September; Raff is promenading amid the rose and myrtle
shrubberies of his "Sleeping Beauty" at Wiesbaden; Stor is
returning with his pockets full of new nuances which he has
discovered at Ilmenau, where he has composed (as a pendant to my
Symphonic Poem) "Ce qu'on entend dans la vallee"! ["What is heard
in the valley." Liszt's work bears the title "Ce qu'on entend sur
la montagne" ("What is heard on the mountain.")] Preller
[Friedrich Preller, the celebrated painter of the Odyssey
pictures] has found beautiful trees in the Duchy of Oldenburg
which serve him as a recovery of the "Recovery" [Or a "recreation
of the Recreation." I do not know which is meant. The original is
"qui lui servent d'Erholung von der 'Erholung.'" - Translator's
note.]; Martha Sabinin [A pupil of Liszt's, a Russian] is
haunting the "Venusberg" in the neighborhood of Eisenach in
company with Mademoiselle de Hopfgarten; Bronsart [Hans von
Bronsart, Liszt's pupil, now General-Intendant at Weimar] is gone
to a sort of family congress at Konigsberg; and Hoffman [Hoffmann
von Fallersleben, the well-known poet] is running through Holland
and Belgium to make a scientific survey of them; whilst Nabich is
trying to gain the ears of England, Scotland, and Ireland with
his trombone!
I, for my part, am in the midst of finishing the 13th Psalm (for
tenor solo, chorus, and orchestra), "How long wilt Thou forget
me, O Lord?" which you will hear this winter; and I shall not
leave Weymar till November to go and pay a few days' visit to
Wagner at Zurich. Don't altogether forget me, my dear Cossmann,
in the midst of your solemnities - - [The end of the letter was
lost.]
143. To August Kiel, Court Conductor in Detmold
[Autograph (without address) in the possession of M. Alfred
Bovet, of Valentigney. The contents lead to the conclusion that
the above was the addressee (1813-71).]
I have been prevented until now, by a mass of work and little
outings, from sending you my warmest thanks for your kind
forwarding of the opera text of "Sappho," and I beg that you will
kindly excuse this delay. The manner in which Rietz's composition
to the Schiller dithyramb is to be interwoven with the poem I
cannot venture fully to explain. I confess also that the
dramatico-musical vivifying of the antique is for me a sublime,
attractive problem, as yet undecided, in the solution of which
even Mendelssohn himself has not succeeded in such a degree as to
leave nothing further to be sought for. Some years ago "Sappho"
(in three acts - text by Augier, music by Gounod) was given at the
Paris Opera.
