"Missa Solemnis" in this diploma. You may be sure, dear friend,
that I did not compose my work as one might put on a church
vestment instead of a paletot, but that it has sprung from the
truly fervent faith of my heart, such as I have felt it since my
childhood. "Genitum, non factum"--and therefore I can truly say
that my Mass has been more prayed than composed. By Easter the
work will be published by the Royal State Printing Office at the
cost of the Government, thanks to the kind instructions of His
Excellency Minister von Bach, and I am looking forward to the
pleasure of presenting one of the first copies to the Circulus
harmonicus. The Mass has been given a second time at Prague since
I left, and, as Capellmeister Skraup writes, "with increasing
interest"; a couple more performances, in Vienna, etc., are
pending.
Pray excuse me, dear friend, for not having sent you my thanks
sooner. Your letter found me in bed, to which I am still confined
by a somewhat protracted illness, which will delay my return to
Weymar some weeks. Next week I am to begin to get out into the
air again, and I hope to be able to get away in about ten days.
At the beginning of December I shall be at Weymar, and shall then
soon come to you at Jena.--
I shall have a great deal to tell you verbally about Wagner. Of
course we see each other every day, and are together the livelong
day. His "Nibelungen" are an entirely new and glorious world,
towards which I have often yearned, and for which the most
thoughtful people will still be enthusiastic, even if the measure
of mediocrity should prove inadequate to it!--
Friendly greetings, and faithfully your
F. Liszt
165. To Dr. Adolf Stern in Dresden
[Poet and man of letters, now professor at the Polytechnikum at
Dresden, a member of the Committee of the Allgemeine Deutsche
Musikverein since 1867.]
Very Dear Sir and Friend,
A long and protracted illness has kept me in bed for a fortnight
past--and I owe you many apologies for my delay in sending you my
warmest thanks for the very kind remembrance with which you
adorned the 22nd of October. The beautiful poem, so full of
meaning, and soaring aloft with its delicately powerful flight,
goes deeply to my heart, and my dreams hear the charm of your
poetry through Lehel's magic horn tones! Perhaps I shall be able
shortly to tell you what I have heard, when the disjointed sounds
have united in shaping themselves harmoniously into an artistic
whole, from which a second part of my Symphonic Poem "Hungaria"
might well be formed.
Meanwhile I have ventured to send your poem to a couple of my
friends in Pest, who will delight in it like myself.
In spite of my illness I am spending glorious days here with
Wagner, and am satiating myself with his Nibelungen world, of
which our business musicians and chaff-threshing critics have as
yet no suspicion. It is to be hoped that this tremendous work may
succeed in being performed in the year 1859, and I, on my side,
will not neglect anything to forward this performance as soon as
possible--a performance which certainly implies many difficulties
and exertions. Wagner requires for the purpose a special theater
built for himself, and a not ordinary acting and orchestral
staff. It goes without saying that the work can only appear
before the world under his own conducting; and if, as is much to
be wished, this should take place in Germany, his pardon must be
obtained before everything.--I comfort myself with the saying,
"What must be will be!" And thus I expect to be also standing on
my legs again soon, and to be back in Weymar in the early days of
December. It will be very kind of you if you will not let too
long a time elapse without coming to see me. For today accept
once more my heartfelt thanks, and the assurance of sincere
friendship of your
F. Liszt
Zurich, November 14th, 1856
166. To Louis Kohler
Enclosed, dear friend, is a rough copy of the Prelude to
"Rheingold," which Wagner has handed me for you, and which will
be sure to give you great pleasure.
After having been obliged to keep my bed for a couple of weeks,
which has lengthened out my stay here, I am now making ready to
go with Wagner the day after tomorrow to St. Gall, there to
conduct a couple of my Symphonic Poems with a very respectable
orchestra (twenty violins, six double basses, etc.). Toward the
middle of December I shall be back in Weymar, and shall continue
to write my stuff!--
A thousand friendly greetings.
F. Liszt
Zurich, November 21st, 1856
167. To Eduard Liszt
St. Gall, November 24th, 1856
.--. A really significant concert took place yesterday at St.
