I Was On This Account Completely In Accordance
With The Programme You So Kindly Sent Me (With The Addition Of
One Or Two Numbers), As I Am Unable To Be With The Other
Programme, Received In The Letter Of The Committee Yesterday.
The
latter is as follows:
-
First day: Messiah by Handel. - Second day: Mass (in D major) by
Beethoven.
The former as follows: -
First day: Mass by Beethoven (preceded by one of the shorter
works of Handel - or possibly by a Cantata by Bach [?]).
Second day: Schubert's Symphony (in C); one of the larger choral
works of Schumann (say, perhaps, "The Rose's Pilgrimage" - or one
of the Ballades), and, as I should propose, one of the longer
scenes from Berlioz' "Faust," and one or other of my Symphonic
Poems.
You will not expect of me, dear Herr Capellmeister, that I should
go off into a great panegyric about Handel and, if you caught me
doing it, you might stop me immediately with the words of the
ancient Greek who did not want any more praises of Homer - "You
praise him, but who is thinking of blaming him?" The fullness and
glory of this musical majesty is as uncontested as the pleasant,
emulating, easily attainable performance of the "Messiah," a
chef-d'oeuvre, which has been for years the "daily bread," so to
speak, of great and small vocal societies both in England and
Germany. With the exception of Haydn's "Creation" there is
scarcely a work of that kind existing which could show such
countless performances. I, for my part, chose the "Messiah" for
performance again in Weymar (in August 1850) - partly because
Herder had interested himself in the preparation of the German
text - and in the previous August they celebrated the Middle-Rhine
Musical Festival at Darmstadt with it. This latter circumstance
enhances my general consideration as to the artistic
judiciousness of a repeated performance of the Messiah, up to a
special point in regard to the Aix-la-Chapelle Festival, and
therefore I should like the question put to the Committee
"whether they consider that, in the interests of the 'fresher
life of the Musical Festival there,' it can be advantageous for
the Lower-Rhine to repeat it after the Middle-Rhine."
The sentence in the letter of the Committee, in which the hope is
cherished and expressed that "the celebrated Frau Lind-
Goldschmidt may be engaged," leads me to an almost more serious
consideration. -
Do not be alarmed, dear sir, and do not be in the least afraid
that I am going to struggle, in the usual style of our
unchivalrous Don Quixote of musical criticism, with the windmill
of virtuosity. You could not fairly expect this of me either, for
I have never concealed that, since the grapes of virtuosity could
not be made sour for me, I should take no pleasure whatever in
finding them sour in somebody else's mouth.
Frau Land-Goldschmidt stands as incomparable in her glittering
renown as a singer as Handel in his as a composer, with the
difference - which is in Frau Lind's favor to boot - that Handel's
works weary many people and do not always succeed in filling the
coffers, whereas the mere appearance of Frau Lind secures the
utmost rapture of the public, as well as that of the cashier. If,
therefore, we place the affairs of the Musical Festival simply on
the satisfying and commercial debit and credit basis, certainly
no artist, and still less any work of Art, could venture to
compete with, and to offer an equal attraction to, the high and
highly celebrated name of Frau Lind. Without raising the
slightest objection to this, I must express my common-sense
opinion that with this magnet all others would be quite
superfluous, which, however, cannot be quite so indifferent to
me; for, as Louis XIV. represented the State, so Frau Lind would
constitute the Musical Festival proper. This avowal (for which I
deserve, at the very least, stoning with the usual ingredients of
operations of that kind in our civilized age, if I did not happen
to implore grace of the divine Diva herself) - this avowal I
already made last year, on occasion of the Dusseldorf Musical
Festival, to my esteemed friend of many years, Ferdinand Hiller.
What is the use of orchestra and singers, rehearsals and
preparations, pieces and programmes, when the public only want to
hear the Lind, and then hear her again - or, more correctly
speaking, when they must be able to say they leave heard her, in
order to be able to wallow at ease in their enthusiasm for Art?
What I foresaw then was also confirmed to a hair, for it proved,
as everybody knows, that all the sympathy of the public went in
favor of whatever Frau Lind did, so that the so-called Artist-
concert on the third day was the most fully attended, because in
it there were an aria from "Beatrice di Tenda" and Swedish songs
as special attraction - for which marvels the very simplest
pianoforte accompaniment was no doubt sufficient. - 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.
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