Franz Liszt

“ To Dionys Pruckner in Vienna
Weymar, February 11th, 1857
From all sides, dearest Dionysius, I hear the best and most brilliant accounts of you. Without being surprised at this I am extremely pleased about it. To make a firm footing in Vienna as a pianoforte player is no small task, especially under present circumstances! If one succeeds in this, one can, with the utmost confidence, make a name throughout Europe. It is very important for you, dear friend, to appear often in public, so as to make yourself feel at home with them. ”

“ Now the performance of a chorus of the size of that is not an easy matter in Paris, and I would not even risk it without myself conducting the preliminary rehearsals. While waiting till a favorable opportunity offers, allow me to tell you that I have been happy to do this work, and that I trust I have not altogether failed in it. Were it not for the fear of appearing to you very indiscreet, I should perhaps venture to trespass on your kindness for the complete series of these simple, and at the same time sublime, compositions, of which you alone know the secret. ”

“ Given that I, deceived by my many-sided experiences (which really cannot be estimated as very slight, since I have lived and worked through the periods—so important for music—of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, as well as Rossini and Meyerbeer) , led astray by my seven years' unceasing labour, have hit upon the wrong road altogether, would it be the place of my intimate friend, in the face of the opposition which is set up against me because I bring something new, to blush, hide himself in a corner, and deny me? ”

“ You are worthy of those noble emotions of Art, by the fervent zeal with which you worship its creed. Your piano score of the Overture to Coriolanus does all honor to your artist conscience, and shows a rare and patient intelligence which is indispensable to bringing this task to a satisfactory end. ”

“ I have repeatedly heard the most gratifying tidings of the sympathy and care which you bestow in Detmold upon the works of Wagner and Berlioz. Regardless of the many difficulties, opposition, and misunderstandings which meet these great creations, I cherish with you the conviction that "nothing truly good and beautiful is lost in the stream of Time," and that the pains taken by those who intend to preserve the higher and the divine in Art do not remain fruitless. ”

“ In passing lately through Frankfort I had a glance at the score of "Genoveva", a performance of which had been announced to me at Leipzig for the middle of May at latest. I am very much afraid that Schumann will have a struggle with the difficulties and delays which usually occur in trying to get any lofty work performed. One would say that a bad fairy, in order sometimes to counterbalance the works of genius, gives a magic success to the most vulgar works and presides over the propagation of them, favoring those whom inspiration has disdained, in order to push its elect into the shade. ”

“ Give him my most friendly greetings; as soon as our concert affairs are settled here I shall write and invite him to give one of his orchestral works here.
Do not let yourself be grieved at the ever-widening schism in Leipzig about which you write to me. We have nothing to lose by it; we must only understand how to assert our full rights in order to attain them. That is the task, which will not be accomplished in a day nor in a year. Indeed, it is as it is written in the Gospel, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few!" ”

“ In the programme which has been sent to me, the music of which will take about three hours in performance, I am pleased with the prospect before us, that the glories which Mozart unfolds in the different domains of Art—Symphony, Opera, Church, and Concert music-are taken into account, and that thus the manifold rays of his genius are laid hold of, as far as is possible in the limits of a concert programme. ”

“ Ah! provided I don't go mad, you will find an artist in me! Yes, an artist such as you desire, such as is required nowadays!
"And I too am a painter!" cried Michael Angelo the first time he beheld a chef d'oeuvre...Though insignificant and poor, your friend cannot leave off repeating those words of the great man ever since Paganini's last performance. Rene, what a man, what a violin, what an artist! ”

“ Hans von Bulow will bring you these lines. You must enjoy yourself in the artist who, above all other active or dying out virtuosi; is the dearest to me, and who has, so to speak, grown out of my musical heart.—When Hummel heard me in Paris more than twenty-five years ago, he said, "Der Bursch ist ein Eisenfresser." ”

“ That was a mistake, as I discovered later and deeply regretted, when I had learned to understand that for the artist who wishes to be worthy of the name of artist the danger of not pleasing the public is a far less one than that of allowing oneself to be decided by its humors
—and to this danger every executive artist is especially exposed, if he does not take courage resolutely and on principle to stand earnestly and consistently by his conviction, and to produce those works which he knows to be the best, whether people like them or not. ”