Gall. Wagner conducted the Eroica Symphony, and I conducted in
his honor two of my Symphonic Poems. The latter were excellently
given--and received. The St. Gall paper has several articles on
the subject, which I am sending you.
By Christmas I will send you the new copies of my Mass (which I
think I have considerably improved in the last revision,
especially by the concluding Fugue of the Gloria and a
heavenward-soaring climax of the subject.
[Here, Liszt illustrates with a vocal score excerpt at the point
where the singer sings: "et u-nam sanctam catho-li-camet a-po -
sto - - - - li-cam"]
Probably the work will be ready to appear by Easter. If you write
by return of post, you can send the ministerial answer to my
letter to Bach to me here. The contents, of which you have told
me, please me much, and I reckon with confidence that the
publishing of the score will fix the sense and meaning of my work
in public opinion. The work is truly "of pure musical water (not
in the sense of the ordinary diluted Church style, but like
diamond water) and living Catholic wine."
.--. Farewell, dearest Eduard, and remain true to me in heart and
spirit, as is also to you your
F. Liszt
168. To Alexander Ritter, Music Director in Stettin
Munich, December 4th, 1856
Dear Friend,
I received your letter on a day when I again greatly missed your
presence. We were together with Wagner at St. Gall, and the
Musical Society there had distinguished itself by the production
of an orchestra of ten first, ten second violins, eight violas,
six celli and double basses. Wagner conducted the Eroica, and I
two of my Symphonic Poems--"Orpheus" and "Les Preludes." The
performance and reception of my works were quite to my
satisfaction, and the "Preludes" had to be repeated (as they were
in Pest). Whether such a production would be possible in Stettin
I much doubt, in spite of your friendly advances. The open,
straightforward sense of the public is everywhere kept so much in
check by the oft-repeated rubbish of the men of the "But" and
"Yet," who batten on criticism, and appear to set themselves the
task of crushing to death every living endeavour, in order
thereby to increase their own reputation and importance, that I
must regard the rapid spread of my works almost as an imprudence.
You desire "Orpheus," "Tasso," and "Festklange" from me, dear
friend! But have you considered that "Orpheus" has no proper
working out section, and hovers quite simply between bliss and
woe, breathing out reconciliation in Art? Pray do not forget that
"Tasso" celebrates no psychic triumph, which an ingenious critic
has already denounced (probably mindful of the "inner camel,"
which Heine designates as an indispensable necessity of German
aestheticism!), and the "Festklange" sounded too confusedly noisy
even to our friend Pohl! And then what has all this canaille to
do with instruments of percussion, cymbals, triangle, and drum in
the sacred domain of Symphony? It is, believe me, not only
confusion and derangement of ideas, but also a prostitution of
the species itself!
Should you be of another opinion, allow me at least to keep you
from too greatly compromising yourself, so near to the doors of
the immaculate Berlin critics, and not to drag you with myself
into the corruption of my own juggling tone-poems. Your dear wife
(to whom I beg you to remember me most kindly) might be angry
with me for it, and I would not on any account be put into her
bad books. Instead of conducting my Symphonic Poems, rather give
lectures at home of the safe passport of Riehl's "Haus-Musik,"
and take well to heart the warning,
"Ruckkehr zum Mass." ["A returning within bounds." A footnote by
Liszt follows: "Dabei wird naturlich das Mass der
Mittelmassigkeit als einzig massgebend verstanden." ("By this is
of course understood the bounds of mediocrity as the one
limitation.") A play on the words, "Mass," "Massigkeit," and
"Massgebend."]
On this road alone can you soon attain a conductor's post, and
the "esteem" due to you as a music director, both from musicians
and people of rank.
For the rest you would entirely misconstrue my good advice if you
thought you could see in it only a pretext for not keeping my
former promise of coming to see you at Stettin. I shall most
certainly come to you on the first opportunity, and shall be
delighted to spend a couple of days with such excellent friends.
But first of all I must stop in Weymar for a while, in order to
finish some works begun, and to forget altogether my lengthy
illness in Zurich.
I had some glorious days with Wagner; and "Rheingold" and the
"Walkure" are incredibly wonderful works.
