Letters of Franz Liszt Volume I Part 21

P.S.--When will the "Gradus ad Parna.s.sum" come out?--You will receive the copy of my Studies, which are dedicated to you, through Mr. Lowy in a few days.

88. To Breitkopf and Hartel

[Autograph in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet at Valentigney]

Weymar, October 30th, 1852

My Dear Mr. Hartel,

I have given up to a friend the piano which you have been so good as to lend me for some years, and he (as I have already informed you verbally) asks me to let him defer the payment of it till the end of this month. I therefore take this opportunity of proposing to you either to let you immediately have the sum fixed upon for the piano (400 thalers), or else to make a settlement of reciprocal terms up to now, by which we shall be quits towards each other. The pleasure and advantage which I find in my relations with your house are too valuable to me for me not to do all in my power properly to maintain them, by conforming to your wishes and intentions. Of my works published by your house there are, if I mistake not, five--

12 Etudes d'execution transcendante (2 books), 6 Etudes d'apres Paganini (2 books), Grand Concerto Solo, Fantaisie and Fugue on the Chorale from the Prophete (No. 4 of the "Ill.u.s.trations du Prophete"), Ma.s.s (with Pater Noster and Ave Maria) for four male voices with organ accompaniment

--upon which we have deferred putting a price until now. Without trying to deceive myself as to the moderate returns which these (as it happens, rather voluminous) works may bring to your house, I should venture however to flatter myself that they have not been an expense to you, and that they are even works not unsuited to your catalogue. However things may be, I beg you to be so good as to use towards me the same sincerity that I employ towards you, persuaded as I am that sincerity is the only basis of any lasting connection, especially when one has to do with things which divers circ.u.mstances may render more delicate and complicated. Allow me then at last, my dear Mr. Hartel, to propose to you to square our accounts by my keeping your piano in exchange for the above-mentioned five ma.n.u.scripts, which should also acquit me for the works of Marx and Kiesewetter that you have sent me, so that, if my proposition suits you, we should be entirely quits.

I was glad to hear that Mr. Jahn had had occasion to be satisfied with his journey to Vienna, and I beg you to a.s.sure him that I am entirely at his disposal with regard to any steps to be taken to help on his work on Beethoven, for which I am delighted to be of any service to him.

In a fortnight's time I am expecting Mr. Berlioz here. The performances of "Benvenuto Cellini" will take place on the 18th and 20th November, and on the 21st the Symphonies of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Faust" will be performed, which I proposed to you to publish. If your numerous occupations would allow of your coming here for the 20th and 21st I am certain that it would be a great interest to you to hear these exceptional works, of which it is a duty and an honor to me not to let Weymar be in ignorance.

Will you, my dear Mr. Hartel, accept this information as an invitation, and also tell your brother, Mr. Raymond, what pleasure a visit from him would give me during the Berlioz week?

We shall, moreover, be at that time in good and romantic company of artists and critics from all points, meeting at Weymar.

I will send you shortly my Catalogue, which you will greatly oblige me by bringing out without very much delay. The dispersion and confusion through which my works have had to make their way hitherto have done them harm, over and above any wrong that they already had by themselves; it is therefore of some importance to cla.s.sify them, and to present to the public a categorical insight into what little I am worth. As I have promised to send this catalogue to many people living in all sorts of countries, I beg that you will put to my account, not gratis, some sixty copies, which I fear will not be enough for me, but which will at least serve to lessen the cost of printing.

In this connection allow me to recur to a plan of which I have already spoken to you--the publication in German of my book on Chopin. Has Mr. Weyden of Cologne written to you, and have you come to terms with him on this subject? The last time he wrote to me he told me that he had not yet had an answer from you. As he is equally master of French and German, and as he thoroughly succeeded in his translation of my pamphlet on "Tannhauser and Lohengrin," I should be glad for the translation of Chopin to be done by him; and in case you decide to publish his work please put me down for fifty copies.

Pray excuse this long letter, my dear Mr. Hartel, and believe me very sincerely,

Yours affectionately and devotedly,

F. Liszt

89. To Breitkopf and Hartel

[Autograph in the possession of M. J. Crepieux-Jamin at Rouen.]

