Letters Of Franz Liszt, Volume 1,
Letters Of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris To Rome: Years Of Travel As A Virtuoso" By Franz Liszt - Page 227 of 244 - First - Home

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Please Make My Excuses To Him If I Do Not Answer His Letter Other Than By A Silent Condolence (In German Beleidsbezeugung!).

- It has become horribly difficult nowadays to make a footing on the boards - "which signify the world" - especially for writers of classic tragic-plays, whose lot is far more a tragic than a playing one!

- Things certainly are not much better with most of the Opera composers, although that genre is the most thankful one of all. Without a strong dose of obstinacy and resignation there is no doing anything. In spite of the comforting proverb "Geduldige Schafe gehen viele in den Stall," [The English equivalent seems to be "Patience and application will carry us through."] there is for the greater number and most patient of the sheep no more room in the fold, to say nothing of food! - Thus the problem of the literary and artistic proletariat becomes from year to year more clamorous.

Your orchestral concert plan has surprised me very much, and I thank you from my heart for this fresh proof of your energy and goodwill. Yet for this year I think it would be more judicious to pause, for several reasons which it would lead me rather too far to explain, and which, therefore, I prefer to reserve for a viva voce talk. They relate to (A) my personal position and something connected with it socially; (B) the position of musical matters among artists and in the Press, which not only influence but intimidate the public, disconcert it, and palm off upon it ears, with which it cannot hear. This temporary very bad state of things I think I have, alas! at all times quite rightly acknowledged, and, if I do not greatly mistake, it must surely soon perceptibly modify in our favor. Our opponents "triumph far more than they conquer us," as Tacitus says. They will not be able to hold their narrow, malicious, negative, and unproductive thesis much longer against our quiet, assured, positive progress in Art-works. A consoling and significant symptom of this is that they are no longer able to support their adherents among living and working composers, but devour them critically while the public is so indifferent. The resume of the whole criticism of the opposition may be summed up in the following words: "All the heroes of Art in past times find, alas! no worthy successors in our day." But our time will not give up its rights - and the rightful successors will prove themselves such!

More of this when we have an opportunity. You have doubtless heard that a similar plan to yours is in progress in Leipzig. My friend Bronsart undertakes the direction of the Euterpe concerts for this winter, and there will be some rows about it. We will await the result; if it should not be satisfactory, yet the matter is so arranged that it cannot do us any great harm. As regards Vienna I think it would be wisest to let this winter pass by without troubling ourselves about it.

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