Letters of Franz Liszt
Chapter 45 : About the 15th May I shall be going to Aix-la-Chapelle, to conduct the Musical Festival

About the 15th May I shall be going to Aix-la-Chapelle, to conduct the Musical Festival there at Whitsuntide. That will be another good opportunity for many papers to abuse me, and to let off their bile!--If the programme which I shall put forward is realized at the September Festival you must come here and hear it with me.

My mother writes from Paris that Blandine has been living with the Countess d'A. since the 20th of this month. Cosima's marriage with H. von Bulow will probably take place before September.

About Daniel the Princess will write to you fully when she is better.

G.o.d be with you and yours. Yours from my heart,

F. Liszt

Weimar, April 27th, 1857

183. To Frau von Kaulbach

[The letter, together with the following one, written by Kaulbach to Liszt in the fifties, was published in the Tagliche Rundschau [Daily Review], and afterwards in the Neue Berline Musikzeitung [Berlin New Musical Paper] of March 19th, 1891. It is well known that Liszt derived his inspiration to write the Hunnenschlachl [Battle of the Huns] from Kaulbach's celebrated picture on the staircase of the New Museum in Berlin. He intended to work up the six pictures of Kaulbach's which are there, in a similar symphonic manner, probably for theatrical performance in Weimar.

Dingelstedt appears also to have planned an after-poem in verses.

Kaulbach's letter to his friend is as follows: "Your original and spirited idea--the musical and poetic form of the historical pictures in the Berlin Museum--has taken hold of me completely. I much wish to hear yours and Dingelstedt's ideas of this performance. The representation of these powerful subjects in poetical, musical, and artistic form must const.i.tute a harmonious work, rounded off into one complete whole. It will resound and s.h.i.+ne through all lands!!--I shall therefore hasten to Weimar, as soon as my work here will let me free.--With the warmest regards to the Princess, that truly inspired friend of Art, and to her charming daughter, from myself and my wife, I remain, in unchangeable respect and friends.h.i.+p, Your faithful, W.

Kaulbach."]

Dear Madam,

I have been encouraged to send you what indeed truly belongs to you, but what, alas! I must send in so shabby a dress that I must beg from you all the indulgence that you have so often kindly shown me. At the same time with these lines you will receive the ma.n.u.script of the two-pianoforte arrangement of my Symphonic Poem "Die Hunnenschlacht" (written for a large orchestra and completed by the end of last February), and I beg you, dear madam, to do me the favor to accept this work as a token of my great reverence and most devoted friends.h.i.+p towards the Master of masters.

Perhaps there may be an opportunity later on, in Munich or Weymar, in which I can have the work performed before you with full orchestra, and can give a voice to the meteoric and solar light which I have borrowed from the painting, and which at the Finale I have formed into one whole by the gradual working up of the Catholic chorale "Crux fidelis," and the meteoric sparks blended therewith. As I already intimated to Kaulbach in Munich, I was led by the musical demands of the material to give proportionately more place to the solar light of Christianity, personified in the Catholic chorale "Crux fidelis," than appears to be the case in the glorious painting, in order thereby to win and pregnantly represent the conclusion of the Victory of the Cross, with which I, both as a Catholic and as a man, could not dispense.

Kindly excuse this somewhat obscure commentary on the two opposing streams of light in which the Huns and the Cross are moving; the performance will make the matter bright and clear-- and if Kaulbach finds something to amuse him in this somewhat venturesome mirroring of his fancy I shall be royally delighted.

Through Dingelstedt, whom our Grand Duke is taking away from Munich, you have heard the latest news from Weymar, and I have, alas! only bad news to give you of the Princess W. For many weeks she has been confined to bed with acute rheumatism, and it is hardly likely that she will be restored to health before my departure for Aix-la-Chapelle towards the middle of May. Allow me, my dear lady, to beg you to give Kaulbach my warmest and most hearty thanks for the wonderful sketch of Orpheus with which he has honored and delighted me; and once more begging you to pardon me for the dreadful scrawl of my ma.n.u.script, I remain yours with all respect and devoted friends.h.i.+p,

F. Liszt

Weymar, May 1st, 1857

184. To Fedor von Milde, Kammersanger

[A singer in the service of a prince] in Weimar [An excellent Wagner singer. The first Telramund in Lohengrin.]

Dear Friend,

I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of letting you know of the really extraordinary success, not made up, but thoroughly effectual and brilliant, of your wife. [Rosa, nee Agthe, trained by Franz Gotze.] Cologne, Dusseldorf, Bonn, Elberfeld, and the entire neighborhood agree with Aix-la-Chapelle that your wife made the festivity of the Musical Festival; and although success cannot as a rule be considered as a criterion of artistic worth, yet if it be attested so truly and de bon aloi as in this case, and follow that artistic worth, it has something refres.h.i.+ng and strengthening in which we, in trio, can fully rejoice.