To my great sorrow, I only saw your brother Carl [A musician, a
friend of Wagner's.] a couple of times in the early days of my
stay in Zurich. I will tell you vaud voce how this happened, so
entirely against my wish and expectation, through a provoking
over-sensitiveness on the part of your brother. I am sure you
don't need any assurance that I did not give occasion in any way
to this. But for the future I must quietly wait till Carl thinks
better and more justly of it.
Farewell, dear friend, and let me soon hear from you again.
Yours in all friendship,
F. Liszt
Bronsart is going shortly to Paris, where he will stay some time.
Cornelius is working at a comic opera [This would be the Barber
of Baghdad.--Translator's note.] in the Bernhard's-Hutle. Raff is
to finish his "Samson" for Darmstadt. Tausig is giving concerts
in Warsaw. Pruckner will spend the winter in Vienna and appear at
several concerts. Damrosch composed lately an Overture and Entre-
acte music to the "Maid of Orleans." Stor plunges himself into
the duties of a general music director. Thus much have I learned
of our Neu-Weymar-Verein.
169. To Professor L. A. Zellner in Vienna
[General Secretary of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde ("Society
of Lovers of Music") in Vienna; composer and writer on music.]
To my letter of yesterday I have still to add a postscript, my
dear friend, concerning the information in your new
Abonnement,[The Blatter fur Musik, Theater, and Kunst ("Pages of
Music, theater, and Art"), edited by Z.] in which I was struck
with the name of Bertini among the classics, which does not
seem to me suitable. As far as I know, Bertini is still living,
[He did not die till 1876.] and according to the common idea, to
which one must stick fast, only those who are dead can rank as
classic and be proclaimed as classic. Thus Schumann, the
romanticist, and Beethoven, the glorious, holy, crazy one, have
become classics. Should Bertini have already died, I take back my
remark, although the popularity of his Studies is not, to me, a
satisfactory reason for making his name a classic.--Moscheles'
and Czerny's Studies and "Methods" would have a much more just
claim to such a thing, and your paper has especially to set
itself the task of counteracting, with principle and consistency,
the confusion of ideas from which confusion and ruin of matters
arise. Hold fast then to this principle, both in great and small
things, for the easier understanding with the public, that the
recognition of posterity alone impresses the stamp of "classical"
upon works, in the same way as facts and history are established;
for thus much is certain, that all great classics have been
reviled in their own day as innovators and even romanticists, if
not bunglers and crazy fellows, and you yourself have commented
on, and inquired into, this matter many times..--.
In your number of today I read an extract from my letter to
Erkel, [A well-known Hungarian composer ("Hunyadi Laszlo")] in
which, however, the points are missing. Erkel shall show you the
letter on the first opportunity, for he has not left it lying
idle in his desk. Of course no public use is to be made of it.
Yours ever, F. L.
January 2nd, 1857
170. To Herr von Turanyi, Musical Conductor of the Town of Aix-
la-Chapelle
[Published in the Allgemeine Musikzeitung, July 11th, 1890]
Weymar, January 3rd, 1857
Dear Herr Capellmeister,
Although I am still kept to my bed by a long-continued
indisposition, yet I will not delay giving you my warmest thanks
for the active pains you have so kindly taken to place my
endeavors in the cause of Art in a better light than I could
otherwise have expected in your neighborhood.
The result of the choice of myself as conductor of the Musical
Festival at Aix-la-Chapelle this year--a result which was
notified to me yesterday by the letter of the Committee of the
Lower-Rhine Musical Festival--is a welcome sign to me of the
gradual recognition which an open and honestly expressed,
consistent, and thoroughly disinterested conviction may meet with
in different places. Whilst feeling myself especially indebted to
you for having brought about this result, I would express to you
at the same time the fact of my readiness to answer your very
flattering wishes to the best of my powers, and to put aside any
hindrances that may be in the way, in order to fulfill the task
entrusted to me, if the following remarks are brought to the
attention of the Committee, as I consider them essential to the
success and also to the importance of the Musical Festival.
My conducting in Aix-la-Chapelle can only have such significance
as attaches to the less-known and newer works, and those which
are more nearly allied to the Art-interests of today; its
justification would be strengthened by an excellent performance
of such works. I was on this account completely in accordance
with the programme you so kindly sent me (with the addition of
one or two numbers), as I am unable to be with the other
programme, received in the letter of the Committee yesterday. The
latter is as follows:--
First day: Messiah by Handel.--Second day: Mass (in D major) by
Beethoven.
