Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt Volume I Part 34

St. George is still very lazy, but he shall work. He sends best regards. Farewell. I must not write more. Tell me soon whether you have not yet had enough of me.

Give my best respects to the Princess. We shall soon meet again!

Farewell, farewell, best of human beings.

Your

R. W.

ST. MORITZ.

P.S.--The Kroll-Berlin "Tannhauser" has fallen through after all.

Schoneck has just written to me that he has broken with the director, Wallner, because the latter refused to carry out his undertaking as to the excellence of the ensemble.

122.

As usual, dearest friend, you have had an excellent idea. It is settled then that we go to Paris, and there have a meeting at the end of September, after the Carlsruhe performances. As before then your chief purpose is to see the Mediterranean, I advise you to go to Genoa and Ma.r.s.eilles, and thence to Paris. Napoleon says, "La Mediterranee est un lac francais," so you may go from your Swiss lakes to the French lake for a few weeks and then come to me in Paris.

By the middle of October I must be back at Weymar, but a fortnight of Paris will be quite enough for us.

Therefore this is settled.

T. will be very welcome at Weymar. He wrote to me once or twice before, and, between ourselves, I have heard several things about him which make me think that his character is not oversolid. But that does not matter, and may be left to Meser. A few days ago I received a letter from Berlioz, in answer to my last, in which I had said several things about you.

I quote the following lines:--

"Our art, as we understand it, is an art of millionaires; it requires millions. As soon as these millions are found every difficulty disappears; every dark intellect is illumined; moles and foxes are driven back into the earth; the marble block becomes a G.o.d, and the public human: without these millions we remain clodhoppers after thirty years' exertion.

"And yet there is not a sovereign, not a Rothschild, who will understand this. Is it not possible that, after all, we, with our secret pretensions, should simply be stupid and insolent fools?

"I am, like yourself, convinced of the ease with which Wagner and I should fit each other if only he would grease his wheels a little. As to the few lines of which you speak, I have never read them, and therefore feel not the slightest resentment on their account. I have fired too many pistol-shots at the legs of pa.s.sers-by to be astonished at receiving a few pellets myself."

In Paris we shall continue the subject; material and good fun will not be wanting.

At Leipzig I hope to find a few lines from you, and by the end of this month I shall write to you from Weymar when and how long I can be in Paris. If in the meantime I should have to write to you, I shall address to Zurich, as you must to Weymar.

Farewell, and be cheerful, and do not talk nonsense about what you might have lost in my eyes. At Leipzig I shall attend to the "Lohengrin" affair; so far I have heard nothing about it.

Your

FRANZ LISZT.

123.

Let me today, dear Franz, thank you by a few lines for your last letter. I cannot get on with "writing" to you any longer; nothing occurs to me but my sorrow at your disappearance and my desire to have you again soon and for long. All else scarcely moves me, and "business" relations between us have very little charm for me.

The only thing I can think of is seeing you again in the present year. Give me a rendezvous in Paris after the Carlsruhe festival.

In any case I shall send my wife to Carlsruhe, so that she may bring back a taste of you.

Almost my only object in "writing" to you is to ask you to forward the enclosed letter to L. Kohler. I know neither his t.i.tle, nor his address. You might also apologize to him for this very letter, which, I believe, is written in a terribly bad and confused style. The foolish man wants to hear something from me about his book, but as soon as I bend my head a little towards theory the nerves of my brain begin to ache violently, and I feel quite ill. I can and will theorize no longer, and he is not my friend who would lure me back to that cursed ground. Pereant all X. and X. if they know of nothing better than this eternal confused speculating about--art!

Here I live in a wild solitude, ice and snow around me. The day before yesterday we roamed for half a day over glaciers. Herwegh must put up with it. I shall not release him from my net; he must work. He swore yesterday that he had the poem for you in his head. Good luck!

Get me your medallion, you wicked man. I must have it at once. As to the rest, do with me what you like. About the sending of the parts and score to Carlsruhe I await your instructions. I a.s.sume that you received my letter from Coire.

