Franz Liszt

“ If your gigantic perseverance of friendship should succeed in opening my return to Germany, be assured that the only use I should make of this favour would be to visit Weimar now and then, take part for a short time in your activity, and witness an important performance of my operas from time to time. This I want; it is a necessary of life to me, and it is this which I miss so cruelly. I should derive no other benefit from it; I should never permanently settle in Germany, but should retain as the scene of my life, or rather work, calm, beautiful Switzerland, endeared to me by nature. ”

“ I do not expect its performance, not at least during my lifetime, and least of all at Berlin or Dresden. These and similar large towns, with their public, do not exist for me at all. As an audience I can only imagine an assembly of friends who have come together for the purpose of knowing my works somewhere or other, best of all in some beautiful solitude, far from the smoke and pestilential business odour of our town civilization. Such a solitude I might find in Weimar, but certainly not in a larger city. ”

“ By drilling artistic intelligence into it we only make the public perfectly stupid. What I said was this: that I wanted nothing of the public beyond a healthy sense and a human heart. This does not sound much, but it is so much that the whole world would have to be turned upside down to bring it about. The noble- minded, the refined, those who have the courage of their feelings, believe themselves at the top of the tree; they are mistaken! In our actual order of things the Philistine, the vulgar, common, flabby, and at the same time cruel man of routine, reigns supreme. ”

“ If I do not gain the victory, and have to capitulate in spite of my powerful ally, I shall go into no further battles. If my "Lohengrin" can be preserved only by tearing its well-calculated and artistic context to pieces, in other words if it has to be cut owing to the laziness of the actors, I shall abandon opera altogether. Weimar in that case will have no more interest for me, and I shall have written my last opera. With you, dear Liszt, who have so bravely accepted my battle, it lies to gain a complete victory for me. ”

“ You received a letter from me at Leipzig; has it annoyed you? From Berne I wrote to you about the vise of my passport for France, and you were to send your answer to Turin. If that has been done, the letter will be forwarded to me. But why is it that I hear nothing else of you? Has the Carlsruhe festival been postponed, and will it be too late for you to come to Paris? I must be content; I want to see you, wherever it may be; if Zurich is too far for you, I will come to Basle. Paris begins almost to be unpleasant to me in my imagination; I am afraid of Berlioz. ”

“ DEAREST FRANZ, My threat that I should once more lay you under contribution in an impudent manner must today be realized. Listen to me! I feel so hale and hearty at my work that I may expect everything—not only the success of my music, but better health as well—if I can only stick to it without interruption and yield to my splendid mood without anxiety. If I had to get up in the morning without taking at once to my music, I should be unhappy. ”

“ Upon the whole, I preach to deaf ears; only he whom artistic experience has taught to find the right thing can understand what I mean; so it is better that every one should arrive by the aid of experience and do for himself what he can do. But I still feel enthusiasm for the work of art itself; the music of my Siegfried vibrates through all my nerves; it all depends upon a favourable mood, and that you, dear friend, will procure for me.
To Zigesar I shall write according to your wish. I have every reason to feel friendly towards him, and do so in very deed. To Genast I shall write tomorrow. ”

“ He who gives anything to me receives something quite superfluous and unnecessary in return. What do you think, who have taken such infinite pains to dispose of my works? Much as I think of my "Lohengrin," which you are bringing to light, I think as much and almost more of you and your terrible exertions. I know what these exertions are. When I saw you conduct a rehearsal of "Tannhauser," I knew at once what you were to me. What curious creatures we are! We can be happy only by the complete annihilation of our whole being; to be happy means with us to lose consciousness of ourselves. ”

“ MOST GLORIOUS FRIEND, You have once more given me real, God-sent joy by your dedication of "Lohengrin". Accept my most cordial, most fervent thanks in return, and be convinced that it will be the task of my life to be worthy of your friendship. The little that so far I have been able to do for you and through you for the honour of art has chiefly this merit: that it encourages me to do still better and more decisive things for your works in the future. ”

“ To this entirely erroneous opinion we have been brought by the fact that in opera music has wrongly been made the aim, while the drama was merely a means for the display of the music. Music, on the contrary, should do no more than contribute its full share towards making the drama clearly and quickly comprehensible at every moment. While listening to a good—that is, rational—opera, people should, so to speak, not think of the music at all, but only feel it in an unconscious manner, while their fullest sympathy should be wholly occupied by the action represented. ”

