- Should The
Committee Of Aix-La-Chapelle Be Minded To Take To Heart The Motto
Of Hiller's Symphony, "Es Muss
Doch Fruhling werden," ["The
spring will surely come."] in all its artistic endeavour, and, as
you write, to steer clear
Towards the goal of a "fresher
rekindling of the Musical Festival," we shall be obliged, alas!
to do without the Swedish Nightingale and Europe's Queen of Song.
In short, the point of the matter of this year's Musical Festival
at Aix-la-Chapelle is, as concerns myself, as follows:-
If they decide on having the "Messiah," I must beg to be pardoned
for having to excuse myself from coming. [Liszt finally dropped
his objection to the "Messiah." He had it performed at the
Musical Festival, conducted by him.]
If the Committee accepts the programme I have drawn (Schubert
Symphony, etc., including the last numbers) for the second day,
then it will be a pleasing duty to me to accept the honor of the
invitation, always supposing that the means for a brilliant
performance of the Beethoven Mass and the other works are
forthcoming, as one cannot doubt will be the case in Aix-la-
Chapelle - if my share in the Festival does not in any way give
offence to the neighboring towns, in which case I should of
course gladly and quietly retire, in order not to occasion any
disturbance, or unsatisfactorily prepared discord in the customs
of the musical Rhine-lands. I think there is no need for me to
accentuate the fact that a musical conductor cannot blindly
subscribe to just every programme that is put before him, and I
hope that the honorable Committee will not consider that there is
any assumption in my proposition to place the Aix-la-Chapelle
programme more in accord with my own collective endeavors.
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