I Had Indeed Forbidden It, Because This Winter I Will Not Have My Name Put On Any Concert Programme At All - But Her Exquisite Delivery Of These Songs, Which Were Also Received With Approbation, Reconciled Me To It.

At the last Court concert in Berlin Fraulein Genast [A highly gifted singer, afterwards Frau Dr. Merian in Weimar] selected the "Loreley" as her concluding song, and the Frau Princess Victoria expressed herself very favorably about it, remarking that a Schubert spirit breathed in the composition.

One of these days Fraulein Genast is again singing the "Loreley" at the Philharmonic Concert in Hamburg. Otten has specially begged her to do so. The same gentleman wrote about eighteen months ago to Frau von Milde that he must beg to remark "that in regard to the choice of compositions to be performed Robert Schumann is the extreme limit to whom his programme could extend!"

I cannot quite remember whether I sent Gotze a copy of my songs. Please ask him, and if I have not yet done so let me know. Gotze has a special claim to them, for in earlier years he had the courage to sing several of my nonentities - and I will see that he has a copy at once. At the same time ask Fraulein Gotze also whether she has received the copy of the Ballade Leonore. [Liszt had composed this melodrama for Auguste Gotze, and frequently performed it, as well as his later melodramas, with her.] From several places (and quite lately from Carlsruhe and Brunswick) orders for this Ballade have come to me, which - between ourselves - are not convenient to me. My copyist has already had to make at least nine copies of it, which is a pretty good expense. Nevertheless a tenth shall willingly be made, if the one which was intended for Fraulein Gotze did not reach her, of which I am somewhat in doubt, owing to the many demands which the Leonore has brought with it, and which have made me somewhat confused.

It would really be the best for me if Kahnt or Schuberth would save me the trouble of making further copies by publishing the "Leonore". But I should not wish in any way to incommode the publisher, and certainly not to offer anything without knowing that it would be welcome. Under present circumstances a very pronounced reserve has become my rule. My business is simply to continue working unremittingly, and quietly to await the rest.

Accordingly I submit myself without difficulty to your experience as editor in regard to my Munich letter [To Wilkoszewski] - although I could maintain good grounds for publishing it. Certainly it is always the gentlemanly thing entirely to ignore certain things and people. You may therefore be quite right in putting aside all other considerations; and as I am convinced of your most sincere friendship I willingly leave you to decide whether my coming forward in such matters is of use or not. In case you had thought it advisable for my letter to be printed in the "Neue Zeitschrift" (which I left to your judgment), it would have had of necessity to be printed without the slightest alteration, because I have purposely written it thus clearly to Herr W., and any alteration in it might be taken as cowardice (which is far from me). But probably it is better to abandon the matter for a while, and to be somewhat more severe on another occasion.

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