A speedy meeting to us, and friendly greetings and thanks from

Yours ever,

F. Liszt

Aix-La-Chappelle, Wednesday, June 3rd, 1857

185. To Johann von Herbeck

Weymar, June 12th, 1857

Dear Sir and Friend,

On my return from the Aix-la-Chapelle Musical Festival--which may be considered successful on the whole, from the very fact that opponents do not conceal their dissatisfaction--I find here your kind letter, for which I send you my warmest thanks. My excellent cousin and friend, Dr. Eduard Liszt, had already informed me of your kind willingness to undertake the instrumentation of my Vocal Ma.s.s: I am entirely in accord with the various sketches you so kindly lay before me in your letter, and only beg you, dear sir, to complete this work according to your own best judgment, without any small considerations. I certainly should not wish the organ to be absent from it, but it is a perfectly correct idea to give those pa.s.sages in the Kyrie, Suscipe deprecationem, Crucifixus, and others besides,

[A score appears here]

to the wind exclusively. When I expressed to my cousin my wish to place the instrumentation of the Ma.s.s in your hands, it was because I was convinced beforehand of the excellence of your work. The examples which you have given me in your letter show me that I was not wrong, and I shall rejoice most sincerely when the moment arrives for us to go through the whole score together.

Eduard intends to visit me here towards the end of August, and if it is possible for you to come to Weymar at the same time with him, and to stay a few days in my house, it will be very agreeable to me.

On the 3rd, 4th, and 5th September the Jubilee festivities of the Grand Duke Carl August will take place here, on which occasion I propose to perform several of my later orchestral compositions, and also the chorus "An die Kiinstler." ["To Artists."] Eduard will give you a more detailed programme of the Festival later on.

Should you, however, be prevented from being present at it, it needs no special a.s.surance to you that your visit will be very welcome to me any day, and I will do my best that you shall not suffer from ennui in Weymar. [Herbeck accepted the invitation.]

May I also beg you to send me, when you have an opportunity, and if possible very soon, the parts of your Quartet, [D minor, unpublished] which pleases me so much, and which, both in its mood and in its writing of the different parts, is so eminently n.o.ble and finely sustained. In case you have not been able to arrange for the copying of the parts, it will be a pleasure to me to get them copied here. Our Weymar quartet, Messrs. Singer, Stor, Walbruhl, and Cossmann, is competent for this work, and you will, I trust, be satisfied with the performance. Unfortunately Cossmann's illness has prevented our usual quartet-productions for some months past, and Cossmann was also unable to take part in the Aix-la-Chapelle Musical Festival. But yesterday he told me that in a few days he should be able to take up his bow again, and therefore I want them to set to work on your Quartet at once.

To our speedy meeting then, and once more best thanks from yours in all friends.h.i.+p,

F. Liszt

186. To Countess Rosalie Sauerma, nee Spohr

Your letter gave me great pleasure, dear Countess and admirable artist, and, though still obliged to keep my bed (which I have been able to leave so little during the whole winter), I hasten to rea.s.sure you entirely about my state of health. As a fact, I have never done my obstinate illness the honor of considering it serious, and now less than ever, for I hope to have entirely got over it by the end of the week. So do not let us talk about it any more, and let me tell you at once how sincerely I rejoice in your projects of being, so to say, in the neighborhood of Dresden, for it seems to me that, among the towns of Germany, it is the one in which you will find most charm. I shall certainly come and pay you my visit there in the course of the winter, and I hope also that you will not altogether forget your friends of Weymar.

When you come back here, you will find very little change, but simply three more Weymarers--Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland--whose statues will be inaugurated next September, on the occasion of the celebration of the Jubilee fetes of the Grand Duke Carl August. They are also planning music for the occasion; and I predict to you beforehand that you will be able to read all sorts of unflattering things on this subject, as the music in question will be in great part my composition. However that may be, I shall try to have always something better to do than to trouble myself with what is said or written about me.

How delighted I shall be to hear you again, and to rock myself as in a hammock to the sound of your arpeggi. You have not, I am sure, broken off your good habits of work, and your talent is certain to be more magnificent than ever. Quite lately Madame Pohl, who played Parish Alvars' Oberon Fantaisie charmingly, recalled most vividly the remembrance of the delightful hours at Eilsen and Weymar, which I hope soon to resume at Dresden...Be so kind as to present my best compliments to your husband and all your dear ones, and pray accept, dear Countess, the expression of most affectionate homage from yours very sincerely,

F. Liszt

Weymar, June 22nd, 1857

The Princess W. has been very seriously ill for more than two months; she is only just convalescent, and bids me give her best remembrances to you.

187. To Ludmilla Schestakoff, nee Glinka, in St. Petersburg

[sister of the celebrated Russian composer Glinka]

Madame,

I wish I were able to tell you how much I have been touched by the letter you have done me the honor to address to me. Thank you for having thought of me as one of the most sincere and zealous admirers of the fine genius of your brother, so worthy of a n.o.ble glory for the very reason that it was above vulgar successes. And again thank you for the grace which prompts you to wish to inscribe my name on one of his orchestral works, which are certain to be valued and to obtain a sympathetic preference from people of taste.