If You Had
Asked Me To Find A Motto For Your Book I Should Have Proposed
This,
"Inciter et initier,"
As best summing up, according to my ideas, the aim that you
fulfill by your twofold talent of distinguished writer and
musician ex professo. It is really curious to observe how the
well-known saying, "It is from the north that light comes to us
today," has been verified lately with regard to musical
literature. After Mr. Oulibicheff had endowed us with a Mozart,
here come you with a Beethoven. Without attempting to compare two
works which are in so many respects as different and separate as
the two heroes chosen by their respective historiographers, it is
nevertheless natural that your name should be frequently
associated with that of Mr. Oulibicheff - for each is an honor to
Art and to his country. This circumstance, however, does not do
away with your right to lecture Mr. Oulibicheff very wittily, and
with a thorough knowledge of the subject, for having made of
Mozart a sort of Dalai-Lama, [The head of the temporal and
spiritual power in Thibet (Translator's note)] beyond which there
is nothing. In all this polemical part (pp. 26, 27, etc.), as in
many other cases, I am entirely of your opinion, with all due
justice to the talents and merits of your compatriot. From a
reading of the two works, Mozart and Beethoven, it is evident
that, if the studies, predilections, and habits of mind of Mr.
Oulibicheff have perfectly predisposed him to accomplish an
excellent work in its entirety, yours, my dear Lenz, have led you
to a sort of intimacy, the familiarity of which nourished a sort
of religious exaltation, with the genius of Beethoven. Mr.
Oulibicheff in his method proceeds more as proprietor and
professor; you more as poet and lawyer. But, whatever may be said
about this or that hiatus in your work, the plan of which has
confined you disadvantageously to the analysis of the piano
sonatas, and however much people may think themselves justified
in cavilling at you about the distribution of your materials, the
chief merit, which none could refuse you without injustice, is
that you have really understood Beethoven, and have succeeded in
making your imagination adequate to his by your intuitive
penetration into the secrets of his genius.
For us musicians, Beethoven's work is like the pillar of cloud
and fire which guided the Israelites through the desert - a pillar
of cloud to guide us by day, a pillar of fire to guide us by
night, "so that we may progress both day and night." His
obscurity and his light trace for us equally the path we have to
follow; they are each of them a perpetual commandment, an
infallible revelation. Were it my place to categorize the
different periods of the great master's thoughts, as manifested
in his Sonatas, Symphonies, and Quartets, I should certainly not
fix the division into three styles, which is now pretty generally
adopted and which you have followed; but, simply recording the
questions which have been raised hitherto, I should frankly weigh
the great question which is the axis of criticism and of musical
aestheticism at the point to which Beethoven has led us - namely,
in how far is traditional or recognized form a necessary
determinant for the organism of thought? -
The solution of this question, evolved from the works of
Beethoven himself, would lead me to divide this work, not into
three styles or periods, - the words "style" and "period" being
here only corollary subordinate terms, of a vague and equivocal
meaning, - but quite logically into two categories: the first,
that in which traditional and recognized form contains and
governs the thought of the master; and the second, that in which
the thought stretches, breaks, recreates, and fashions the form
and style according to its needs and inspirations. Doubtless in
proceeding thus we arrive in a direct line at those incessant
problems of "authority" and "liberty." But why should they alarm
us? In the region of liberal arts they do not, happily, bring in
any of the dangers and disasters which their oscillations
occasion in the political and social world; for, in the domain of
the Beautiful, Genius alone is the authority, and hence, Dualism
disappearing, the notions of authority and liberty are brought
back to their original identity. - Manzoni, in defining genius as
"a stronger imprint of Divinity," has eloquently expressed this
very truth. -
This is indeed a long letter, my dear Lenz, and as yet I am only
at the preliminaries. Let us then pass on to the Deluge, - and
come and see me at Weymar, where we can chat as long and fully as
we like of these things in the shade of our fine park. If a
thrush chances to come and sing I shall take advantage of the
circumstance to make, en passant, some groundless quarrels with
you on some inappropriate terms which one meets with here and
there in your book, - as, for example, the employment of the word
"scale" (ut, fa, la, etc.) instead of arpeggio chord; or, again,
on your inexcusable want of gallantry which leads you maliciously
to bracket the title of "Mamselle" (!) on to such and such a
Diva, a proceeding which will draw down upon you the wrath of
these divinities and of their numerous admirers. But I can assure
you beforehand that there are far more nightingales than thrushes
in our park; and, similarly, in your book the greater number of
pages, judiciously thought out and brilliantly written, carry the
day so well in worth and valor over any thinly scattered
inattentions or negligences, that I join with my whole heart in
the concert of praise to which you have a right.
Pray accept, my dear Lenz, the most sincere expressions of
feeling and best thanks of
Your very affectionate and obliged
F. Liszt
Weymar, December 2nd, 1852
As Madame Bettina d'Arnim has been passing some weeks at Weymar,
I let her know about your book.
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