My dear Mr. Hartel,

I thank you very heartily for the fresh proof of your kind intentions towards me which your last letter gives me, and I hasten to return to you herewith the two papers with my signature by which our little accounts are thus settled. With regard to the extra account of about eighty crowns, which I thank you for having sent me by the same opportunity, I will not delay the paying of it either. Only, as it contains several things which have been got by the theater management (such as "Athalie," the piano scores of "Lohengrin," Schubert's Symphony, etc.), you will allow me to leave it a few days longer, so that I may get back the sum which is due to me,--and which, till the present time, I was not aware of having been placed to my account, thinking indeed that these various works for which I had written for the use of the theater had long ago been paid for by the management.--

I beg that you will kindly excuse this confusion, of which I am only guilty quite unawares.

With regard to the publication of the "Pater Noster" and of the "Ave Maria," please do it entirely to your own mind, and I have no other wish in the matter but that the "Pater" should not be separated from the "Ave," on account of the former being so small a work; but whether you publish these two pieces with the Ma.s.s, or whether they appear separately (the two being in any case kept together), either of these arrangements will suit me equally well. For more convenience I have had them bound in one, as having been written at the same time and as belonging to the same style.--Berlioz has just written me word that he will probably arrive here two or three days sooner--and the proprietors of our repertoire have fixed the 17th November (instead of the 18th) for the first performance of the revival of "Cellini." Immediately after he is gone I will put in order the Catalogue that you are kindly bringing out, and which I should be glad to be able to distribute about before the end of the winter. You shall have the ma.n.u.script before Christmas.--

As Mr. Weyden has been a friend of mine for several years I may be permitted to recommend him to you, and have pleasure in hoping that your relations with him, on occasion of the translation of the Chopin volume, will be of an easy and agreeable nature. [The German translation of the work was not done until it appeared, by La Mara, in 1880, after the publication of a second edition.]

Pray accept once more, my dear Mr. Hartel, my best thanks, together with every a.s.surance of the sincere affection of

Yours most truly,

F. Liszt

November l0th, 1852

90. To Professor Julius Stern in Berlin

[1820-83; founder of the Stern Vocal Union (which he conducted from 1847-74), and of the Stern Conservatorium (1850), which he directed, firstly with Marx and Kullak, and since 1857 alone.]

November 24th, 1852.

My dear Mr. Stern,

I hope you will excuse my delay in replying to your friendly lines, for which I thank you very affectionately. Mr. Joachim was absent when they reached me, and all this last week has been extremely filled up for Weymar (and for me in particular) by the rehearsals and performance of Berlioz's works. Happily our efforts have been rewarded by a success most unanimous and of the best kind. Berlioz was very well satisfied with his stay at Weymar, and I, for my part, felt a real pleasure in being a.s.sociated with that which he experienced in the reception accorded to him by the Court, our artists, and the public. As this week has, according to my idea, a real importance as regards Art, allow me, my dear Mr. Stern, to send you, contrary to my usual custom, the little resume that the Weymar Gazette has made of the affair, which will put you very exactly au courant of what took place. You will oblige me by letting Schlesinger see it also, and he will perhaps do me the pleasure of letting the Berlin public have it through his paper (The Echo).

I did not fail to conform to the wish expressed in your last letter, immediately that Joachim returned to Weymar, and I urged him much to accept the proposition you have made him to take part in the concert of the 13th of December. You know what high esteem I profess for Joachim's talent, and when you have heard him I am certain you will find that my praises of him latterly are by no means exaggerated. He is an artist out of the common, and one who may legitimately aspire to a glorious reputation.

Moreover he has a thoroughly loyal nature, a distinguished mind, and a character endowed with a singular charm in its rect.i.tude and earnestness.

The question of fee being somewhat embarra.s.sing for him to enter into with you, I have taken upon myself to speak to you about it without any long comment, and to mention to you the sum of twenty to twenty-five louis d'or as what seems to me fair. If Joachim had already been in Berlin, or if his stay there could take place at the same time with some other pecuniary advantage, I feel sure that he would take a pleasure in offering you his co-operation for nothing; but in the position he is in now, not intending at present to give concerts in Berlin, and not having as yet any direct relations with you, I think you will appreciate the motives which lead me to fix this sum with you...

