That In Composing Them I Do Not
Quite Work At Haphazard And Grope About In The Dark, As My
Opponents
In so many quarters reproach me with doing, will be
gradually acknowledged by those among them who may be honest
Enough not to wish entirely to obstruct a right insight into the
matter through preconceived views. As I have for years been
conscious of the artistic task that lies before me, neither
consistent perseverance nor quiet reflection shall be wanting for
the fulfillment of it. May God's blessing, without which nothing
can prosper and bear fruit, rest on my work! -
I have read with attention and interest the discussions in the
Vienna papers, to which the performance of the Preludes and the
concert gave rise. As I had previously said to you, the
doctrinaire Hanslick could not be favorable to me; his article is
perfidious, but on the whole seemly. Moreover it would be an easy
matter for me to reduce his arguments to nil, and I think he is
sharp enough to know that. On a better opportunity this could
also be shown to him, without having the appearance of correcting
him. I suppose the initials C. D. in the Vienna paper mean
Dorffl - or Drechsler? No matter by whom the critique is written,
the author convicts himself in it of such intense narrowness that
he will be very welcome to many other people less narrow than
himself. His like has already often existed, but is constantly in
demand. The musician nowadays cannot get out of the way of all
the buzzing. Twenty years ago there were hardly a couple of
musical papers in Europe, and the political papers referred only
in the most rare cases, and then only very briefly, to musical
matters. Now all this is quite different, and with my "Preludes,"
for instance (which, by the way, are only the prelude to my path
of composition), many dozen critics by profession have already
pounced on them, in order to ruin me through and through as a
composer. I by no means say that present conditions, taken as a
whole, are more unfavorable to the musician than the earlier
conditions, for all this talk in a hundred papers brings also
much good with it, which would not otherwise be so easy to
attain; - but simply the thinking and creative artist must not
allow himself to be misled by it, and must go his own gait
quietly and undisturbed, as they say the hippopotamus does, in
spite of all the arrows which rebound from his thick skin. An
original thinker says, "As one emblem and coat of arms I show a
tree violently blown by the storm, which nevertheless shows its
red fruit on all the boughs, with the motto, Dum convellor
mitescunt; or also, Conquassatus sed ferax."
When you have an opportunity I beg you to give my best thanks to
my old friend Lowy for the letter he wrote me directly after the
performance of the "Preludes." I know that he means well towards
me, in his own way, which, unfortunately, cannot be mine,
because, to me, friendship without heart and flame is something
foreign; and I cannot understand, for instance, why at the
concert in question he did not take his customary place, but kept
back in a corner, as he tells me.
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