It Is Well Known
That Liszt Derived His Inspiration To Write The Hunnenschlachl
[Battle Of The Huns] From Kaulbach's Celebrated Picture On The
Staircase Of The New Museum In Berlin.
He intended to work up the
six pictures of Kaulbach's which are there, in a similar
symphonic manner, probably for theatrical performance in Weimar.
Dingelstedt appears also to have planned an after-poem in verses.
Kaulbach's letter to his friend is as follows:
"Your original and
spirited idea - the musical and poetic form of the historical
pictures in the Berlin Museum - has taken hold of me completely. I
much wish to hear yours and Dingelstedt's ideas of this
performance. The representation of these powerful subjects in
poetical, musical, and artistic form must constitute a harmonious
work, rounded off into one complete whole. It will resound and
shine through all lands!! - I shall therefore hasten to Weimar, as
soon as my work here will let me free. - With the warmest regards
to the Princess, that truly inspired friend of Art, and to her
charming daughter, from myself and my wife, I remain, in
unchangeable respect and friendship, Your faithful, W.
Kaulbach."]
Dear Madam,
I have been encouraged to send you what indeed truly belongs to
you, but what, alas! I must send in so shabby a dress that I must
beg from you all the indulgence that you have so often kindly
shown me. At the same time with these lines you will receive the
manuscript of the two-pianoforte arrangement of my Symphonic Poem
"Die Hunnenschlacht" (written for a large orchestra and completed
by the end of last February), and I beg you, dear madam, to do me
the favor to accept this work as a token of my great reverence
and most devoted friendship towards the Master of masters.
Perhaps there may be an opportunity later on, in Munich or
Weymar, in which I can have the work performed before you with
full orchestra, and can give a voice to the meteoric and solar
light which I have borrowed from the painting, and which at the
Finale I have formed into one whole by the gradual working up of
the Catholic chorale "Crux fidelis," and the meteoric sparks
blended therewith. As I already intimated to Kaulbach in Munich,
I was led by the musical demands of the material to give
proportionately more place to the solar light of Christianity,
personified in the Catholic chorale "Crux fidelis," than appears
to be the case in the glorious painting, in order thereby to win
and pregnantly represent the conclusion of the Victory of the
Cross, with which I, both as a Catholic and as a man, could not
dispense.
Kindly excuse this somewhat obscure commentary on the two
opposing streams of light in which the Huns and the Cross are
moving; the performance will make the matter bright and clear -
and if Kaulbach finds something to amuse him in this somewhat
venturesome mirroring of his fancy I shall be royally delighted.
Through Dingelstedt, whom our Grand Duke is taking away from
Munich, you have heard the latest news from Weymar, and I have,
alas!
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