Perhaps in
your next number you will put in a short appreciative notice of
Litolfff's appearance here.
Rubinstein left for Leipzig at midday today. The performance of
his Symphony ["Ocean"; given for the first time, November 16th,
1854, at the Gewandhaus Concert for the Poor.] is fixed for the
16th at the Gewandhaus, and later on he will also appear as a
pianist. Hartel, Hofmeister, and Schott have already taken about
thirty of his manuscripts, which is about the smaller half of his
portfolio! -
About the Berlin "Tannhauser" affair I cannot for the moment say
more than that I have always made Wagner feel perfectly at
liberty to put me on one side, and to manage the matter himself,
according to his own wishes, without me. But so long as he gives
me his confidence as a friend, it is my duty to serve him as a
discreet friend - and this I cannot do otherwise than by giving no
ear to transactions of that kind, and letting people gossip as
much as they like. Don't say anything more about it for the
present in your paper. The matter goes deeper than many
inexperienced friends of Wagner's imagine. I will explain it to
you more clearly by word of mouth. Meanwhile I remain passive -
for which Wagner will thank me later on.
Yours most truly,
F. Liszt
N. B. - Pohl wishes his Minnesinger article not to be signed with
the name Hoplit, but with the letters R. P., when it appears in
your paper.
126. To Anton Rubinstein
Your "Dialogue Dramatique" a propos of your "Ocean" is a little
chef-d'oeuvre, and I shall keep it, in order, later on, to put it
at the disposal of some future Lenz, who will undertake your
Catalogue and the analysis of the three styles of Van II. We
laughed with all our hearts, a deux, in the little blue room of
the Altenburg, and we form the most sincere wishes that Gurkhaus,
[Principal of the music firm F. Kistner in Leipzig.] the deus ex
machine, may have come to put you out of the uncomfortable state
of suspense in which the Gewandhaus public did you the honor to
leave you. To tell the truth, this decrescendo of applause, at
the third movement of your Symphony, surprises me greatly, and I
would have wagered without hesitation that it would be the other
way. A great disadvantage for this kind of composition is that,
in our stupid musical customs, often very anti-musical, it is
almost impossible to appeal to a badly informed public by a
second performance immediately after the first; and at Leipzig,
as elsewhere, one only meets with a very small number of people
who know how to apply cause and effect intelligently and
enthusiastically to a piece out of the common, and signed with
the name of a composer who is not dead. Moreover I suspect that
your witty account is tainted with a species of modesty, and I
shall wait, like the general public, for the accounts in the
newspapers in order to form an opinion of your success. Whatever
may come of it, and however well or ill you are treated by the
public or criticism, my appreciation of the value that I
recognize in your works will not vary, for it is not without a
well-fixed criterion, quite apart from the fashion of the day,
and the high or low tide of success, that I estimate your
compositions highly, finding much to praise in them, except the
reservation of some criticisms which almost all sum up as
follows - that your extreme productiveness has not as yet left you
the necessary leisure to imprint a more marked individuality on
your works, and to complete them. For, as it has been very justly
said, it is not enough to do a thing, but it must be completed.
This said and understood, there is no one who admires more than I
do your remarkable and abundant faculties, or who takes a more
sincere and friendly interest in your work. You know that I have
set my mind upon your "Ocean" being given here, and I shall beg
you also to give us the pleasure of playing one of your
Concertos. In about ten days I will write and tell you the date
of the first concert of our orchestra.
Meanwhile your "Chasseurs de Siberie" will be given again on
Wednesday next (the 22nd). I will tell Cornelius to give you
tidings of it, unless the fancy takes you to come and hear it, in
order to make a diversion from your "Voix interieures" [internal
voices] of Leipzig.
Write to me soon, my dear Van II., and believe me wholly your
very affectionate and devoted friend,
F. Liszt
November 19th, 1854
127. To Dr. Franz Brendel
Dear Friend,
Kahnt [The subsequent publisher, for many years, of the Neue
Zeitschrift.] is only known to me by name, as an active and not
too moderately Philistine publisher. Personally I have never met
him, and therefore I cannot give a decided opinion as to his
fitness and suitability for the post of publisher of the Neue
Zeitschrift - yet, on the grounds you give me, it seems quite
right. Nothing is to be expected from Bussenius until he has made
a firm footing at Gotha, which can only come to pass in the
course of the next months; besides this, he has such gigantic
plans for his new establishment in Gotha that the affairs of the
Neue Zeitschrift might be left somewhat in the background. I
entirely agree with you on this point, that you cannot put the
Neue Zeitschrift in the market and offer it to just any publisher
who has shown himself up to now hostile to our tendencies. To do
such a thing as that could never lead to a satisfactory result. I
would, however, remark that the next few years will probably set
our party more firmly on their legs; the invalidity of our
opponents vouches pretty surely for that, apart from the fact,
which is nevertheless the principal point, that powerful talent
is developing in our midst, and many others who formerly stood
aloof from us are drawing near to us and agreeing with us.
Consequently it seems to me that it is not to your interest to
conclude at once a contract for too many years with Kahnt,
unless, which is scarcely likely, he were to make you such an
offer that you would be satisfied with it under the most
favorable conditions.
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