I am almost annoyed that you have had intercourse with X.; these people are not worth looking after. Be sure that nothing satisfactory will come of it; we must have whole men or none at all, no half ones; they drag us down: we shall never drag them up. I should be proud if this "man of talent" would decline to a.s.sist me altogether.

However, in this matter also you must do as you like. Before all, take care that you continue to love me, and that we see each other soon.

Farewell, dearest friend.

Your

R. W.

Many greetings from St. George.

ST. MORITZ, CANTON GRISONS, July 26th, 1853.

124.

Truly, writing is a misery, and men of our sort should not write at all. However, your rosy paper and your luminous letters, which looked like Spanish grandees, gave me real pleasure. While you are at Coire, intent upon your water-cure, I sit here in Carlsbad looking at nothing but puffed-up faces, excepting one which s.h.i.+nes on me like a bright, comforting sun. Till the 16th I must remain here, and on the 22nd I shall be back at Weymar.

By way of entertainment I enjoy Labitzki and his water-cure orchestra, Aldridge, the black Roscius, who plays beautifully Oth.e.l.lo, Macbeth, and Fiesco; also spurious Arabs and genuine Chinese, who howl and tinkle to make one run away.

Pa.s.sing through Leipzig, I saw B. His new book will appear soon, in which there is a separate chapter ent.i.tled "Criticism of R.

Wagner." We must see whether he has brewed digestible stuff. At Dresden I visited the R.'s. Frau k.u.mmer and her sister had gained my affection at Zurich, and C., who was summoned specially from Pillnitz to meet me, pleased me very well this time. On my journey back I shall again look up the R.'s, for I like to remain in communication with people who prove real friends of yours. We form a little Church of our own, and edify each other by singing your praises. Take note, dear Richard, and make up your mind to it, for it cannot be otherwise. You are now, and will be still more, the concentric focus of every high endeavour, high feeling, and honest effort in art. This is my true conviction, without pedantry and charlatanism, both of which I abhor. Do not fail to use your powerful influence with C., so that he may exert his faculties with some consistency and regularity. I spoke to him of B.'s plan of an Art Review. If you set him tasks, he may do good service to the cause and himself. How about the "leading programme" which you and H. are to sketch together? This is the corner-stone of the whole enterprise. Do not be deterred; I think it necessary that you should submit to some trouble and tedium for the purpose. Before going to Weymar I shall have some definite talk with B. about the matter. If you want to communicate with me on the subject, address Poste restante, Leipzig, or, better still, to the care of Y., so that the letter arrive in Leipzig on the 19th inst. Perhaps by that time you will have been able to settle the chief heads of the programme of "Blatter fur Gegenwart und Zukunft der Gesammt-Kunst" and to draw the outline of the whole scheme.

I repeat it once more, without you and your direct and indirect influence nothing, or something much worse than nothing, will be done. Therefore be patient and help as and where you can.

Do not forget that E. D. expects the "Tannhauser" and "Lohengrin"

scores and parts for the Carlsruhe festival on August 15th. You are always so careful and punctual in fulfilling your promises that I am under no anxiety, and only tell you that they wish to begin studying your pieces in Carlsruhe as soon as possible.

B. will probably come to Carlsruhe, and will be at Weymar at the end of this month. I have spoken to Meser at Dresden and warmly recommended to him H. as the most suitable musician to entrust with the four-hand pianoforte arrangement of "Tannhauser." If Meser should write to you about it, be good enough to propose H.

to him for this work in preference to other arrangers and derangers. Give my best remembrances to G., and abide with me.

Your

F. L.

CARLSBAD, August 7th, 1853.

P.S.--Our friend Kohler has latterly been severely attacked by several individuals who have the arrogance to think that they stand in opposition to you, while in reality they move in a low and bottomless region. As you probably do not read similar newspapers, I tell you of the fact, and ask you to take account of it in your intercourse with Kohler, whom you should keep in kindly remembrance as one of the loyal.