I only beg you to be here about
the 4th November, in order to give us your own ideas at the final
rehearsals. If you decidedly prefer to be a spectator at the
performance, I will willingly conduct the work - but perhaps at
the general rehearsals the fancy may take you to mount the
conductor's chair, as I proposed to you at first: whatever you
definitely decide in this matter will only be agreeable to me.
Therefore just do as you generally do, I beg you, without
ceremony or bother of any kind.
How do you find yourself as regards the musical atmosphere of
Leipzig? Has your "Ocean" obtained the suffrages of the Areopagus
which must be its first judge? At which Gewandhaus Concert will
Mr. Van II. be heard? If you already know anything positive as to
your debuts in Leipzig, write it to me, with a continuation of
the commentaries which amused me so much in your former letter.
We have nothing of special news here which can interest you.
Madame Wagner returns to Weymar the day after tomorrow, and next
Sunday "Lohengrin" will be given. The Wednesday after that a new
singer (Mdlle. Stoger, the daughter of the director at Prague),
who possesses a beautiful voice and appears to be highly endowed,
will make her debut in "Lucrezia Borgia." On the 24th October I
expect Madame Schumann, whom you will already have seen and heard
at Leipzig. When you have an opportunity please tell her not to
delay her journey to Weymar, for I have made all the arrangements
with Mr. de Beaulieu, etc., from the 24th to the 26th, for the
Court Concert and for the one which will take place at the
theater in her honor.
My "Faust" is finished, and I am going to give it to the copyist
in a couple of days. I am very curious to make acquaintance with
yours, and to see in how far the beaux-esprits differ whilst
meeting on common ground! Your "murrendos" at Leipzig will have
proved favorable to your conversations with the Muse, and I look
forward to a fine Symphony. A revoir then, dear friend; on the
4th November, or the 5th at latest, we have the first performance
of an unpublished tragedy, "Bernhard von Weymar," for which Raff
has written a grand Overture and a March, and on the following
days your general rehearsals.
Yours in all friendship,
F. Liszt
125. To Dr. Franz Brendel
[Beginning of November, 1854]
Dear Friend,
Pohl's article on Lieder und Spruche, etc. (Songs and Sayings),
appears to me to be of general interest to the public - therefore
I begged you to put it in your paper.
Touching what you have reserved of Raff's, I am quite of opinion
that you should also make room for him in his critical
examinations of the Minnesingers. [The German poet-singers of the
Middle Ages.] The ground is an interesting and attractive one -
and if a rather warm discussion should ensue later on between
Raff and Pohl, the field of the Minnegesang (love-song) is by far
the most agreeable for both, as well as the more entertaining for
your readers. Ergo, put Pohl's article into your next number.
Raff can then spring his mines in honor of the Minnegesang when
he pleases. This may make a quite pleasant and harmless joke -
perchance a crown of lilies will mingle with it in the end and
shape the affair into a University concern...Your paper, in any
case, will not suffer. Therefore set to work and go through with
it!
In Bussenius [Bussenius, under the pseudonym W. Neumann,
published the set of biographies "The Composers of Recent Times"
(Balde, Cassel).] you have rightly found the man of whom I
previously foretold you somewhat. I think that by the New Year he
will settle at Gotha, and carry on there with his firm (Balde)
greater literary and publishing undertakings. Meanwhile don't
speak of this. When the outlook is more certain, and things are
favorably settled, I will tell you more.
I gladly accept your friendly invitation to write an article for
your New Year's number. In the course of the next few days you
will receive the article on Clara Schumann, and shortly
afterwards the second half of "Robert Schumann."
Cornelius has been rather unwell for several days, which has
delayed the translation. [Peter Cornelius translated the articles
written in French by Liszt - with the collaboration of the
Princess Wittgenstein - for the Neue Zeitschrift; those which are
published in vols. iii. to v. of the "Gesammelte Schriften."]
Will you, dear friend, be so good as to give my special thanks to
Herr Klitzsch for his article in today's number? By the favorable
manner in which he enters into the intentions of my Mass, and the
artistic sympathy he shows for my endeavour, he has given me a
very great pleasure. Probably a good opportunity will present
itself, later on, for me to undertake a further work in the
religious style, as I feel and conceive it, by the composition of
a "Missa Solemnis" for mixed chorus and orchestra...For the
present I cannot, however, occupy myself with this; but
aufgeschoben soll nicht aufgehoben heissen. [A German proverb -
"Put off is not given up."]
When I come to Leipzig I shall have the pleasure of calling on
Klitzsch and giving him my best thanks in person. If you think I
ought to write him a few lines before then, let me know.
Litolff was here several days, and we have come nearer together
both from a friendly and an artistic standpoint. His fourth
Concerto (Conzert-Symphonie) is a marked advance on the previous
ones. He played this, as well as the third Concerto, the day
before yesterday, in a truly masterly and electric, living
manner.