“ Pending an entirely new order of things, we must, dearest friend, be satisfied with ourselves and with those who, like ourselves, know but one enemy—the Philistine. Let us show each other what we can do, and let us feel highly rewarded if we can give joy to each other. "A healthy sense and a human heart!"- -we ask nothing more, and yet all, if we realize the bottomless corruption of that sense, the wicked cowardliness of the heart of the so-called public. ”

“ I want to enter a new world unburdened, free, and happy, bringing nothing with me but a glad artistic conscience. My work on "The Essence of Opera," the last fruit of my contemplation, takes larger dimensions than I at first expected. If I show that music, the woman, becomes co- parent with the poet, the man, I must take care that this splendid woman is not given over to the first comer who desires her, but only to the man who longs for woman with true, irresistible love. ”

“ Indeed, dear, good Liszt, I owe it to you that soon I shall be able once more to be entirely an artist. I look upon this final resumption of my artistic plans to which I now shall turn as one of the most decisive moments in my life. Between the musical execution of my "Lohengrin" and that of my "Siegfried" there lies for me a stormy, but, I feel convinced, a fruitful, world. ”

“ MY DEAR LISZT, I must say, You are a friend. Let me say no more to you, for although I always recognized in friendship between men the noblest and highest human relation, it was you who embodied this idea in its fullest reality by letting me no longer imagine, but feel and grasp, what a friend is.
I do not thank you, for you alone have the power to thank yourself by your joy in being what you are. It is noble to have a friend, but still nobler to be a friend. ”

“ 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 God preserve me from dealing with it as a politician. ”

“ I now ask you, Who at the bottom of his heart shares my faith more than do you, who believe in me, who know and demonstrate love as no one else has proved and practiced it yet? You realize your faith in every moment of your life; I know deeply and inly what you believe; how then could I scoff at the form from which such a miracle springs? I should not be as much of an artist as I am if I did not joyfully understand you. ”

“ MY DEAR FRIEND, Accept my cordial thanks for your last kind letter, and for the beautiful performance of "Lohengrin" which you have again accomplished; according to all accounts, it must have realized my wishes in a high degree. In such circumstances my longing increases to enjoy my work, of which hitherto I have only felt the pains of giving birth to it; and my grief at being condemned to the fate of a blind and deaf man towards my own artistic creations begins to have a more and more depressing effect upon me. ”

“ RICHARD WAGNER. ZURICH, August 22nd, 1850.
40.
DEAREST FRIEND, Your "Lohengrin" is a sublime work from one end to the other. The tears rose from my heart in more than one place. The whole opera being one indivisible wonder, I cannot stop to point out any particular passage, combination, or effect. A pious ecclesiastic once underlined word for word the whole "Imitatio Christi;" in the same way I might underline your "Lohengrin" note for note. ”

“ When I had finished this programme, I read over once more what you have written about this overture, and had again to give way to the utmost astonishment. Herwegh has had the same experience with regard to your work. Only he can fail to understand your style who does not understand the music either; to see how you express precisely and keenly in words the feelings which music alone can evoke in us fills every one with delight who himself experiences those feelings without finding words for them. ”

“ The monumental character of our art will disappear; the clinging and sticking to the past, the selfish care for continuity and possible immortality, we shall cast off; the Past will be Past, the Future will be Future, to us, and we shall live and create only in the Today, in the full Present. Remember that I used to call you happy in your particular art, because you were an immediate artist, actually present, and appealing to the senses at every moment. ”

“ I have convictions which perhaps you will never share, but which you will not think it necessary to combat when I tell you that they in no manner interfere with my artistic activity. I have felt the pulse of our modern art, and know that it must die, but this does not make me melancholy, but rather joyful, because I know that not art, but only our art, standing as it does outside of real existence, must perish, while the true, imperishable, ever-new art has still to be born. ”

“ In actual circumstances it is almost impossible for you to think of a speedy return to Germany where, moreover, you would find nothing but disagreeable things, envy, and enmity. Paris and perhaps London are absolutely necessary for your present and future career. Whatever the annoyances and sufferings may be which you will have to go through during the period of transition in which you are unhappily placed, take courage and have full confidence in the star of your genius. The day after your first performance in Paris you will be "as one new-born and content like a Greek god." ”

