Letters of Franz Liszt
Chapter 40 : 164. To Dr. Gille, Councillor of Justice at Jena [An ardent friend of Liszt's, a p

164. To Dr. Gille, Councillor of Justice at Jena

[An ardent friend of Liszt's, a promoter of musical endeavors, a co-founder and member of the Committee (General Secretary) of the Allgemeine Deutsche Musikverein, is at the head of the Liszt Museum in Weimar, and lives in Jena, where he is Prince's Council and Councillor of Justice.]

Zurich, November 14th, 1856

My very dear Friend,

I am heartily rejoiced at the honorable proof of the sympathy and attachment of our Circulus harmonicus Academiae Jenensis, which was prepared for me for the 22nd October by your kindness, and I give you my warmest thanks for it, begging you to be so good as to pa.s.s them on also to our friends Stade and Herr Schafer, whose names strengthen the diploma.

It touches me deeply that you join the Gran Basilica and my "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 Ma.s.s 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 Ma.s.s 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 Polytechnik.u.m 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-thres.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.surance of sincere friends.h.i.+p 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 ba.s.ses, 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 Ma.s.s (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 ill.u.s.trates 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 publis.h.i.+ng 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 ba.s.ses. 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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," "Ta.s.so," 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 "Ta.s.so" 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 prost.i.tution 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 pa.s.sport of Riehl's "Haus-Musik,"

and take well to heart the warning,

"Ruckkehr zum Ma.s.s." ["A returning within bounds." A footnote by Liszt follows: "Dabei wird naturlich das Ma.s.s der Mittelma.s.sigkeit als einzig ma.s.sgebend verstanden." ("By this is of course understood the bounds of mediocrity as the one limitation.") A play on the words, "Ma.s.s," "Ma.s.sigkeit," and "Ma.s.sgebend."]

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 a.s.surance 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.