I only beg you to be here about
the 4th November, in order to give us your own ideas at the final
rehearsals. If you decidedly prefer to be a spectator at the
performance, I will willingly conduct the work - but perhaps at
the general rehearsals the fancy may take you to mount the
conductor's chair, as I proposed to you at first: whatever you
definitely decide in this matter will only be agreeable to me.
Therefore just do as you generally do, I beg you, without
ceremony or bother of any kind.
How do you find yourself as regards the musical atmosphere of
Leipzig? Has your "Ocean" obtained the suffrages of the Areopagus
which must be its first judge? At which Gewandhaus Concert will
Mr. Van II. be heard? If you already know anything positive as to
your debuts in Leipzig, write it to me, with a continuation of
the commentaries which amused me so much in your former letter.
We have nothing of special news here which can interest you.
Madame Wagner returns to Weymar the day after tomorrow, and next
Sunday "Lohengrin" will be given. The Wednesday after that a new
singer (Mdlle. Stoger, the daughter of the director at Prague),
who possesses a beautiful voice and appears to be highly endowed,
will make her debut in "Lucrezia Borgia." On the 24th October I
expect Madame Schumann, whom you will already have seen and heard
at Leipzig. When you have an opportunity please tell her not to
delay her journey to Weymar, for I have made all the arrangements
with Mr. de Beaulieu, etc., from the 24th to the 26th, for the
Court Concert and for the one which will take place at the
theater in her honor.
My "Faust" is finished, and I am going to give it to the copyist
in a couple of days. I am very curious to make acquaintance with
yours, and to see in how far the beaux-esprits differ whilst
meeting on common ground! Your "murrendos" at Leipzig will have
proved favorable to your conversations with the Muse, and I look
forward to a fine Symphony. A revoir then, dear friend; on the
4th November, or the 5th at latest, we have the first performance
of an unpublished tragedy, "Bernhard von Weymar," for which Raff
has written a grand Overture and a March, and on the following
days your general rehearsals.
Yours in all friendship,
F. Liszt
125. To Dr. Franz Brendel
[Beginning of November, 1854]
Dear Friend,
Pohl's article on Lieder und Spruche, etc. (Songs and Sayings),
appears to me to be of general interest to the public - therefore
I begged you to put it in your paper.
Touching what you have reserved of Raff's, I am quite of opinion
that you should also make room for him in his critical
examinations of the Minnesingers.
