Letters of Franz Liszt
Chapter 37 : 152. To Breitkopf & Hartel Dear Sir, Whatever fate may be in store for my Symphonic Poe

152. To Breitkopf & Hartel

Dear Sir,

Whatever fate may be in store for my Symphonic Poems, however much they may be cut up and pulled to pieces and found fault with through their performances and reviews everywhere, yet the sight of the beautiful manner in which these first six numbers are published and got up will always be a pleasant satisfaction to me, for which I give you my warmest and heartiest thanks..--. The two scores still wanting (Nos. 1 and 9) I will send you at the end of this month, and will request you to publish them in the same size and manner. Although there is somewhat of the SPECULATIVE in these things, yet [I] by no means seek

to make a speculation of it, and only expect your friendly favor in so far as a favorable pecuniary result may arise from it in future years. I am expecting next time the proofs of the two- piano arrangements, and you shall receive the two remaining piano arrangements at the same time as the two last scores..--.

In the matter of the Handel-Gesellschaft, [Handel Society] the scheme of which you have sent me, pray be a.s.sured of my most complete readiness. The choice of Messrs. Hauptmann, Dehn, Chrysander (Otto Jahn?), as the musical directors proper, I consider thoroughly suitable--as also of Messrs. Gervinus and Breitkopf and Hartel as members of the committee--and, as soon as the pecuniary basis of the undertaking is fixed, I shall not fail to get you some subscriptions, as I did for the Bach- Gesellschaft.

With warm thanks and esteem,

Yours very truly,

F. Liszt

Weymar, May 15th, 1856

If it is possible to you to send me soon the proofs of the five piano arrangements I shall be glad, as they make the comprehension and spread of the scores easier.

153. To Louis Kohler

Dear Friend,

After I had seen about your commission to Dr. Hartel, and he had sent me your Methode, [Systematic method of teaching for pianoforte playing and music, 1857 and 1858.] I delayed writing to you, because the result (favorable, as might be expected) of the little business had been already communicated to you through Hartel, and I wished at the same time to send you somewhat of my wares. Unfortunately, I have been hindered by multifarious occupations from getting through the proofs of my Symphonic Poems quickly; and, besides this, these proofs have taken up a great deal of my time; for although I had not omitted, in the first proofs, to have things altered in the scores many times, yet many things looked different to me in print from what I wished them to be, and I had to try them over again plainly with the orchestra, have them written out again, and ask for fresh proofs. At last the six first numbers have come out, and even if they are very badly done I can no longer do them otherwise or better. No doubt you have already received from Hartel the copy destined for you, and within a short time you will receive the somewhat freely arranged pianoforte edition--for two pianos--of the same things.

I tried at first a four-hand arrangement of them, which would be much more practicable for sale, but gave up this mutilation, as I saw that in four-hand pieces the working into one another of the hands stands too much in the way of my tone-picture. The two- piano arrangement sounds pa.s.sable, if I mistake not. Bulow, Bronsart, Pruckner, etc., have played it several times, and you will a.s.suredly find in Konigsberg a partner (masculine or feminine) who will beguile you into it. I shall be very glad if the things please you somewhat. I have labored too much in order to realize the requisite proportion and harmony, for them to be able to give me any other pleasure if some sympathy, and also some understanding of the spirit of them on the part of my few friends, does not fall to my share. However that may be, tell me, dear friend, quite candidly, without any compliments, what impression the pieces have made on you. The three numbers which will appear next are still longer, worse, and more venturesome.

But I cannot let matters rest there, for these nine numbers serve only as Prolegomena [Prologue, preface] to the "Faust" and "Dante" Symphonies. The former is already settled and finished, and the second more than half written out. "Away, away," [Written in English.] with Mazeppa's horse, regardless of the lazy hack that sticks in the mud of old patterns!

Let me soon hear from you how you dispose of your time in Konigsberg. In Frau Knopp you have got an excellent Ortrude. What have you been giving this winter? Do you keep on a good understanding with Marpurg? Is Pabst remaining in K.?

Don't forget also to let me have your Methode (I forget the exact t.i.tle) through Hartel. Although I have grown too old and too lazy to improve my piano-playing, yet I will get some good out of it for my pupils, amongst whom are two or three really brave, earnest fellows. Beyond that I have very little to tell you of Weymar. Since Berlioz' stay here, which gave occasion for the Litolff cudgel-smas.h.i.+ng newspaper rubbish, Carl Formes and Johanna Wagner have been playing here; the latter with well- deserved and extraordinary success in Gluck's "Orpheus" and "Iphigenia in Aulis" (in Wagner's translation and arrangement).

This evening the "Sleeping Beauty" (a fairy-tale epic), by Joachim Raff, will be given. According to my opinion, this is Raff's most successful and grateful work.

Farewell, dear friend, and bear in friendly remembrance

Your very sincere and obliged

F. Liszt

Weymar, May 24th, 1856

154. To Louis Kohler

My Very Dear Friend,

At last I have come out of my "Purgatory"--that is to say that I have come to the end of my symphony to Dante's "Divina Commedia."