If, as I hope, you do not consider it out of proportion, please simply to be so good as to write a few lines to Joachim direct, to tell him what day he ought to be in Berlin for the rehearsal of your concert, so that he may ask a little beforehand for his holiday from here.

Will you also please give my best regards to Th. Kullak? I have had the opportunity of talking rather fully about him these last days with two of his pupils, Princesses Anne and Louise (of Prussia), and also with their mother, Princess Charles. Mr. Marx (to whom I beg you to remember me kindly, until I write more fully to him about the performance of his "Moses") will shortly receive a letter from Mr. Montag, whom I have begged to bring with him the arrangements relating to the song parts, which Mr.

Marx will be so kind as to lend us. Probably this oratorio can be given here towards the end of next January or the middle of next February, and as soon as the rehearsals are sufficiently advanced I shall write to Marx to give him positive tidings and to invite him to pay us a short visit at Weymar.

A thousand frank and cordial regards from

Yours ever,

F. Liszt

You probably already know that Joachim is leaving Weymar to settle in Hanover at the beginning of next year.

91. To Wilhelm von Lenz in St. Petersburg

[A well-known writer on music and especially on Beethoven; Imperial Russian Councillor of State (1809-83).]

I am doubly in your debt, my dear Lenz (you will allow me, will you not, to follow your example by dropping the Mr.?), firstly for your book, ["Beethoven and his Three Styles" (St. Petersburg, 1852).] so thoroughly imbued with that sincere and earnest pa.s.sion for the Beautiful without which one can never penetrate to the heart of works of genius; and, secondly, for your friendly letter, which reached me shortly after I had got your book, the notice of which had very much excited my curiosity. That I have put off replying to you till now is not merely on account of my numerous occupations, which usually preclude my having the pleasure of correspondence, but chiefly on account of you and your remarkable work, which I wanted to read at leisure, in order to get from it the whole substance of its contents. You cannot find it amiss that it has given me much to reflect upon, and you will easily understand that I shall have much to say to you on this subject--so much that, to explain all my thoughts, I should have to make another book to match yours--or, better still, resume our lessons of twenty years ago, when the master learned so much from the pupil,--discuss pieces in hand, the meaning, value, import, of a large number of ideas, phrases, episodes, rhythms, harmonic progressions, developments, artifices;--I should have to have a good long talk with you, in fact, about minims and crotchets, quavers and semi-quavers,--not forgetting the rests which, if you please, are by no means a trifling chapter when one professes to go in seriously for music, and for Beethoven in particular.

The friendly remembrance that you have kept of our talks, under the name of lessons, of the Rue Montholon, is very dear to me, and the flattering testimony your book gives to those past hours encourages me to invite you to continue them at Weymar, where it would be at once so pleasant and so interesting to see you for some weeks or months, ad libitum, so that we might mutually edify ourselves with Beethoven. Just as we did twenty years ago, we shall agree all at once, I am certain, in the generality of cases; and, more than we were then, shall we each of us be in a position to make further steps forward in the exoteric region of Art.--For the present allow me, at the risk of often repeating myself hereafter, to compliment you most sincerely on your volume, which will be a chosen book and a work of predilection for people of taste, and particularly for those who feel and understand music. Artists and amateurs, professors and pupils, critics and virtuosi; composers and theorists--all will have something to gain from it, and a part to take in this feast of attractive instruction that you have prepared for them. What ingenious traits, what living touches, what well-dealt blows, what new and judiciously adapted imagery should I not have to quote, were I to enter in detail into your pages, so different from what one usually reads on similar subjects! In your arguments, and in the intrinsic and extrinsic proofs you adduce, what weight--without heaviness, what solidity--without stiffness, of strong and wholesome criticism--without pedantry! Ideas are plentiful in this by turns incisive, brilliant, reflected, and spontaneous style, in which learning comes in to enhance and steady the flow of a lively and luxuriant imagination. To all the refinement and subtle divination common to Slavic genius, you ally the patient research and learned scruples which characterize the German explorer. You a.s.sume alternately the gait of the mole and of the eagle--and everything you do succeeds wonderfully, because amid your subterranean maneuvers and your airy flights you constantly preserve, as your own inalienable property, so much wit and knowledge, good sense and free fancy. If you had asked me to find a motto for your book I should have proposed this,