On this road alone can you soon attain a conductor's post, and
the "esteem" due to you as a music director, both from musicians
and people of rank.
For the rest you would entirely misconstrue my good advice if you
thought you could see in it only a pretext for not keeping my
former promise of coming to see you at Stettin. I shall most
certainly come to you on the first opportunity, and shall be
delighted to spend a couple of days with such excellent friends.
But first of all I must stop in Weymar for a while, in order to
finish some works begun, and to forget altogether my lengthy
illness in Zurich.
I had some glorious days with Wagner; and "Rheingold" and the
"Walkure" are incredibly wonderful works.
To my great sorrow, I only saw your brother Carl [A musician, a
friend of Wagner's.] a couple of times in the early days of my
stay in Zurich. I will tell you vaud voce how this happened, so
entirely against my wish and expectation, through a provoking
over-sensitiveness on the part of your brother. I am sure you
don't need any assurance that I did not give occasion in any way
to this. But for the future I must quietly wait till Carl thinks
better and more justly of it.
Farewell, dear friend, and let me soon hear from you again.
Yours in all friendship,
F. Liszt
Bronsart is going shortly to Paris, where he will stay some time.
Cornelius is working at a comic opera [This would be the Barber
of Baghdad. - Translator's note.] in the Bernhard's-Hutle. Raff is
to finish his "Samson" for Darmstadt. Tausig is giving concerts
in Warsaw. Pruckner will spend the winter in Vienna and appear at
several concerts. Damrosch composed lately an Overture and Entre-
acte music to the "Maid of Orleans." Stor plunges himself into
the duties of a general music director. Thus much have I learned
of our Neu-Weymar-Verein.
169. To Professor L. A. Zellner in Vienna
[General Secretary of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde ("Society
of Lovers of Music") in Vienna; composer and writer on music.]
To my letter of yesterday I have still to add a postscript, my
dear friend, concerning the information in your new
Abonnement,[The Blatter fur Musik, Theater, and Kunst ("Pages of
Music, theater, and Art"), edited by Z.] in which I was struck
with the name of Bertini among the classics, which does not
seem to me suitable. As far as I know, Bertini is still living,
[He did not die till 1876.] and according to the common idea, to
which one must stick fast, only those who are dead can rank as
classic and be proclaimed as classic. Thus Schumann, the
romanticist, and Beethoven, the glorious, holy, crazy one, have
become classics. Should Bertini have already died, I take back my
remark, although the popularity of his Studies is not, to me, a
satisfactory reason for making his name a classic. - Moscheles'
and Czerny's Studies and "Methods" would have a much more just
claim to such a thing, and your paper has especially to set
itself the task of counteracting, with principle and consistency,
the confusion of ideas from which confusion and ruin of matters
arise. Hold fast then to this principle, both in great and small
things, for the easier understanding with the public, that the
recognition of posterity alone impresses the stamp of "classical"
upon works, in the same way as facts and history are established;
for thus much is certain, that all great classics have been
reviled in their own day as innovators and even romanticists, if
not bunglers and crazy fellows, and you yourself have commented
on, and inquired into, this matter many times.. - .
In your number of today I read an extract from my letter to
Erkel, [A well-known Hungarian composer ("Hunyadi Laszlo")] in
which, however, the points are missing. Erkel shall show you the
letter on the first opportunity, for he has not left it lying
idle in his desk. Of course no public use is to be made of it.
Yours ever, F. L.
January 2nd, 1857
170. To Herr von Turanyi, Musical Conductor of the Town of Aix-
la-Chapelle
[Published in the Allgemeine Musikzeitung, July 11th, 1890]
Weymar, January 3rd, 1857
Dear Herr Capellmeister,
Although I am still kept to my bed by a long-continued
indisposition, yet I will not delay giving you my warmest thanks
for the active pains you have so kindly taken to place my
endeavors in the cause of Art in a better light than I could
otherwise have expected in your neighborhood.
The result of the choice of myself as conductor of the Musical
Festival at Aix-la-Chapelle this year - a result which was
notified to me yesterday by the letter of the Committee of the
Lower-Rhine Musical Festival - is a welcome sign to me of the
gradual recognition which an open and honestly expressed,
consistent, and thoroughly disinterested conviction may meet with
in different places. Whilst feeling myself especially indebted to
you for having brought about this result, I would express to you
at the same time the fact of my readiness to answer your very
flattering wishes to the best of my powers, and to put aside any
hindrances that may be in the way, in order to fulfill the task
entrusted to me, if the following remarks are brought to the
attention of the Committee, as I consider them essential to the
success and also to the importance of the Musical Festival.
My conducting in Aix-la-Chapelle can only have such significance
as attaches to the less-known and newer works, and those which
are more nearly allied to the Art-interests of today; its
justification would be strengthened by an excellent performance
of such works.
