Whatever May Come Of It, And However Well Or Ill You Are Treated By The Public Or Criticism, My Appreciation

Of the value that I recognize in your works will not vary, for it is not without a well-fixed

Criterion, quite apart from the fashion of the day, and the high or low tide of success, that I estimate your compositions highly, finding much to praise in them, except the reservation of some criticisms which almost all sum up as follows - that your extreme productiveness has not as yet left you the necessary leisure to imprint a more marked individuality on your works, and to complete them. For, as it has been very justly said, it is not enough to do a thing, but it must be completed. This said and understood, there is no one who admires more than I do your remarkable and abundant faculties, or who takes a more sincere and friendly interest in your work. You know that I have set my mind upon your "Ocean" being given here, and I shall beg you also to give us the pleasure of playing one of your Concertos. In about ten days I will write and tell you the date of the first concert of our orchestra.

Meanwhile your "Chasseurs de Siberie" will be given again on Wednesday next (the 22nd). I will tell Cornelius to give you tidings of it, unless the fancy takes you to come and hear it, in order to make a diversion from your "Voix interieures" [internal voices] of Leipzig.

Write to me soon, my dear Van II., and believe me wholly your very affectionate and devoted friend,

F. Liszt

November 19th, 1854

127. To Dr. Franz Brendel

Dear Friend,

Kahnt [The subsequent publisher, for many years, of the Neue Zeitschrift.] is only known to me by name, as an active and not too moderately Philistine publisher. Personally I have never met him, and therefore I cannot give a decided opinion as to his fitness and suitability for the post of publisher of the Neue Zeitschrift - yet, on the grounds you give me, it seems quite right. Nothing is to be expected from Bussenius until he has made a firm footing at Gotha, which can only come to pass in the course of the next months; besides this, he has such gigantic plans for his new establishment in Gotha that the affairs of the Neue Zeitschrift might be left somewhat in the background. I entirely agree with you on this point, that you cannot put the Neue Zeitschrift in the market and offer it to just any publisher who has shown himself up to now hostile to our tendencies. To do such a thing as that could never lead to a satisfactory result. I would, however, remark that the next few years will probably set our party more firmly on their legs; the invalidity of our opponents vouches pretty surely for that, apart from the fact, which is nevertheless the principal point, that powerful talent is developing in our midst, and many others who formerly stood aloof from us are drawing near to us and agreeing with us. Consequently it seems to me that it is not to your interest to conclude at once a contract for too many years with Kahnt, unless, which is scarcely likely, he were to make you such an offer that you would be satisfied with it under the most favorable conditions.

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