Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt Volume I Part 6

Whether you ought to show her my ma.n.u.script I am not quite certain; in it I am so much of a Greek that I have not been able quite to convert myself to Christianity. But what nonsense I talk! As if you were not the right people! Pardon me.

Farewell, dear, unique friend! Remember me in kindness.

Your

RICHARD WAGNER

ZURICH, August 4th, 1849

Have you been good enough to see about the forwarding to me of my scores and writings? I am anxious at not having seen anything of them.

26.

DEAREST FRIEND,

A thousand thanks for your letter, and for kindly taking care of my wife. The unknown donor is wrong in wis.h.i.+ng to be hidden from me. Thank him in my name.

The day before yesterday I sent you a long article; probably you have read it. I am glad that I can agree to your wish to dedicate "Tannhauser" to the Grand Duke without the slightest abnegation of my principles, for I hope you will see that I care for something else than the stupid political questions of the day.

It would be best if you could have the dedication page and the special copy done through Meser, in which case you might also, if necessary, promise to bear the trifling expense, for of that copyright not a single note is mine. I hope you like the verses.

Will you put the letter to the Grand Duke in an addressed envelope?

Oh, my friends, if you would only give me the wages of a middling mechanic, you would have pleasure in my undisturbed work, which should all be yours.

Thanks for sending the scores. "Lohengrin" will be especially useful to me, for I hope to p.a.w.n the score here for some hundreds of florins, so as to have money for myself and my wife for the next few months.

Your doubts as to a satisfactory effect of the performance of the opera have frequently occurred to me. I think, however, that if the performance is quite according to my colour, the work-- including even the end--will be all right. One must dare.

Muller and Eck were delighted by your greetings, and return them with enthusiasm.

Dear, good Liszt, I also thank you most cordially for all the care you take of me. Consider that I can give you nothing better in return than the best I can accomplish. Give me perfect peace, and you shall be satisfied. I hope my wife will be here soon; then you shall soon have good news of me.

Farewell, and continue to be my friend.

Your

RICHARD WAGNER

ZURICH, August 7th, 1849

27.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

After a silence of several months, I cannot address you without first of all thanking you once more with all my heart for the friendly a.s.sistance which enabled me to have my poor wife back again. By this a.s.sistance my wife made it possible to preserve and bring with her some favourite trifles of our former household and, before all, my grand piano. We are settled here as well as possible; and after a long interruption, full of pain and unrest, I am once more able to think of the execution of my great artistic plans for the future.

After this final reunion with my much-tried wife, nothing could have given me greater pleasure than to learn about the produce of your artistic activity. The pieces written by you for the centenary of Goethe's birth I have now seen in the pianoforte score, and have occupied myself with them attentively. With all my heart I bid you welcome, and am glad--especially also in sympathy with your friend--that you behave so valiantly in this field of honour, selected by you with glorious consistency. What I felt most vividly, after my acquaintance with these compositions, was the desire to know that you were writing an opera or finis.h.i.+ng one already begun. The aphoristic nature of such tasks as those set you by this Goethe celebration must involuntarily be transferred to the artistic production, which therefore cannot attain to perfect warmth. Creative power in music appears to me like a bell, which the larger it is is the less able to give forth its full tone, unless an adequate power has set it in motion. This power is internal, and where it does not exist internally it does not exist at all. The purely internal, however, cannot operate unless it is stimulated by something external, related to it and yet different. Creative power in music surely requires this stimulus no less than does any other great artistic power; a great incitement alone can make it effective. As I have every reason to deem your power great, I desire for it the corresponding great incitement; for nothing here can be arbitrarily subst.i.tuted or added: genuine strength can only create from necessity. Wherever in the series of your pieces Goethe himself incites your strength, the bell resounds with its natural full tone, and the clapper beats in it as the heart does in the body. If you had been able to ring the whole "Faust"-bell (I know this was impossible), if the detached pieces had had reference to a great whole, then that great whole would have thrown on the single pieces a reflex which is exactly the certain something that may be gained from the great whole, but not from the single piece. In single, aphoristic things we never attain repose; only in a great whole is great power self- contained, strong, and therefore, in spite of all excitement, reposeful. Unrest in what we do is a proof that our activity is not perfectly self-contained, that not our whole power, but only a detached particle of that power, is in action. This unrest I have found in your compositions, even as you must have found it too often in mine without better cause. With this unrest I was, however, better pleased than if comfortable self-contentment had been their prominent feature. I compare it to the claw by which I recognize the lion; but now I call out to you, Show us the complete lion: in other words, write or finish soon an opera.