“ I entirely approve of your intention of spending some months in Vienna and its charming environs—also of your closer intercourse with the Master Czerny, whose many-sided musical experiences may be of the greatest use to you practically and theoretically. Of all living composers who have occupied themselves especially with pianoforte playing and composing, I know none whose views and opinions offer so just an experience. ”

“ He would have rejected 20th-century music that entertained cynical notions of any kind, or notions that obviated the concept of beauty in any way. There is no Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Cage, Adams and certainly no Schoenberg in Liszt's music. His music has an ideological "ceiling," and that ceiling is "beauty." It never goes beyond that. And perhaps it was never as "beautiful" as the music of Mozart, Bach or Beethoven, nor quite as rational (Are all the emotions in Liszt's music truly "controlled?") ”

“ Petersburg, it was natural that I should introduce her in the first instance to you, and recommend her to you first and foremost as the protegee of Her Imperial Majesty the Grand Duchess Marie Pawlowna, as well as of the reigning Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weymar (in whose service she has been for several years as Court Pianist and Professor at the Institute for Young Ladies of the Nobility) ,—and, secondly, as a clever woman and excellent musician and pianist, who, after having gone through the most conscientious study, is perfectly fitted to teach others in a most agreeable manner. ”

“ Take advantage of being as yet unknown, and give to the public from the beginning a proper opinion of your talent by a collective publication. Write a couple of pleasing, brilliant Studies—perhaps also a Notturno (or something of that sort) , and an effective Fantasia on some conspicuous theme. Then let Schlesinger, Hartel, or Mechetti (to whom I will most gladly speak about your works beforehand) publish the six pieces—your Concerto and the C major Study, together with the later pieces—all together, so that publisher, critic, artist, and public all have to do with them at the same time. ”

“ It is really curious to observe how the well-known saying, "It is from the north that light comes to us today," has been verified lately with regard to musical literature. After Mr. Oulibicheff had endowed us with a Mozart, here come you with a Beethoven. Without attempting to compare two works which are in so many respects as different and separate as the two heroes chosen by their respective historiographers, it is nevertheless natural that your name should be frequently associated with that of Mr. Oulibicheff—for each is an honor to Art and to his country. ”

“ I am deeply sensible of your charming lines, Mademoiselle, the impression of which is the completion for me of the harmonious vibrations of your beautiful talent,—vibrations which are still resounding in the woods and in your auditors at Eilsen. While expressing to you my sincere thanks I should reproach myself were I to forget the piquant and substantial present that your father has sent me, and I beg you to tell him that we have done all honor to the savory product of Brunswick industry. ”

“ To tell the truth I am extremely thankful to the Vienna public, for it was they who, in a critically apathetic moment, roused and raised me [When he came from Venice to Vienna in the spring of 1838, to give a concert for the benefit of his Hungarian compatriots after the inundations, on which occasion, although Thalberg, Clara Wieck, and Henselt had been there before him, he aroused the utmost enthusiasm.] ; but still I don't feel the slightest obligation to return there a year sooner or later. My Vienna journey will pretty much mark the end of my virtuoso career. ”

“ Hungary hailed in me the man from whom she expects artistic illustriousness, after all the illustrious soldiers and politicians she has so plentifully produced. As a child I received from my country precious tokens of interest, and the means of going abroad to develop my artistic vocation. When grown up, and after long years, the young man returns to bring her the fruits of his work and the future of his will, the enthusiasm of the hearts which open to receive him and the expression of a national joy must not be confounded with the frantic demonstrations of an audience of amateurs. ”

“ The predilection of His Majesty the King of Saxony for Beethoven's Symphonies assuredly does honor to his taste for the Beautiful in music, and no one could more truly agree to that than I. I will only observe, on the one side, that Beethoven's Symphonies are extremely well known, and, on the other, that these admirable works are performed at Dresden by an orchestra having at its disposal far more considerable means than we have here, and that consequently our performance would run the risk of appearing rather provincial to His Majesty. ”

“ In production the public have far more to care about the artist than he has to care about them, or indeed to let himself be embarrassed by them. At home, our whole life through, we have to study and to devise how to mature our work and to attain as near as possible to our ideal of Art. But when we enter the concert-room the feeling ought not to leave us, that, just by our conscientious and persevering striving, we stand somewhat higher than the public, and that we have to represent our portion of "Menschheits-Wurde," [Manhood's dignity] as Schiller says. ”