I have to thank
it for a really happy hour; and that comes so rarely in my
intolerable, monotonous life! For a fortnight past I have again
put my neck into the English yoke. Every day which God gives - a
concert, with a journey, previously, of thirty to fifty miles.
And so it must continue at least till the end of January. What do
you say to that? -
If I am not more than half-dead, I must still go at the end of
February to Berlin and Petersburg, - and come back to London by
the first steamer at the beginning of May. Then I think I shall
take a rest. Where and how I do not yet know, and it depends
entirely upon the Pecuniary results of my journeys. I should like
to go to Switzerland, and thence to Venice, but I can't yet say
anything definite.
. - . I have today written a long letter to Leo Festetics. I am
hungering and thirsting to go back to Hungary. Every recollection
of it has taken deep root in my soul...And yet I cannot go back!
I am grieved that you can tell me nothing better of Lannoy. I
cannot understand how that is possible. The news of the Queen has
given me great pleasure - if you hear anything more about her let
me know. I have a kind of weakness for her.
About the Cantata I will write to you fully later.
Farewell, and be happy if possible, dear Schober; write again
soon, and remain ever my friend.
F. L.
Excuse the spelling and writing of these lines! You know that I
never write German; Tobias [Tobias Haslinger, the Vienna music
publisher.] is, I think, the only one who gets German letters
from me.
Manchester, December 5th, 1840
31. To Breitkopf and Hartel
London, May 7th, 1841
Schlesinger has just told me that Mendelssohn's Melodies which I
sent you from London have come out. I can't tell you, my dear Mr.
Hartel, how much I am put out by this precipitate publication.
Independently of the material wrong it does me (for before
sending them to you these Melodies were sold in London and
Paris), I am thus unable to keep my word to Beale and Richault,
who expected to publish them simultaneously with you.
The evil being irremediable I have only thought how to get a
prompt vengeance out of it. You will tell me later on if you
think it was really a Christian vengeance.
The matter is this: I have just added a tremendous cadenza, three
pages long, in small notes, and anentire Coda, almost as long, to
Beethoven's "Adelaide". I played it all without being hissed at
the concert given at the Paris Conservatoire for the Beethoven
Monument, and I intend to play it in London, and in Germany and
Russia. Schlesinger has printed all this medley, such as it is.
Will you do the same? In that case, as I care chiefly for your
edition, I will beg you to have the last Coda printed in small
notes as an Ossia, without taking away anything from the present
edition, so that the purists can play the integral text only, if
the commentary is displeasing to them.
It was certainly a very delicate matter to touch "Adelaide", and
yet it seemed to me necessary to venture. Have I done it with
propriety and taste? Competent judges will decide.
In any case I beg you not to let any one but Mr. Schumann look
over your edition.
In conclusion allow me to remind you that I was rather badly paid
for "Adelaide" formerly, and if you should think proper to send
me a draft on a London bank, fair towards you and myself, I shall
always receive it with a "new pleasure" - to quote the favorite
words of His Majesty the King of the French.
With kind regards, believe me, my dear sir, yours most sincerely,
F. Liszt
Be so kind as to remember me very affectionately to Mendelssohn.
As for Schumann, I shall write to him direct very shortly.
32. To Simon Lowy In Vienna
[Autograph in the possession of Madame Emilie Dore in Vienna.]
London, May 20th, 1841
I am still writing to you from England, my dear friend. Since my
last letter (end of December, I think) I have completed my tour
of the three kingdoms (by which I lose, by the way, 1000 pounds
sterling net, on 1500 pounds which my engagement brought me!),
have ploughed my way through Belgium, with which I have every
reason to be satisfied, and have sauntered about in Paris for six
weeks. This latter, I don't hide it from you, has been a real
satisfaction to my self-love. On arriving there I compared myself
(pretty reasonably, it seems to me) to a man playing ecarte for
the fifth point. Well, I have had king and vole, - seven points
rather than five! [The "fifth" is the highest in this game, so
Liszt means that he won.]
My two concerts alone, and especially the third, at the
Conservatoire, for the Beethoven Monument, are concerts out of
the ordinary run, such as I only can give in Europe at the
present moment.
The accounts in the papers can only have given you a very
incomplete idea. Without self-conceit or any illusion, I think I
may say that never has so striking an effect, so complete and so
irresistible, been produced by an instrumentalist in Paris.
A propos of newspapers, I am sending you, following this, the
article which Fetis (formerly my most redoubtable antagonist) has
just published in the "Gazette Musicale". It is written very
cleverly, and summarises the question well. If Fischhof [A
musician, a Professor at the Vienna Conservatorium.] translated
it for Bauerle [Editor of the Theater-Zeitung (Theatrical
Times).] it would make a good effect, I fancy.
