Letters of Franz Liszt
Chapter 144 : Really and truly when it sometimes happens that I obtain success I rejoice less over t

Really and truly when it sometimes happens that I obtain success I rejoice less over that than over the success of my friends.

Thank you for the pleasant tidings of the brilliant success of Ossiana [Madame Marie Jaell, the well-known artiste, a friend of Liszt's.] at G.o.dard's concert. .--.

You do not tell me where the little notice appeared (with my name at the heading) which you were so good as to send me. [In the Gaulois, from the pen of Fourcaud, and, later, in the Alb.u.m of the Gaulois, to which the most celebrated tone-poets had contributed a piece of music as yet unpublished.] One of my works is mentioned in it with the greatest eulogy--the Gran Ma.s.s--which was so unhappily performed at Paris in '66, and more unhappily criticised then...The mistake I made was not to have forbidden a performance given under such deplorable conditions. A philanthropic reason, which is valueless in matters of Art, kept me from doing so. I did not wish to deprive the fund for the poor of the a.s.sured receipts of more than 40,000 francs. Pardon me for recalling this vexatious affair, which makes me all the more sensible of the flattering attention which the same work is receiving.

To my great regret the performances of Henry VIII. by our very valiant friend St. Saens, which were to have taken place at Weimar and Budapest, are put off. Mediocrity, as Balzac said, governs even theaters. Anyhow its power must sometimes be intermittent. Please say many cordial things to your husband from your much attached

F. Liszt

On Wednesday I shall be in Rome, and back here towards the middle of January.

354. To Freiherr Hans Von Wolzogen

Dear Freiherr,

Hearty thanks for your kind letter. To include me in your n.o.ble, zealous, high-minded efforts in matters for the glorification of Wagner and according to the wishes of his widow, is to me ever a duty and an honor.

Faithfully yours,

F. Liszt

Rome, December 18th, 1884

355. To Camille Saint-Saens

[End of 1884 or beginning of 1885.]

Very Dear Friend and Companion in Arms,

Your sympathy for the "Salve, Polonia" [Orchestral Interlude from the unfinished Oratorio Stanislaus. It was given at the Tonkunstler-Versammlung in Weimar in 1884, at which Saint-Saens was present.] makes me quite happy. Still writing music, as I am, I sometimes ask myself at such and such a pa.s.sage, "Would that please St. Saens?" The affirmative encourages me to go on, in spite of the fatigue of age and other wearinesses.

If you do me the honor of playing one of my compositions at the Carlsruhe Festival please choose which it shall be: perhaps the Danse macabre [Dance of Death] with orchestra; or--which I think would be better, for the public would rather hear you alone--the Predication aux oiseaux [St. Francis preaching to the birds, followed by Scherzo and March. [Saint-Saens did not go to Carlsruhe.]

Cordial wishes for the year '85, and ever your admiringly attached

F. Liszt

Give my best remembrances from Budapest to Delibes.

356. To Countess Mercy-Argenteau

What wonders you have just accomplished with your Russian concert at Liege, dear admirable one! From the material point of view the Deaf and Dumb and Blind Inst.i.tutions have benefited by it; artistically, other deaf and dumb have heard and spoken; the blind have seen, and, on beholding you, were enraptured.

I shall a.s.suredly not cease from my propaganda of the remarkable compositions of the New Russian School, which I esteem and appreciate with lively sympathy. For 6 or 7 years past, at the Grand Annual Concerts of the Musical a.s.sociation ("Allgemeiner Deutscher Musik-Verein"), over which I have the honor of presiding, the orchestral works of Rimsky-Korsakoff and Borodine have figured on the programmes. Their success is making a crescendo, in spite of the sort of contumacy that is established against Russian music. It is not in the least any desire of being peculiar that leads me to spread it, but a simple feeling of justice, based on my conviction of the real worth of these works of high lineage. I do not know which ones Hans von Bulow, the Achilles of propagandists, chose for the Russian concert he gave lately with the Meiningen orchestra, of an unheard-of discipline and perfection.

I hope Bulow will continue concerts of the same quality in various towns of Germany.

The best among my disciples, brilliant virtuosi, play the most difficult piano compositions of Balakireff, etc., superbly. I shall recommend to them Cui's Suite (piano and violoncello).

Considering the rarity of singers gifted at once with voice, intelligence and good taste for things not hackneyed,--there is some delay in regard to the vocal compositions of Cui, Borodine, etc. Nevertheless the right time for their production will come, and for making them succeed and be appreciated. In France your translation of the words will be a great help, and in Germany we must be provided with a suitable translation.

A portion of the articles which you kindly sent me upon your concert at Liege shallbe inserted in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik. I shall endeavor to find another paper also, although my relations with the Press are by no means intimate.

Rahter, the musical editor at Hamburg, and representative of Jurgenson in Moscow, will offer you in homage three of my Russian transcriptions,--Tschaikowsky's "Polonaise"; Dargomijsky's "Tarentelle" with the continuous pedal ba.s.s of A, A; and a "Romance" of Count Michel Wielhorsky. Let us add to these the "Marche tscherkesse" of Glinka, and, above all, the prodigious kaleidoscope of variations and paraphrases on the fixed theme

[Here, Liszt ill.u.s.trates with a musical score excerpt]

It is the most seriously entertaining thing I know; it gives us a practical manual, par excellence, of all musical knowledge; treatises on harmony and composition are summed up and blended in it in some thirty pages, which teach the subject very fully-- above and beyond the usual instruction.

My very amiable hosts at Antwerp, the Lynens, have invited me to return there this summer at the time of the Exhibition, of which M. Lynen is the president. I am tempted to do so after the Carlsruhe Festival, as I keep a charming remembrance of the kindness that was shown to me in Brussels and Antwerp.

In about ten days I return to Budapest, whence you shall receive a photograph of the old, sorry face of your constant admirer and devoted servant,

F. Liszt

Rome, January 20th, 1885

A pertinacious editor keeps asking me for my transcription of Gounod's "Ste. Cecile." If amongst your old papers you should find the ma.n.u.script of it, will you lend it me for a fortnight, so that it may be copied, printed, and then restored to its very gracious owner?

February and March my address--Budapest, Hungary.

357. To Camille Saint-Saens.

Very honored, dear Friend,

In order not to become too monotonous I won't thank you any more.

Nevertheless your transcription of my Orpheus for Piano, Violin and Violoncello charms me, and I beg that you will send it either to Hartel direct, so that he may publish it at once, or else to yours very gratefully, so that I may remit it to him, after having had the pleasure of reading and hearing it at Budapest, whither, by next Thursday, will have returned

Your much-attached fellow-disciple,

F. Liszt.

Florence, Tuesday, January 27th, 1885.

Goodbye till we meet in May at Carlsruhe.

358. To Madame Malwine Tardieu.

I am writing to the director of our "Musik-Verein" to write to you, dear friend. You will tell Mademoiselle Kufferath, better than any one else can, how agreeable it will be to everybody, and to myself in particular, if she takes part in the concerts at Carlsruhe--in the last days of May. [This did not come to anything. Saint-Saens' "Deluge," in which she was to have sung, was not performed at Carlsruhe, and meanwhile Fraulein Kufferath married and gave up her artistic career.]