The former as follows:--
First day: Mass by Beethoven (preceded by one of the shorter
works of Handel--or possibly by a Cantata by Bach [?]).
Second day: Schubert's Symphony (in C); one of the larger choral
works of Schumann (say, perhaps, "The Rose's Pilgrimage"--or one
of the Ballades), and, as I should propose, one of the longer
scenes from Berlioz' "Faust," and one or other of my Symphonic
Poems.
You will not expect of me, dear Herr Capellmeister, that I should
go off into a great panegyric about Handel and, if you caught me
doing it, you might stop me immediately with the words of the
ancient Greek who did not want any more praises of Homer--"You
praise him, but who is thinking of blaming him?" The fullness and
glory of this musical majesty is as uncontested as the pleasant,
emulating, easily attainable performance of the "Messiah," a
chef-d'oeuvre, which has been for years the "daily bread," so to
speak, of great and small vocal societies both in England and
Germany. With the exception of Haydn's "Creation" there is
scarcely a work of that kind existing which could show such
countless performances. I, for my part, chose the "Messiah" for
performance again in Weymar (in August 1850)--partly because
Herder had interested himself in the preparation of the German
text--and in the previous August they celebrated the Middle-Rhine
Musical Festival at Darmstadt with it. This latter circumstance
enhances my general consideration as to the artistic
judiciousness of a repeated performance of the Messiah, up to a
special point in regard to the Aix-la-Chapelle Festival, and
therefore I should like the question put to the Committee
"whether they consider that, in the interests of the 'fresher
life of the Musical Festival there,' it can be advantageous for
the Lower-Rhine to repeat it after the Middle-Rhine."
The sentence in the letter of the Committee, in which the hope is
cherished and expressed that "the celebrated Frau Lind-
Goldschmidt may be engaged," leads me to an almost more serious
consideration.--
Do not be alarmed, dear sir, and do not be in the least afraid
that I am going to struggle, in the usual style of our
unchivalrous Don Quixote of musical criticism, with the windmill
of virtuosity. You could not fairly expect this of me either, for
I have never concealed that, since the grapes of virtuosity could
not be made sour for me, I should take no pleasure whatever in
finding them sour in somebody else's mouth.
Frau Land-Goldschmidt stands as incomparable in her glittering
renown as a singer as Handel in his as a composer, with the
difference--which is in Frau Lind's favor to boot--that Handel's
works weary many people and do not always succeed in filling the
coffers, whereas the mere appearance of Frau Lind secures the
utmost rapture of the public, as well as that of the cashier. If,
therefore, we place the affairs of the Musical Festival simply on
the satisfying and commercial debit and credit basis, certainly
no artist, and still less any work of Art, could venture to
compete with, and to offer an equal attraction to, the high and
highly celebrated name of Frau Lind. Without raising the
slightest objection to this, I must express my common-sense
opinion that with this magnet all others would be quite
superfluous, which, however, cannot be quite so indifferent to
me; for, as Louis XIV. represented the State, so Frau Lind would
constitute the Musical Festival proper. This avowal (for which I
deserve, at the very least, stoning with the usual ingredients of
operations of that kind in our civilized age, if I did not happen
to implore grace of the divine Diva herself)--this avowal I
already made last year, on occasion of the Dusseldorf Musical
Festival, to my esteemed friend of many years, Ferdinand Hiller.
What is the use of orchestra and singers, rehearsals and
preparations, pieces and programmes, when the public only want to
hear the Lind, and then hear her again--or, more correctly
speaking, when they must be able to say they leave heard her, in
order to be able to wallow at ease in their enthusiasm for Art?
