Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt Volume I Part 24

Soon I shall write better and more.

My best regards to H. Farewell, and do not lose your temper with

Your old plague,

RlCHARD WAGNER

ZURICH, October 13th, 1852

88.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I have to write to you, and am so annoyed about what I have to write to you that I would rather not take pen in hand any more.

Hulsen has declined; I enclose his letter. He has no notion of what the matter is about, and it will never be possible to give him a notion of it. This Hulsen is personally a well-disposed man, but without any knowledge of the business under his care. He treats with me about "Tannhauser" just as he might with Flotow about "Martha." It is too disgusting. I see fully that I have made a great mistake. From the beginning I ought to have made it the first and sole condition that everything concerning the performance of "Tannhauser" should be left wholly and entirely to you. I can explain to myself how it happened that I did not hit upon this simple method: The first news from Berlin about "Tannhauser" only frightened me. I had no confidence in anything there, and my instinct advised me to decline the thing altogether. It is true that you occurred to me at once as my only guarantee, but I had first to secure your consent to undertake "Tannhauser" in Berlin. In order, as it were, to gain time, I sent to Berlin the demand for 1,000 thalers, so as to keep them going, and at the same time I applied to you, with the urgent, impetuous question whether you would see to this matter.

Simultaneously with your answer in the affirmative I received from Berlin the news of the delay and postponement of "Tannhauser" till the new year. Being under the impression that my niece would leave Berlin at the beginning of February, I thought the "Tannhauser" performance would have to be given up altogether, and instructed my brother to get the score back unless Hulsen could guarantee me ten performances this winter. I thought the matter ended, when I was told in reply that my niece would stay till the end of May and that Hulsen would undertake to announce the opera six times during the first month. Thus the possibility of a performance of "Tannhauser" at Berlin, wholly given up by me, was once more restored.

From all the letters of Hulsen and my brother I could in the meantime see perfectly well that these people were without any understanding of what was to me essential and important in this matter; that in all their views they were so totally incapable of leaving the grooves of routine that I should have to fear they would never understand my desire to invite you to Berlin. I confess that I had some anxiety on the point, but at last I wrote to Hulsen myself as clearly, warmly, cordially, and persuasively as was in my power; I at once called his attention to the fact that the hostility of the very insignificant Berlin conductors would be as nothing compared with the favourable influence which you would exercise on every side; in short, I wrote in such a manner that I could not believe in the possibility of an unfavourable answer. Read that answer, and take notice that I have once more met with my usual fate: the fate of calling out to the world with my whole soul and of having my calls echoed by walls of leather. I am now discussing with myself what I shall do. To give up everything and simply demand my score back--that would be most agreeable to me. As yet I have not replied with a line to either Hulsen or X. What do you think? Or shall I look on indifferently, amuse myself when I can make a hundred thalers, buy champagne, and turn my back upon the world? It is a misery.

I am going from bad to worse every day, and lead an indescribably worthless life. Of real enjoyment of life I know nothing; to me "enjoyment of life, of love," is a matter of imagination, not of experience. In this manner my heart has to go to my brain, and my life becomes an artificial one; only as an "artist" I can live; in the artist my whole "man" has been sunk.

If I could visit you in Weimar and see a performance of my operas now and then, I might perhaps still hope to recover. I should there find an element of incitement, of attraction for my artistic being; perhaps a word of love would meet me now and then;--but here! Here I must perish in the very shortest s.p.a.ce of time, and everything--everything will come too late, too late! So it will be.

No news can give me pleasure any more; if I were vain and ambitious, it would be all right; as I am, nothing "written" can attract me. All this comes--too late!

What shall I do? Shall I implore the King of Saxony, or perhaps his ministers, for mercy, humble myself, and confess my repentance? Who can expect that of me?

You, my only one, the dearest whom I have, you who are to me prince and world, everything together, have mercy on me.

But calm! calm! I must write to you about the "Faust" overture.

You beautifully spotted the lie when I tried to make myself believe that I had written an "Overture to 'Faust'." You have felt quite justly what is wanting; the woman is wanting. Perhaps you would at once understand my tone-poem if I called it "Faust in Solitude".

At that time I intended to write an entire "Faust" symphony; the first movement, that which is ready, was this "solitary Faust,"

longing, despairing, cursing. The "feminine" floats around him as an object of his longing, but not in its divine reality, and it is just this insufficient image of his longing which he destroys in his despair. The second movement was to introduce Gretchen, the woman. I had a theme for her, but it was only a theme. The whole remained unfinished. I wrote my "Flying Dutchman" instead.

