Chapter 6

You have punished me in your amiable manner. I reproached myself very much about this Berlin affair; in any case I was too rash, and settled the matter too quickly after my fashion. I ought to have asked you, as you were my plenipotentiary, to cede the opera finally to Hulsen; that would have been better, and you would, no doubt, have undertaken this last transaction to please me. But the whole matter had long ago become so disgusting to me that I lost all energy in connection with it, and felt inclined to finish it as abruptly as possible, so as to hear no more of it. Do not believe that I was brought to this resolution through my "Berlin friends," but exclusively through my pecuniary position, which is accurately known to you, and which has tied my hands as to this point. I was COMPELLED to think of raising money. I have therefore asked for an advance of a hundred louis d'or on account of royalties, and as to the rest have ceded the opera without any conditions. To tell you the truth, everything else in connection with my operas has become a matter of perfect indifference to me. Looking at it carefully, it seems to me that my wish that you should be called to Berlin for the performance of "Tannhauser" has by no means been frustrated thereby. The decision of this matter was never really within the power of the intendant of the theatre. The King alone can suspend the usual order, and HIS decision is quite independent of what the intendant can do on his own authority. It appears to me therefore that our condition was made to an authority which could not have granted it. My giving or not giving the opera to the management was a thing apart; and as regards the invitation to you, this remains a matter which we ought to work with the King direct. Unfortunately it seems that you have little hope of this. What could be done to get some thing out of the King after all? Should I have the impudence to write to him and to try in my own way what seems impossible in any other? The thought of accomplishing my wish after all is the only thing which suddenly places this Berlin affair once more in an interesting light. What do you think of it?

For your news and for the beautiful lines of the dear Princess I am cordially grateful.

Unfortunately I have nothing reasonable to tell you in return. My whole existence here is a perfect anomaly. I am in a strange element and in a thoroughly false position. If at Zurich I conduct symphonies now and then, it is done for the sake of amusement and to please a few friends; to make a vocation of it, in the sense that I am to be judged as an artist by a wholly unsympathetic public and press on these grounds, is simply an absurdity. I sincerely regret that I am here, and shall never in my life come again. Pecuniary success is out of the question; and even if they were to offer me a larger fee for next year, I should probably feel bound to decline it: the misery I have to undergo is too great. This is not MY BUSINESS, and if at my present age, and in the unsettled condition of my health, I cannot at least abide by my business, I would rather not abide at all; I have quite enough to bear without that.

Perfect performances, which in the long run could alone console me, I cannot achieve. The rehearsals are too few, and everything is done in too businesslike a manner. Although the pieces from "Lohengrin" were favourably received, I am sorry that I have given them. My annoyance at being compelled to produce such trifling specimens of my work and to have my whole being judged thereby is too great. I also hate like poison to have to take a single step in order to gain the favour of that wretched pack of journalists. They continue abusing me to their heart's delight, and the only thing that surprises me is that the public have not so far allowed themselves to be misled. In short, I would have nothing to do with these contemptible matters even if I happened to please the people.

Let me finish my "Nibelungen;" that is all I desire. If my noble contemporaries will not help me to that, they may go to the devil, with all their honour and glory. Through London I have got into awful arrears with my work; only yesterday was I able to finish the instrumentation of the first act of the "Valkyie." Body and soul are weighed down as by a load of lead. My chief wish for this year--to begin "Young Siegfried" at once after my return at Seelisberg--I shall have to give up, for it is very unlikely that I shall get beyond the second act of the "Valkyrie" here. Such as I am, I want a soft, clinging element around me, in order to feel gladly inclined for work. This eternal need of self-condensation for the purpose of self-defence supplies me with obstinacy and contempt, but not with the love of expansion and production.

Klindworth has probably written to you; at least he was startled when I recently conveyed your reminder to him. He was ill, and is not doing well here, but how am I to help him? Blackguardism, obstinacy, and religiously nursed stupidity are here protected with iron walls; only a blackguard and a Jew can succeed here.

Upon the whole, you were right in retiring to Weimar; as much solitude as possible, that alone can save us.

The Hartels sent me the bill of exchange yesterday; many thanks. Cannot B. do the pianoforte arrangement?

He had only just begun the "Rhinegold," when I took the score away from him to send it to you. As soon as the copy at Dresden has been finished, he is to have it for the completion of the pianoforte arrangement; and after that, if you wish it, it is to be sent to you. Shall we see each other this year, perhaps on your return from Hungary? That would be something like it! Perhaps at that time I should have recovered my voice, which here has disappeared entirely.