What I foresaw then was also confirmed to a hair, for it proved,
as everybody knows, that all the sympathy of the public went in
favor of whatever Frau Lind did, so that the so-called Artist-
concert on the third day was the most fully attended, because in
it there were an aria from "Beatrice di Tenda" and Swedish songs
as special attraction--for which marvels the very simplest
pianoforte accompaniment was no doubt sufficient.--Should the
Committee of Aix-la-Chapelle be minded to take to heart the motto
of Hiller's Symphony, "Es muss doch Fruhling werden," ["The
spring will surely come."] in all its artistic endeavour, and, as
you write, to steer clear towards the goal of a "fresher
rekindling of the Musical Festival," we shall be obliged, alas!
to do without the Swedish Nightingale and Europe's Queen of Song.
In short, the point of the matter of this year's Musical Festival
at Aix-la-Chapelle is, as concerns myself, as follows:-
If they decide on having the "Messiah," I must beg to be pardoned
for having to excuse myself from coming. [Liszt finally dropped
his objection to the "Messiah." He had it performed at the
Musical Festival, conducted by him.]
If the Committee accepts the programme I have drawn (Schubert
Symphony, etc., including the last numbers) for the second day,
then it will be a pleasing duty to me to accept the honor of the
invitation, always supposing that the means for a brilliant
performance of the Beethoven Mass and the other works are
forthcoming, as one cannot doubt will be the case in Aix-la-
Chapelle--if my share in the Festival does not in any way give
offence to the neighboring towns, in which case I should of
course gladly and quietly retire, in order not to occasion any
disturbance, or unsatisfactorily prepared discord in the customs
of the musical Rhine-lands. I think there is no need for me to
accentuate the fact that a musical conductor cannot blindly
subscribe to just every programme that is put before him, and I
hope that the honorable Committee will not consider that there is
any assumption in my proposition to place the Aix-la-Chapelle
programme more in accord with my own collective endeavors.
I am writing a few lines of thanks by the next post to President
Herr Van Houten for the distinction shown to me about the
consideration contained in this letter, which I beg that you will
communicate to him verbally.
Awaiting further communications from the Committee, I remain,
dear Herr Capellmeister, with warm acknowledgements and high
esteem,
Yours very truly,
F. Liszt
171. To J. W. von Wasielewski in Dresden
Dear Friend,
Your letter reached me, after some delay, in Zurich, where I had
to keep my bed for several weeks--and today I write to you still
from my bed, and sulking because the geographical change which I
have made has not brought about any improvement in my
pathological condition (which, by the way, is quite without
danger).
How are you, dear Wasielewski? Have you settled yourself
pleasantly in Dresden? Are you working at music industriously and
methodically?--How far have you got in your biography of R.
Schumann? With regard to this work, the publication of which I am
awaiting with great interest, I am sorry to be unable to follow
the wish you so kindly express. Many letters addressed to me by
Schumann in earlier years are lost, and since my residence in
Weymar (from the year 1848) we certainly wrote to one another
from time to time, but only when theater or concert performances
of his works gave a sort of business occasion for it. Weymar does
not deserve the reproach of having kept itself too much in the
background in this respect. At the Goethe Festival in 1849 I had
the great closing scene to the second part of "Faust" given,
which was, later on, repeated; at the beginning of 1852 the music
to Byron's "Manfred," with a stage performance of the drama such
as he desired, was given several times, and, as far as I know, up
to now no other theater has made this attempt. [Liszt was
actually the first.] The Weymar theater is likewise the only one
which contains in its repertoire Schumann's "Genoveva" (which was
indeed given here for the first time in April 1855). It goes
without saying that, during the years of my work here, most of
his chamber music--Quartets, Trios, Sonatas--as well as his
Symphonies, Overtures, and Songs, have been cherished with
particular preference and love, and have been frequently heard in
various concerts, with the exception of one of the most
important; but the very slight amount of public activity of our
Vocal Union has prevented, as yet, any performance of the "Peri,"
which, however, has already been partly studied, and will ere
long be given at last.
As a contribution to your biographical studies, dear Wasielewski,
I should like to tell you truly with what sincere, heartfelt, and
complete reverence I have followed Schumann's genius during
twenty years and faithfully adhered to it. Although I am sure
that you, and all who know me more intimately, have no doubt
about this, yet at this moment the feeling comes over me--a
feeling which I cannot resist--to tell you more fully about my
relations with R. Schumann, which date from the year 1836, and to
give them you here plainly in extenso. Have a little patience,
therefore, in reading this letter, which I have not time to make
shorter.