together with our charming, good, worthy friend Conradi. Will you
please, dear Kroll, tell Mr. Germershausen and his family how
gratified I am with their kind remembrance? When I go to Sagan I
shall certainly give myself the pleasure of calling on him.
Believe me ever your very sincere and affectionate friend,
F. Liszt
42. To Abbe de Lamennais
[Autograph in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet at Valentigney.]
Permit me, illustrious and venerable friend, to recall myself to
your remembrance through M. Ciabatta, who has already had the
honor of being introduced to you last year at my house. He has
just been making a tour in Spain and Portugal with me, and can
give you all particulars about it. I should have been glad also
to get him to take back to you the score, now completed, of the
chorus which you were so good as to entrust to me ("The iron is
hard, let us strike!"), but unfortunately it is not with music as
with painting and poetry: body and soul alone are not enough to
make it comprehensible; it has to be performed, and very well
performed too, to be understood and felt. Now the performance of
a chorus of the size of that is not an easy matter in Paris, and
I would not even risk it without myself conducting the
preliminary rehearsals. While waiting till a favorable
opportunity offers, allow me to tell you that I have been happy
to do this work, and that I trust I have not altogether failed in
it. Were it not for the fear of appearing to you very indiscreet,
I should perhaps venture to trespass on your kindness for the
complete series of these simple, and at the same time sublime,
compositions, of which you alone know the secret. Three other
choruses of the same kind as that of the Blacksmiths, which
should sum up the most poetical methods of human activity, and
which should be called (unless you advise otherwise) Labourers,
Sailors, and Soldiers, would form a lyric epic of which the
genius of Rossini or Meyerbeer would be proud. I know I have no
right to make any such claim, but your kindness to me has always
been so great that I have a faint hope of obtaining this new and
glorious favor. If, however, this work would give you even an
hour's trouble, please consider my request as not having been
made, and pardon me for the regret which I shall feel at this
beautiful idea being unrealized.
As business matters do not necessarily call me to Paris, I prefer
not to return there just now. I expect to go to Bonn in the month
of July, for the inauguration of the Beethoven Monument, and to
have a Cantata performed there which I have written for this
occasion. The text, at any rate, is tolerably new; it is a sort
of Magnificat of human Genius conquered by God in the eternal
revelation through time and space,--a text which might apply
equally well to Goethe or Raphael or Columbus, as to Beethoven.
At the beginning of winter I shall resume my duties at the Court
of Weymar, to which I attach more and more a serious importance.
If you were to be so very good as to write me a few lines, I
should be most happy and grateful. If you would send them either
to my mother's address, Rue Louis le Grand, 20; or to that of my
secretary, Mr. Belloni, Rue Neuve St. George, No. 5, I should
always get them in a very short time.
I have the honor to be, sir, yours very gratefully,
F. Liszt
Marseilles, April 28th, 1845
43. To Frederic Chopin
[Autograph in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet at Valentigney.--
The great Polish tone-poet (1809-49) was most intimate with Liszt
in Paris. The latter, in his work "F. Chopin" 1851, second
edition 1879, Breitkopf and Hartel; German translation by La
Mara, 1880), raised an imperishable monument to him.]
Dear Chopin,
M. Benacci, a member of the Maison Troupenas, and in my opinion
the most intelligent editor, and the most liberal in business
matters, in France, asks me for a letter of introduction to you.
I give it all the more willingly, as I am convinced that under
all circumstances you will have every reason to be satisfied with
his activity and with whatever he does. Mendelssohn, whom he met
in Switzerland two years ago, has made him his exclusive editor
for France, and I, for my part, am just going to do the same. It
would be a real satisfaction to me if you would entrust some of
your manuscripts to him, and if these lines should help in making
you do so I know he will be grateful to me.
Yours ever, in true and lively friendship,
F. Liszt
Lyons, May 21st, 1845
44. To George Sand.
[Autograph in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet at Valentigney.--
A friendship of long years subsisted between Liszt and France's
greatest female writer, George Sand. At her home of Nohant he was
a frequent guest, together with the Comtesse d'Agoult. Three
letters which he wrote (in 1835 and 1837) for the Gazette
Musicale--clever talks about Art, Nature, Religion, Freedom,
etc.--bear George Sand's address.]
Without wishing to add to your other inevitable troubles that of
a correspondence for which you care little, allow me, dear
George, to claim for myself your old indulgence for people who
write to you without requiring an answer, and let me recall
myself to you by these few lines through M. Benacci. Their
ostensible object is to recommend the above-mentioned Benacci, so
that you, in your turn, may recommend him more particularly to
Chopin (and I may add in parenthesis that I should abstain from
this negotiation were I not firmly persuaded that Chopin will
never regret entering into business relations with Benacci, who,
in his capacity of member of the firm of Troupenas, is one of the
most important and most intelligent men of his kind); but the
real fact of the matter is that I am writing to you above all--
and why should I not confess it openly?--for the pleasure of
conversing with you for a few moments. Therefore don't expect
anything interesting from me, and if my handwriting bothers you,
throw my letter into the fire without going any further.