Farewell, dearest friend. Patience--that is all that remains to us. Remember me to all at Altenburg. Much luck to your mass!

Farewell, dear, dear Franz.

184.

Klindworth has just played your great sonata to me.

We passed the day alone together; he dined with me, and after dinner I made him play. Dearest Franz, you were with me; the sonata is beautiful beyond anything, grand and sweet, deep and noble, sublime as you are yourself. It moved me most deeply, and the London misery was forgotten all at once. More I cannot say, not just after having heard it, but of what I say I am as full as man can be. Once more, you were with me! Ah, could you soon be with me wholly and bodily, then we might support life beautifully.

Klindworth astonished me by his playing; no lesser man could have ventured to play your work to me for the first time. He is worthy of you. Surely, surely, it was beautiful.

Good-night. Many thanks for this pleasure vouchsafed to me at last.

Your

R. W.

LONDON, April 5th, 8:30 evening.

185.

DEAREST RICHARD,

I had nothing to tell you that was pleasant or important, and therefore did not write to you for a long time. During these last weeks I have spun myself into my mass, and yesterday at last I got it done. I do not know how it will sound, but may say that I have PRAYED it rather than COMPOSED it. On my return from Hungary in September, I shall bring you the mass and my symphonic bubbles and troubles, half of which will by that time be in print. If my scores should bore you, that will not prevent me from deriving sweetest enjoyment from your creations, and you must not refuse me the favour of singing the whole "Rhinegold" and "Valkyrie" to me. In the meanwhile all other musical things appear to me "stupid stuff."

How do you feel in London?

Troublesome though it may be, one must try to bear the inevitable and immutable; to take pleasure in it would be a lie.

The English edition of Philistinism is not a whit pleasanter than the German, and the chasm between the public and ourselves is equally wide everywhere.

How, in our wretched conditions, could enthusiasm, love, and art have their true effect?

"Patience and resignation" is our device, and to it we sing

[Here, Liszt illustrates with a music score excerpt]

Pardon me for being your hollow echo, and let us endure what cannot be cured.

I am very grateful to you for being so kind to Klindworth. In a few days his cousin will come to London and bring you news of me, as she has spent the whole winter at Weymar. Your letter about the sonata has highly delighted me, and you must excuse me for not having thanked you at once. You are often so near to me that I almost forget writing to you, and I am seldom at the right temperature for correspondence. Well, in September I shall be with you; and (D.V.) we will have some bright, comforting days together.

Your

F. L.

WEYMAR, May 2nd, 1855.

186.

DEAR POET, DEAR FRIEND,

Our hearts are with you, and suffer with you; that you know, and cannot be ignorant of.

Let us hear from you soon, and forgive me if, in the midst of the preoccupations of your heart and of your grief, I ask you for a trifle; but it will cost you so little to grant it me, and you will give such great, such very great, pleasure by it. It is the fate of poets and women sometimes to give what they have not themselves--I mean happiness. Take a piece of paper and write on it the following verses, which, as you know, appear to me written with the purest blood of my veins:-

"Nicht Gut, nicht Gold, noch gottliche Pracht; nicht Haus, nicht Hof, nicht herrischer Prunk, nicht truber Vertrage trugender Bund, noch heuchelnder Sitte hartes Gesetz: selig in Lust und Leid lasst--die Liebe nur sein!--" Sign this with your name, your great name, enclose it in an envelope, address it to me, and put it in the post. Forgive me for asking you this small thing--small in its material aspect, but great as the world in its significance.

I press your two hands with mine, dear, dear, great man.

CAROLYNE.

May 7th, 1855.

187.

Cordial thanks, dearest Franz, for your kind note, which I had been expecting a long time. The hope which you open to me of seeing you in September is my only light in the night of this sad year. I live here like one of the lost souls in hell. I never thought that I could sink again so low. The misery I feel in having to live in these disgusting surroundings is beyond description, and I now realise that it was a sin, a crime, to accept this invitation to London, which in the luckiest case must have led me far away from my real path. I need not expatiate to you upon my actual situation. It is the consistent outgrowth of the greatest inconsistency I ever committed. I am compelled to conduct an English concert programme right down to the end; that says everything. I have got into the middle of a slough of conventionalities and customs, in which I stick up to the ears, without being able to lead into it the least drop of pure water for my recreation. "Sir, we are not accustomed to this"--that is the eternal echo I hear. Neither can the orchestra recompense me. It consists almost exclusively of Englishmen, that is clever machines which cannot be got into the right swing; handicraft and business kill everything. Then there is the public, which, I am assured, is very favourably inclined towards me, but can never be got out of itself, which accepts the most emotional and the most tedious things without ever showing that it has received a real impression. And, in addition to this, the ridiculous Mendelssohn worship!