Dear friend, look upon me with an earnest but kind glance! All the ills that have happened to me were the natural and necessary consequences of the discord of my own being. The power which is mine is quite unyielding and indivisible. By its nature it takes violent revenge when I try to turn or divide it by external force. To be wholly what I can be, and therefore, no doubt, should be, is only possible for me if I renounce all those external things which I could gain by dint of the aforesaid external force. That force would always make me fritter away my genuine power, would always conjure up the same evils. In all I do and think I am only artist, nothing but artist. If I am to throw myself into our modern publicity, I cannot conquer it as an artist, and G.o.d preserve me from dealing with it as a politician.

Poor and without means for bare life, without goods or heritage, as I am, I should be compelled to think only of acquisition; but I have learnt nothing but my art, and that I cannot possibly use for the purpose of acquiring nowadays; I cannot seek publicity, and my artistic salvation could be brought about one day only by publicity seeking me. The publicity for which alone I can work is a small nucleus of individuals who const.i.tute my whole publicity at present. To these individuals, therefore, I must turn, and put the question to them whether they love me and my art-work sufficiently to make it possible for me, as far as in them lies, to be myself, and to develop my activity without disturbance.

These individuals are not many, and they live far from each other, but the character of their sympathy is an energetic one.

Dear friend, the question with me is bare life. You have opened Paris to me, and I most certainly do not refuse it; but what I have to choose and to design for that place cannot be chosen and designed in a moment; I must there be some one else and yet necessarily remain the same. All my numerous sketches are adapted only to treatment by myself, and in the German language. Subjects which I should have been prepared to execute for Paris (such as "Jesus of Nazareth") turn out to be impossible for manifold reasons when I come to consider closely the practical bearings of the thing, and I must therefore have time and leisure to wait for inspiration, which I can expect only from some remote region of my nature. On the other hand, the poem of my "Siegfried" lies before me. After not having composed a note for two years, my whole artistic man is impelled towards writing the music for it.

What I could possibly hope for from a Paris success would not even be able to keep me alive; for, without being thoroughly dishonest, I should have to hand it over to my creditors.

The question, then, is, How and whence shall I get enough to live? Is my finished work "Lohengrin" worth nothing? Is the opera which I am longing to complete worth nothing? It is true that to the present generation and to publicity as it is these must appear as a useless luxury. But how about the few who love these works? Should not they be allowed to offer to the poor suffering creator--not a remuneration, but the bare possibility of continuing to create?

To the tradesmen I cannot apply, nor to the existing n.o.bility-- not to human princes, but to princely men. To work my best, my inmost salvation, I am not in a position to rely on merit, but on grace. If we few in this villainous trading age are not gracious towards each other, how can we live in the name and for the honour of art?

Dear friend, you, I believe, are the only one on whom I can implicitly rely. Do not be frightened! I have tried to relieve you of the burden of this exclusive reliance; I have turned elsewhere, but in vain. From H. B., about whom you wrote to me, I have heard nothing, and am glad from my heart that I have not.

Dear Liszt, let us leave the TRADESMEN alone once for all. They are human and even love art, but only as far as BUSINESS will allow.

Tell me; advise me! Hitherto my wife and I have kept ourselves alive by the help of a friend here. By the end of this month of October our last florins will be gone, and a wide, beautiful world lies before me, in which I have nothing to eat, nothing to warm myself with. Think of what you can do for me, dear, princely man! Let some one buy my "Lohengrin," skin and bones; let some one commission my "Siegfried." I will do it cheaply! Leaving our old plan of a confederation of princes out of the question, can you not find some other individuals who would join together to help me, if YOU were to ask them in the proper manner? Shall I put in the newspaper "I have nothing to live on; let him who loves me give me something"? I cannot do it because of my wife; she would die of shame. Oh the trouble it is to find a place in the world for a man like me! If nothing else will answer, you might perhaps give a concert "for an artist in distress."