“ It is then for you, sir, to say whether in general it is better to give the part to a young and beautiful artist, whose acting is naturally less experienced and more subdued, or to a woman of mature talent, who gives us an Ortrud less young, but more inflamed and devoured by the secret flames of the hatred of one who is vanquished and the revenge of one who is oppressed. ”

“ I renounce fame, and more especially the ridiculous spectre of posthumous fame, because I love my fellow-men too much to condemn them, for the sake of my vanity, to the poverty in which alone the posthumous fame of dead people finds its nourishment.
As things are, I am incited to artistic creativeness, not by ambition, but by the desire to hold communion with my friends and the wish to give them joy ”

“ My friend Meser would continue the business on your account as honestly as he has done on mine; and a lawyer could easily put the thing in order. And do you know what would be the result? I should once more be a HUMAN BEING, a man for whom existence would be possible, an artist who would never again in his life ask for a shilling, and would only do his work bravely and gladly. Dear Liszt, with this money you will buy me out of slavery! ”

“ Dear friend, these people are flabby and cowardly; they have no heart. Leave them alone! If I am to succeed, it must be through people who care about the matter. Where I must offer myself I lose all my power. How can I care about a "Leipsic representation"? It would have to be a good representation, and how is that to be achieved unless some one like you undertook the thing? Do not forget that Weimar also would not exist for me if you did not happen to exist in Weimar. Good Lord! All depends upon one man in our days; the rest must be dragged along anyhow; nothing will go of itself. ”

“ Was there any truth in the recent rumour of your leaving Weimar? Have they given in?
But all this is idle talk. My brain is a wilderness, and I thirst for a long, long sleep, to awake only when my arms are around you. Write to me very precisely, also whether you are inclined, after a little stay at Zurich, to go with me to the solitude of the Grisons; St. Moritz might, after all, do you good, dearest friend; we shall there be five thousand feet high, and enjoy the most nerve-strengthening air, together with the mineral water, which is said to be of beneficial effect on the digestive organs. ”

“ Such as I am and such as you are, I come to understand better and better what a rare degree of friendship and kindness you must have towards me to show me the most active sympathy of all my friends, in spite of many sides of my nature which cannot possibly be agreeable to you. You resemble in this the true poet who, with perfect impartiality, takes every phenomenon of life as it is according to its essence. ”

“ Most esteemed Herr Intendant, with full knowledge of the matter at stake, you have undertaken by its performance at your theatre to give life to a dramatic work the essence of which is that it is in all its parts a continuous whole, and not something incongruous, made up of many different parts. The author of this work does not wish to shine by the effect of single musical pieces; music to him is altogether no more than the most exalted and most comprehensive mode of expression of what he desired to express—the drama. ”

“ The Grand Duchess was ill, and could attend only the third performance of "Lohengrin;" soon afterwards you left Weimar, and therefore had no opportunity of preparing the Grand Duchess for your plan in a proper and dignified manner. All this I know, and therefore no blame attaches to you in the remotest degree. Only I must know now where I am. For that reason I pray you with all my heart to tell me plainly and definitely whether, as things are, I still may hope for something or not, so that I may make all my arrangements accordingly; uncertainty is the worst of tortures. ”

“ Considering the sorry state of music and intellectualism in Wagner's time and setting, he surely would have been surprised if his operas and his ideas achieved any wide currency. That he continued to work with intense energy to develop his ideas, to fix them into musical form and to propagate them, while knowing that probably no sizeable population would ever likely take note of them, and while believing that his existence as an underappreciated, rational individual in an irrational world was absurd and futile, is a testimony to the enormous will-power of this "ubermensch." ”

“ Every audience which has an uncorrupted sense and a human heart is therefore welcome to me as long as I may be certain that the dramatic action is made more immediately comprehensible and moving by the music, instead of being hidden by it. In this respect the performance of my "Lohengrin" at Weimar does not as yet seem to have been adequate, in so far as the purely musical part was much more perfect than the dramatic, properly so called, and the fault I attribute solely to the general state of our opera, which from the outset has the most confusing and damaging influence on all our singers. ”

“ No theatre in the world has so far thought it advisable to perform my opera "Tannhauser" four years after its production; it was left to you to settle down for a time from your world-wide travels at a small court theatre, and at once to set to work so that your much-tried friend might at last get on a little. You did not talk or fuss; you yourself undertook the unaccustomed task of teaching my work to the people. Be sure that no one knows as well as I what it means to bring such a work to light in existing circumstances. Who the deuce does not conduct operatic rehearsals nowadays? ”