And even if all this were better than it is, what business have I with such concerts? I am not fit for them. It is quite a different thing if I conduct one of Beethoven's symphonies before a few friends, but to be a regular concert conductor, before whom they place the scores of concert pieces, etc., so that he may beat the time to them--that, I feel, is the deepest disgrace. This thoroughly inappropriate character of my position led me to the resolution of sending in my resignation after the fourth concert. But of course I was talked out of it, and especially my regard for my wife, who would have heard of this sudden resignation and of all that would have been written about it with great grief, determined me to hold out till the last concert. The infernal torture this is to me I cannot express. All my pleasure in my work is disappearing more and more. I had made up my mind to finish the score of the "Valkyrie" during the four months here, but that is out of the question. I shall not even finish the second act, in so terribly dispiriting a manner does this false position act upon me. In July I wanted to begin "Young Siegfried" at Seelisberg, on the lake of Lucerne, but now I think of delaying that beginning till next spring. This dislike of work is the worst feature of all. I feel as if with it eternal night were closing around me, for what have I still to do in this world if I cannot do my work?

Through this hell my study of Dante, to which I could not settle down before, has accompanied me. I have passed through his Inferno, and am now at the gate of Purgatory. Really I am in need of this purgatory; for if I consider it rightly, I was brought to London by a really sinful degree of thoughtlessness, which now I have to repent with fervour. I must, I must be resigned; my experience long ago convinced me of the necessity of resignation in the widest sense of the word, and I must now subdue altogether this terrible, wild desire of life, which again and again dims my vision and throws me into a chaos of contradictions. I must hope that I may at some future time rise from purgatory to paradise; the fresh air of my Seelisberg will perhaps help me to this. I do not deny that I should like to meet Beatrice there.

In all other respects things are going badly and crookedly. Poor Klindworth has been ill all along, and the fact that I could undertake nothing with him has deprived me of a great pleasure. He is better now, but not yet allowed to take a walk with me. Besides him, my intercourse is limited to Sainton, the leader of the orchestra, who caused my ill-fated appointment here, and a certain Luders, who lives with him. Both are ardently devoted to me, and do all in their power to make my stay here pleasant. Apart from this, I frequently go to Prager. Quite recently a Mr. Ellerton, a rich amateur, approached me very cordially. He has heard my operas in Germany, and my portrait has been hanging in his room for two years. He is the first Englishman I have seen who does not care particularly for Mendelssohn. A fine, amiable mind.

Klindworth has made the pianoforte arrangement of the first act of the "Valkyrie," which he plays beautifully. Unfortunately I have lost my voice entirely, and can sing very little, so that I am afraid I shall not be able to be of much service to you in that way.

You will have to do all the work next September. You owe me a great debt, you reticent man. If I look forward to anything in the future as pure happiness, it is my becoming acquainted through your means with your new compositions. Do not forget to bring me every one of them. I congratulate you on your mass from the bottom of my heart. Let us hope that you will derive much pleasure from it at Gran.

And how is the Princess? Joyful and sorrowful? Does she still preserve her bright enthusiasm? And Beatrice--I mean the Child? Greet her for me a thousand times.

Farewell, dearest, most unique of friends. Believe me that the thought of you is an ever-new delight to my heart. Be thanked for your love!

Farewell.

Your

R. W.

LONDON, May 16th, 1855.

188.

22, PORTLAND TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK, LONDON,

May 26th, 1855.

Once more, dearest Franz, I must make a complaint about the "Faust" overture. The Hartels have sent me an abominable arrangement for four hands, of which I cannot possibly approve. Did not you tell them that B., who, I believe, had already made a be ginning, would best be able to make this arrangement? Klindworth also would be prepared for it. In any case it should be a pianist of that type. The actual arrangement, which I yesterday returned to the Hartels through a music-seller, must not appear.