Consider everything, dear Liszt, and before all manage to send me soon some--some money. I want firewood, and a warm overcoat, because my wife has not brought my old one on account of its shabbiness. Consider!

From Belloni I soon expect an invitation to Paris, so as to get my "Tannhauser" overture performed at the Conservatoire, to begin with. Well, dear friend, give one of your much-occupied days to the serious and sympathetic consideration of what you might do for me. Your loving nature, free from all prejudice and only occupied with the artist in me, will suggest to you a great work of love which will be my salvation. Believe me, I speak sincerely and openly; believe me that in you lies my only hope.

Farewell. Receive, together with mine, the most ardent wishes of my good wife. Remember me, as one cordially devoted to her, to Princess Wittgenstein, and thank her in my name if she should think of me now and then.

Farewell, you good man, and let me soon hear from you.

Wholly yours,

RICHARD WAGNER

ZURICH, October 14th, 1849 (Am Zeltwege, in den hinteren Escherhausern, 182.)

28.

DEAR FRIEND,

For more than a month I have been detained here by the serious illness of the young Princess M. W. My return to Weymar is in consequence forcibly postponed for at least another month, and before returning there it is impossible for me to think of serving you with any efficiency. You propose to me to find you a purchaser for "Lohengrin" and "Siegfried." This will certainly not be an easy matter, for these operas, being essentially--I might say exclusively--German, can at most be represented in five or six German towns. You know, moreover, that since the Dresden affair OFFICIAL Germany is not favourable to your name. Dresden, Berlin, and Vienna are well-nigh impossible fields for your works for some time to come. If, as is not unlikely, I go to Berlin for a few days this winter, I shall try to interest the King in your genius and your future; perhaps I shall succeed in gaining his sympathy for you and in managing through that means your return by way of Berlin, which would certainly be your best chance. But I need not tell you how delicate such a step is, and how difficult to lead to a good end. As to the "confederation of princes" which you mention again in your letter, I must unfortunately repeat to you that I believe in its realization about as much as in mythology.

Nevertheless I shall not omit to sound the disposition of H.H.

the Duke of Coburg during the visit I shall probably have the honour of paying him at the beginning of January. By his superior intelligence and personal love of music, access to him will be made easier. But as to the other thirty-eight sovereigns of Germany (excepting Weymar, Gotha, and Berlin), I confess that I do not know how I shall manage to instill into them so subtle an idea as would be the positive encouragement and the active protection of an artist of your stamp.

As to the dedication of "Tannhauser," the Hereditary Grand Duke, while graciously receiving your intention, has sent me word that it would be more convenient to defer the publication for a few months, so that I have not been in a hurry to make the necessary arrangements for the engraving of the dedication plate.

Try, my dear friend, to get on as best you can till Christmas. My purse is completely dry at this moment; and you are aware, no doubt, that the fortune of the Princess has been for a year without an administrator, and may be completely confiscated any day. Towards the end of the year I reckon upon money coming in, and shall then certainly not fail to let you have some, as far as my very limited means will go; you know what heavy charges are weighing upon me. Before thinking of myself I must provide for the comfortable existence of my mother and my dear children in Paris, and I can also not avoid paying Belloni a modest salary for the services he renders me, although he has always shown himself most n.o.bly disinterested on my behalf. My concert career, as you know, has been closed for more than two years past, and I cannot resume it imprudently without serious damage to my present position and still more to my future.

However, on my way through Hamburg I have yielded to numerous solicitations to conduct in April a grand "Musical Festival," the greater part of the receipts of which will be devoted to the "Pension Fund of Musicians," which I founded about seven years ago.

Your "Tannhauser" overture will of course figure in the programme, and perhaps also, if we have sufficient time and means, the finale of the first or second act,--unless you have some other pieces to propose. Kindly write on this subject to your niece, who is engaged for the whole winter at Hamburg, and ask her to come to our a.s.sistance on this occasion. For it is my firm intention (not AVOWED or DIVULGED, you understand, for there would be much inconvenience and no advantage in confiding it to friends or the public) to set aside part of the receipts for you.

Could not you, on your part, arrange some concerts at Zurich, the proceeds of which would enable you to get through the winter tolerably? Why should you not undertake this? Your personal dignity, it seems to me, would not in the least suffer by it.