Do you know with whom I have just had endless conversations about
you, in sight of Lisbon and Gibraltar? With that kind, excellent,
and original Blavoyer, the Ahasuerus of commerce, whom I had
already met several times without recognising him, until at last
I remembered our dinners at the "Ecu" (Crown) at Geneva, and the
famous Pipe!
During the month's voyage from Lisbon to Barcelona we emptied I
cannot tell you how many bottles of sherry in your honor and
glory; and one fine evening he confided to me in so simple and
charming a manner his vexation at being unable to find several
letters that you had written to him in Russia, I think, and which
have been stolen from him, that I took a liking to him, and he
did the same to me. The fact is that there could not possibly be
two Blavoyers under the sun, and his own person is the only
pattern of which he cannot furnish goods wholesale, for there is
no sort of thing that he does not supply to all parts of the
globe.
A propos of Lisbon and supplies, have you a taste for camellias?
It would be a great pleasure to me to send you a small cargo of
them from Oporto, but I did not venture to do it without knowing,
in case you might perhaps have a decided antipathy to them.
In spite of the disinterestedness with which I began this letter,
I come round, almost without knowing how, to beg you to write to
me. Don't do more than you like; but in any case forgive me for
growing old and arriving at the point when noble recollections
grow in proportion as the narrowing meannesses of daily life find
their true level. Yes, even if you thought me more of a fool than
formerly, it would be impossible for me to hold your friendship
cheap, or not to prize highly the fact that, somehow or other, it
has not come to be at variance nor entirely at an end.
As the exigencies of my profession will not allow me leisure to
return so soon to Paris, I shall probably not have the
opportunity of seeing you for two years. Towards the middle of
July I go to Bonn for the inauguration of the Beethoven Monument.
Were it not that a journey to the Rhine is so commonplace, I
should beg you to let me do the honors of the left and of the
right bank to you, as well as to Chopin (a little less badly than
I was able to do the honors of Geneva!). My mother and my
children are to join me at Cologne in five or six weeks, but I
cannot hope for such good luck as that we might meet in those
parts, although after your winters of work and fatigue a journey
of this kind would be a refreshing distraction for you both.
At the close of the autumn I shall resume my duties at Weymar;
later on I shall go to Vienna and Hungary, and proceed thence to
Italy by way of Constantinople, Athens, and Malta.
If, therefore, one of these fine days you should happen to be in
the humor, send me a word in reply about the camellias; if you
will send your letter to my mother (20, Rue Louis le Grand) I
shall get it immediately. In every way, count upon my profound
friendship and most respectful devotion always and everywhere.
Lyons, May 21st, 1845
F. Liszt
45. T Abbe De Lamennais
[Autograph in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet at Valentigney.]
Oh no, there is not, and there never could be, any indiscretion
from you towards me. Believe me that I do not deceive myself as
to the motive which determined you to write to me with such great
kindness, and if it happened that I replied too sanguinely and at
too great length I beg you to excuse me. Above all do not punish
me by withdrawing from me the smallest particle of your sacred
friendship.
M. de Lamartine, with whom I have been spending two or three days
at Montceau, told me that you had read to him "Les Forgerons," so
I played him the music. Permit me still to hope that some day you
may be willing to complete the series, and that I, on my side,
may not be unworthy of this task.
Yours most heartily,
Dijon, June 1st, 1845
F. Liszt
46. To Gaetano Belloni in Paris
[Autograph in the possession of M. Etienne Charavay in Paris.--
Addressed to Liszt's valued secretary during his concert tours in
Europe from 1841-1847.]
Dear and Most Excellent Belloni,
Everything is moving on, and shall not stop either. Bonn is in a
flutter since I arrived and I shall easily put an end to the
paltry, under-hand opposition which had been formed against me.
By the time you arrive I shall have well and duly conquered my
true position.
[This refers to the Festival in Bonn, of several days' duration,
for the unveiling of the Beethoven Monument (by Hahnel), in which
Liszt, the generous joint-founder of the monument, took part as
pianist, composer, and conductor.]
Will you please add to the list of your commissions:
The cross of Charles III.
and the cross of Christ of Portugal, large size? You know it is
worn on the neck.
Don't lose time and don't be too long in coming.
Yours ever,
F. Liszt
July 23rd, 1845.
Kindest regards to Madame Belloni.--I enclose a few lines for
Benacci, which you will kindly give him.
47. To Madame Rondonneau at Sedan
[Autograph in the possession of M. Etienne Charavay in Paris.]