This is the whole explanation. If now, from a last remnant of weakness and vanity, I hesitate to abandon this "Faust" work altogether, I shall certainly have to remodel it, but only as regards instrumental modulation. The theme which you desire I cannot introduce; this would naturally involve an entirely new composition, for which I have no inclination. If I publish it, I shall give it its proper t.i.tle, "Faust in Solitude", or "The Solitary Faust", "a tone-poem for orchestra."

My new poems for the two "Siegfrieds" I finished last week, but I have still to rewrite the two earlier dramas, "Young Siegfried"

and "Siegfried's Death", as very considerable alterations have become necessary. I shall not have finished entirely before the end of the year. The complete t.i.tle will be "The Ring of the Nibelung", "a festival stage-play in three days and one previous evening: previous evening, "The Rhinegold"; first day, "The Valkyrie"; second day, "Young Siegfried"; third day, "Siegfried's Death." What fate this poem, the poem of my life and of all that I am and feel, will have I cannot as yet determine. So much, however, is certain: that if Germany is not very soon opened to me, and if I am compelled to drag on my artistic existence without nourishment and attraction, my animal instinct of life will soon lead me to abandon art altogether. What I shall do then to support my life I do not know, but I shall not write the music of the "Nibelungen", and no person with human feelings can ask me to remain the slave of my art any longer.

Alas! I always relapse into the miserable keynote of this letter.

Perhaps I commit a great brutality in this manner, for perhaps you are in need of being cheered up by me. Pardon me if today I bring nothing but sorrow. I can dissemble no longer; and, let who will despise me, I shall cry out my sorrow to the world, and shall not conceal my misfortune any longer. What use would it be if I were to lie to you? But of one thing you must think, if nothing else is possible: we must see each other next summer.

Consider that this is a necessity; that it must be; that no G.o.d shall prevent you from coming to me, as the police (make a low bow!) prevent me from coming to you. Promise me for quite certain in your next letter that you will come. Promise me!

We must see how I shall be able to exist till then. Farewell.

Bear with me. Greet H., and be of good cheer. Perhaps you will soon be rid of me. Farewell, and write soon to

Your

RICHARD WAGNER

ZURICH, November 9th, 1852

89.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I wait with great longing for a letter from you.

For today one urgent request. Send at once the scores of the "Dutchman" after which that of Weimar was corrected to Uhlig at Dresden. In Breslau they have very long been waiting for a copy to be arranged in the same manner. Please, please see to this at once. Next week you will receive my remarks on the performance of the "Flying Dutchman". Farewell, and remember lovingly

Your

RICHARD WAGNER

December 22nd, 1852

90.

DEAREST FRIEND,

If through any delay the model score of the "Flying Dutchman" has not yet been sent to Dresden, these lines may serve to inform you of the great difficulty in which I have today been placed towards a second theatre--that of Schwerin--because I cannot supply it with the score which they urgently demand. I am truly sorry that I have to plague you with such "business matters;" but who else is there in Weimar?

I wait with indescribable longing for a letter from you.

Farewell.

Wholly thine,

RICHARD WAGNER

December 24th, 1852

91.

December 27th, 1852

Pardon me, dearest friend, for my long silence. That I can be so little to you and to your interests is a great grief to me. Your last letter, of about six weeks ago, has made your whole sorrow and misery clear to me. I have wept bitter tears over your pains and wounds. Suffering and patience are unfortunately the only remedies open to you. How sad for a friend to be able to say no more than this. Of all the sad and disagreeable things which I have to suffer I shall not speak to you; do not think of them either. Today I will, before all, tell you something pleasant, viz., that I shall visit you in the course of next summer, probably in June. I shall not be able to stay in Zurich long, where there is nothing but you to attract me. It is possible--but this must not yet be spoken of--that on my way back I may conduct a kind of festival at Carlsruhe. Can you by that time prepare an orchestral work for the purpose?--perhaps your "Faust" overture-- for I should like to produce a new work by you besides the "Tannhauser" overture.

Eduard Devrient wrote to me some days ago that the Court Marshal, Count Leiningen, who is a friend of mine, had spoken to him of the plan for a musical festival, to be conducted by me. It may be predicted that considerable means will be at hand in Carlsruhe, but as yet the public and the papers are to know nothing of it.

Write to me when convenient about some pieces which you could recommend for the programme. I think, amongst other things, of the "Missa Solemnis" (D major) by Beethoven, but should not like to have again the ninth symphony, so as not to repeat the Ballenstedt programme in extenso.