Yesterday I wrote the final bars of the score (which is somewhat smaller in bulk than my "Faust" Symphony, but will take pretty nearly an hour in performance); and today, for rest and refreshment, I can allow myself the pleasure of giving you my friendliest thanks for your friendly letter. The dedication of your work "Systematic Method of Teaching for Pianoforte Playing and Music" (the latter must not be forgotten!) pleases me much, and you will allow me to take a modest revanche [revenge]

shortly, in dedicating one of my latest works to you. Probably Schlesinger will bring out several books of my songs next winter, in which you will perhaps find much that is in sympathy with your ideas of the melody of speech. Hence I wish that you would not refuse me the pleasure of using your name in connection with them, and of letting it precede them, as an interpretation, as it were, of the intention of the songs. Hartel will send you in a couple of days the first seven numbers of the arrangements for two pianofortes of my Symphonic Poems which have already appeared. An arrangement of that kind is not so easy to make use of as a four-hand one. Nevertheless, after I had tried to compa.s.s the score of Ta.s.so plainly into one pianoforte, I soon gave up this project for the others, on account of the unadvisable mutilation and defacement by the working into and through one another of the four-hand parts, and submitted to doing without tone and color and orchestral light and shade, but at any rate fixing an abstract rendering of the musical contents, which would be clear to the ear, by the two-piano arrangement (which I could arrange tolerably freely).

It is a very agreeable satisfaction to me that you, dear friend, have found some interest in the scores. For, however others may judge of the things, they are for me the necessary developments of my inner experiences, which have brought me to the conviction that invention and feeling are not so entirely evil in Art.

Certainly you very rightly observe that the forms (which are too often changed by quite respectable people into formulas) "First Subject, Middle Subject, After Subject, etc., may very much grow into a habit, because they must be so thoroughly natural, primitive, and very easily intelligible." Without making the slightest objection to this opinion, I only beg for permission to be allowed to decide upon the forms by the contents, and even should this permission be withheld from me from the side of the most commendable criticism, I shall none the less go on in my own modest way quite cheerfully. After all, in the end it comes princ.i.p.ally to this--WHAT the ideas are, and HOW they are carried out and worked up--and that leads us always back to the FEELING and INVENTION, if we would not scramble and struggle in the rut of a mere trade.

When is your Method of teaching coming out? I rejoice beforehand at all the incitement and forcible matter contained in it. You will shortly receive a circular with a letter from E. Hallberger (Stuttgart), who asks me to undertake the choice of pieces to appear in his edition of the "Pianoforte." Do send something soon to it; it is to be hoped that the establis.h.i.+ng and spreading of this collection will prove quite satisfactory.

Fare you well in your work, dear friend, and think affectionately of

Yours ever sincerely,

F. Liszt

Weymar, July 9th, 1856.

P.S.--In your next letter send me your exact address.

155. To Hoffmann von Fallersleben

[The well-known poet (1798-1874), who was living at that time in Weimar; was an intimate friend of Liszt, and in 1854 founded, with him, the Neu-Weimar-Verein, which, under the presidency of Liszt, was joined by all the most distinguished musicians, authors, and painters of Weimar.]

Dear Friend,

In your [The second person singular is employed in this letter]

pleasant villeggiatura, where you will find no lack of the Beautiful and Good, let yourself also be welcomed by a friend of the New-Weymar

School, who is truly yours. It is true I have nothing new to tell you. You already know that the Grand Duke received your poem on the morning of his birthday, and said the kindest things about it to me later on. Most of our colleagues of the Neu-Weimar-Verein are away and scattered in various countries;--Singer in Pesth; Soupper [Eugen v. Soupper, concert singer, a countryman of Liszt's, was in Weimar in 1855-56.] in Paris, where he is trying the solitude of a crowd (according to Chateaubriand's expression, "the crowd, that vast desert--not dessert--of men"); Stor [Music director in Weimar; died 1889.] at the bathing-place Heringsdorf, probably drawn there by a secret affinity between his herring form and the name of the place; Winterberger in Holland, to inspect the Haarlem and other organs, which he will certainly do in a masterly way; and Preller goes today to Kiel. On the Altenburg no change worth mentioning has taken place: visits of strangers to me fail not summer or winter, and, still less, works which have become my life's task. I might almost sing, like Hoffmann von Fallersleben,

"Hier sitz ich fest, ein Fels im Meer, Woran die Wellen toben; 's geht drunter, dran and druber her--Ich bleibe fortan oben"--

["Here firm I sit, a rock sea-girt, On which the waves are das.h.i.+ng, But I remain above, unhurt, Nor heed the waters'

las.h.i.+ng."]

if only there were more waves and less mars.h.!.+--

My travelling plans are still somewhat vacillating, because I cannot yet decide whether I shall go to Hungary or not. In any case I shall go and see R. Wagner, in the middle of September at latest, at Zurich, where Stahr at present is with his wife (f.a.n.n.y Lewald). Stahr will shortly publish a new volume of Paris Letters (about the Exhibition), and is translating Suetonius for the Cla.s.sical Library coming out at Stuttgart. He told me that there is a pa.s.sage in Suetonius which one can quite apply to the baptism of the Prince Imperial in Paris! After this precedent, why might not everything in the Horoe belg, and the Weymar Year- Book be proved as referring to something?

Remember me most warmly to your dear Amphitrion, whom I unfortunately did not manage to see again before her departure, and, if the Mildes are in the same house as you, give them my best greetings, woven into a toast.

Fare thee well, dearest friend, and do not remain too long away.

Thine in heartfelt friends.h.i.+p,

F. Liszt Weymar, July 14th, 1856