- Forgive me for all these Lucullian extravagances! -
I will write soon to Cornelius. Give him my heartfelt greetings.
Also please remember me kindly to Dr. Kulke. I will give him my
thanks by letter on the first opportunity for his Prometheus
articles, as I would have already done through Cornelius, had he
not started so suddenly. -
Now farewell, dearest Eduard. Spare yourself and take care of
your health. Assure your dear wife of my heartfelt attachment,
and kiss your children for your faithful
F. Liszt
Weymar, July 9th, 1860
238. To Ingeborg Stark
[Summer, 1860]
If a sort of idiosyncrasy against letters did not hold me back I
should have told you long ago what pleasure your charming letter
from Paris gave me, and what a sincere part I have taken in your
late successes, dear enchantress. But you must know all that far
better than I could succeed in writing it.
So let us talk of something else - for instance, Baron
Vietinghoff's [He took the noun de plume Boris Scheel, and in
1885 he performed his opera "Der Daemon" in St. Petersburg, which
originated twenty years before that of Rubinstein.] Overture,
which you were so kind as to send me, and which I have run
through with B[ronsart] during his short stay at Weymar - too
short to please me, but doubtless much too long for you! - The
Overture in question is not wanting either in imagination or
spirit. It is the work of a man musically much gifted, but who
has not yet sufficiently handled his subject. When you have an
opportunity, will you give my best compliments to the author, and
give him also the little scale of chords that I add? It is
nothing but a very simple development of the scale, terrifying
for all the long and protruding ears, [Figure demonstrating a
descending whole-tone scale] that Mr. de Vietinghoff employs in
the final presto of his overture (page 66 of the score).
Tausig makes a pretty fair use of it in his Geisterschaff; and in
the classes of the Conservatoire, in which the high art of the
mad dog is duly taught, the existing elementary exercises of the
piano methods, [Figure: Musical example; a five-finger exercise]
which are of a sonorousness as disagreeable as they are
incomplete, ought to be replaced by this one, which will thus
form the unique basis of the method of harmony - all the other
chords, in use or not, being unable to be employed except by the
arbitrary curtailment of such and such an interval.
In fact it will soon be necessary to complete the system by the
admission of quarter and half-quarter tones until something
better turns up! -
Behold the abyss of progress into which the abominable "Musicians
of the Future" precipitate us!
Take care that you do not let yourself be contaminated by this
pest of Art!
For a week past it has done nothing but rain here, and I have
been obliged to have fires and stoves lighted in the house. If by
chance you are favored with such a temperature at Schwalbach, I
invite you to profit by it to make some new Fugues, and to make
up, by plenty of work for the pedals, for the pedestrian exercise
of which you would be necessarily deprived.
B., to whom I beg you to give my cordial and kind remembrances,
led me to hope that you will stay a couple of days at Weymar
after your cure. If this could be so arranged I for my part
should be delighted, and should pick a quarrel with you (even if
it were a German quarrel!) if you were not completely persuaded
of it!
Remember me most affectionately to la Sagesse, and do me the
kindness to count, under all circumstances, on
Your very sincerely devoted
F. Liszt
239. To Dr. Franz Brendel
Dear Friend,
Your last proposition is the best. Come quite simply to me at
Weymar. As I am now quite alone at home we can hold our
conference and arrange matters most conveniently at the
Altenburg. I am writing at the same time to Bulow at Wiesbaden
(where he is giving a concert tomorrow, Friday), to beg him to
arrange with you about the day on which the meeting shall be held
here. You two have to decide this. Of course you will stay with
me. There shall also be a room in readiness for Kahnt.
With regard to Wagner's pardon [Wagner had been exiled from
Germany for political reasons.] I am expecting reliable
information shortly. It seems strange that the Dresden papers
should not have been the first to give the official announcement,
and that an act of pardon of H.M. the King of Saxony should be
made known through the "Bohemia" (in Prague). Wagner has not yet
written to me.
To our speedy meeting. Heartily your
F. Liszt
August 9th, 1860
240. To Princess Caroline Sayn-Wittgenstein.
[Portions of the above were published in the Neue Zeitschrift fur
Musik of 4th May, 1887.]
Weymar, September 14th, 1860
I am writing this down on the 14th September, the day on which
the Church celebrates the Festival of the Holy Cross. The
denomination of this festival is also that of the glowing and
mysterious feeling which has pierced my entire life as with a
sacred wound.
Yes, "Jesus Christ on the Cross," a yearning longing after the
Cross and the raising of the Cross, - this was ever my true inner
calling; I have felt it in my innermost heart ever since my
seventeenth year, in which I implored with humility and tears
that I might be permitted to enter the Paris Seminary; at that
time I hoped it would be granted to me to live the life of the
saints and perhaps even to die a martyr's death.