However, some wrong notes in this arrangement have drawn my attention to the fact that very probably there are many errors in the score as well. You will remember that it was a copy which I sent to you for your own use, asking you to correct such errors as might occur in your mind, or else to have them corrected, because it would be tedious for me to revise the copy. For the same reason I urgently requested the Hartels, if they printed the score, to send me a proof. You are in frequent communication with the Hartels, and the edition of this overture is really your doing. Be not angry therefore if I ask you to set the matter completely right when convenient. For heaven's sake, forgive me for troubling you with this trifle. The day after tomorrow I have my sixth concert, and a month afterwards I start for home.

Shall I hear from you soon?

A thousand greetings.

Your R. W.

189. DEAREST RICHARD,

I returned here yesterday from the Dusseldorf Musical Festival, tired and dull. Hiller, who conducted the whole, had invited me, and it interested me to go through the whole thing for once, to hear "Paradise and the Peri," and to applaud Jenny Lind. I need not tell YOU anything about it, and I am not much the wiser myself. Although the whole festival may be called a great success, it wanted something which, indeed, could not have been expected from it. In the art world there are very different kinds of laurels and thistles, but you need care very little about such. "The eagle flies to the sun."

Then you are reading Dante? He is excellent company for you. I, on my part, shall furnish a kind of commentary to his work. For a long time I had in my head a Dante symphony, and in the course of this year it is to be finished. There are to be three movements, HELL, PURGATORY, and PARADISE, the two first purely instrumental, the last with chorus. When I visit you in autumn, I shall probably be able to bring it with me; and if you do not dislike it, you must allow me to inscribe it with your name.

With the Hartels little can be done. If the arrangement for four hands of the Faust overture has already been made, I do not advise you to propose some one else. The only thing that can be done with the four-hand arrangement is to ask Klindworth to make some corrections in accordance with your instructions, and to have some of the plates newly engraved without mentioning Klindworth's name on the title-page. Another time it would be a practical thing to send in the four-hand arrangement together with the score, and to come to terms with the publisher about it.

The attitude of the Hartels towards us is naturally always a little reserved. I, for my part, cannot complain of them, and they have always treated me in a decent and gentlemanly manner. But I should not rely upon them for many things, because their intimate friends are decidedly adverse to us; and for the present we shall not be able to arrive at more than a peaceful, expectant footing with them. Although this may sometimes be inconvenient, I think it best to let it continue.

I am surprised that you found so many mistakes in the proofs of the "Faust" score, for, amongst other advantages which they possess as publishers, one is bound in justice to admit that the Hartels have excellent readers (Dorffel, Schellenberg, etc.). Therefore use time and patience in correcting, and where necessary let the plates be engraved over again.

When shall you be back in Zurich? At Dusseldorf they were saying that you had already left London, and jealous Philistia received the news with a joy which I was not sorry to spoil. Whatever may happen, and however it may happen, I implore you to

"Hold out and persevere."

In your capacity of poeta sovrano, you must, as Dante says of Homer, pass on your way quietly and undisturbedly, si come sire. All this dirt does not touch you. Write your "Nibelungen," and be content to live on as an immortal!

Later on I shall ask Klindworth to let me see the pianoforte arrangement of the first act of the "Valkyrie." How about that of the "Rhinegold?" Has H. kept it? Write to me about it, so that I may know how to get at it.

I have advised H. to settle in Berlin, where his position at the music school will be very useful to him. There is not much to be got by travelling about in our days. Later on he may go to Paris and London, but for the next few years Berlin will be a good field for his activity.

I shall stay here during the summer, until I start for Gran at the end of August. The musical task which occupies me is a new and considerably altered score of my choruses to "Prometheus," which I want to publish next winter. As soon as it is finished I shall return to my Dante symphony, which has partly been sketched.

Farewell, dearest, most unique of friends, and write soon to your serf, body and soul,

F. L.

WEYMAR, June 2nd, 1855.

The Princess and the Child send cordial greetings.

190.

Let me express to you, best of men, my astonishment at your ENORMOUS PRODUCTIVENESS. You have a Dante symphony in your head, have you? And it is to be finished in the autumn? Do not be annoyed by my astonishment at this miracle. When I look back upon your activity in these last years, you appear superhuman to me; there is something very strange about this. However, it is very natural that creating is our only joy, and alone makes life bearable to us. We are what we are only while we create; all the other functions of life have no meaning for us, and are at bottom concessions to the vulgarity of ordinary human existence, which can give us no satisfaction. All that I still desire in this world is a favourable mood and disposition for work, and I find it difficult enough to protect these from the attack of vulgarity. It is the same thing with you. But what astonishes me and appears worthy of envy is that you can create so much.