Letters of Franz Liszt Volume I Part 8

Farewell, and be happy if possible, dear Schober; write again soon, and remain ever my friend.

F. L.

Excuse the spelling and writing of these lines! You know that I never write German; Tobias [Tobias Haslinger, the Vienna music publisher.] is, I think, the only one who gets German letters from me.

Manchester, December 5th, 1840

31. To Breitkopf and Hartel

London, May 7th, 1841

Schlesinger has just told me that Mendelssohn's Melodies which I sent you from London have come out. I can't tell you, my dear Mr.

Hartel, how much I am put out by this precipitate publication.

Independently of the material wrong it does me (for before sending them to you these Melodies were sold in London and Paris), I am thus unable to keep my word to Beale and Richault, who expected to publish them simultaneously with you.

The evil being irremediable I have only thought how to get a prompt vengeance out of it. You will tell me later on if you think it was really a Christian vengeance.

The matter is this: I have just added a tremendous cadenza, three pages long, in small notes, and anentire Coda, almost as long, to Beethoven's "Adelaide". I played it all without being hissed at the concert given at the Paris Conservatoire for the Beethoven Monument, and I intend to play it in London, and in Germany and Russia. Schlesinger has printed all this medley, such as it is.

Will you do the same? In that case, as I care chiefly for your edition, I will beg you to have the last Coda printed in small notes as an Ossia, without taking away anything from the present edition, so that the purists can play the integral text only, if the commentary is displeasing to them.

It was certainly a very delicate matter to touch "Adelaide", and yet it seemed to me necessary to venture. Have I done it with propriety and taste? Competent judges will decide.

In any case I beg you not to let any one but Mr. Schumann look over your edition.

In conclusion allow me to remind you that I was rather badly paid for "Adelaide" formerly, and if you should think proper to send me a draft on a London bank, fair towards you and myself, I shall always receive it with a "new pleasure"--to quote the favorite words of His Majesty the King of the French.

With kind regards, believe me, my dear sir, yours most sincerely,

F. Liszt

Be so kind as to remember me very affectionately to Mendelssohn.

As for Schumann, I shall write to him direct very shortly.

32. To Simon Lowy In Vienna

[Autograph in the possession of Madame Emilie Dore in Vienna.]

London, May 20th, 1841

I am still writing to you from England, my dear friend. Since my last letter (end of December, I think) I have completed my tour of the three kingdoms (by which I lose, by the way, 1000 pounds sterling net, on 1500 pounds which my engagement brought me!), have ploughed my way through Belgium, with which I have every reason to be satisfied, and have sauntered about in Paris for six weeks. This latter, I don't hide it from you, has been a real satisfaction to my self-love. On arriving there I compared myself (pretty reasonably, it seems to me) to a man playing ecarte for the fifth point. Well, I have had king and vole,--seven points rather than five! [The "fifth" is the highest in this game, so Liszt means that he won.]

My two concerts alone, and especially the third, at the Conservatoire, for the Beethoven Monument, are concerts out of the ordinary run, such as I only can give in Europe at the present moment.

The accounts in the papers can only have given you a very incomplete idea. Without self-conceit or any illusion, I think I may say that never has so striking an effect, so complete and so irresistible, been produced by an instrumentalist in Paris.

A propos of newspapers, I am sending you, following this, the article which Fetis (formerly my most redoubtable antagonist) has just published in the "Gazette Musicale". It is written very cleverly, and summarises the question well. If Fischhof [A musician, a Professor at the Vienna Conservatorium.] translated it for Bauerle [Editor of the Theater-Zeitung (Theatrical Times).] it would make a good effect, I fancy. However, do what you like with it.

I shall certainly be on the Rhine towards the end of July, and shall remain in that neighborhood till September. If Fischhof came there I should be delighted to see him and have a talk with him. Till then give him my most affectionate compliments, and tell him to write me a few lines before he starts.

In November I shall start for Berlin, and shall pa.s.s the whole of next winter in Russia.

Haslinger's behaviour to me is more than inexcusable. The dear man is doing a stupidity of which he will repent soon. Never mind; I will not forget how devoted he was to me during my first stay in Vienna.

Would you believe that he has not sent me a word in reply to four consecutive letters I have written to him? If you pa.s.s by Graben will you be so kind as to tell him that I shall not write to him any more, but that I expect from him, as an honest man of business, if not as a friend, a line to tell me the fate of two ma.n.u.scripts ("Hongroises," and "Canzone Veneziane") which I sent him.

I have just discovered a new mine of "Fantaisies"--and I am working it hard. "Norma," "Don Juan," "Sonnambula," "Maometto,"

and "Moise" heaped one on the top of the other, and "Freischutz"

and "Robert le Diable" are pieces of 96, and even of 200, like the old canons of the Republic of Geneva, I think. When I have positively finished my European tour I shall come and play them to you in Vienna, and however tired they may be there of having applauded me so much, I still feel the power to move this public, so intelligent and so thoroughly appreciative,--a public which I have always considered as the born judge of a pianist.

Adieu, my dear Lowy--write soon, and address, till June 15th, at 18, Great Marlborough Street, and after that Paris.

Yours most sincerely,

F. Liszt

Is the Ungher [Caroline Ungher, afterwards Ungher-Sabatier, a celebrated singer.] at Vienna? Will you kindly give or send to her the letter which follows?

Have you, yes or no, sent off the two amber pieces which I gave you at the time of my departure? I have been to fetch them from the Emba.s.sy, but they were not there. Let me have two words in reply about this.

33. To Franz von Schober

Truly, dear friend, I should like pages, days, years, to answer your dear letter. Seldom has anything touched me so deeply. Take heart for heart, and soul for soul,--and let us be for ever friends.

You know how I am daily getting more concise; therefore nothing further about myself, nothing further about Berlin. Tomorrow, Thursday, at 2 o'clock, I start for Petersburg.

I have spoken to A. It is impossible on both sides. When we meet and you are perfectly calm, we will go into details. I still hope to meet you next autumn, either in Florence or on the Rhine.

Leo [Count Festetics] has written to me again. Write to me at once to Konigsberg, to tell me where to address my next letter to you. But write directly-simply your address.

I have sent all the proofs of your pamphlet to Brockhaus. Be so good as to give him direct your final orders in regard to this publication. I shall be so pleased to have some copies of it while I am in Petersburg. The subject is very congenial to me; I thank you once more most warmly for it.

One more shake of the hand in Germany, dearest friend, and in heartfelt love yours ever,

F. Liszt

Remember me kindly to Sabatier, [The husband of Caroline Ungher, the celebrated singer previously mentioned.] and don't quarrel with him about me. To Caroline always the same friendship and devotion.

Berlin, March 3rd, 1842.

34. To the faculty of philosophy at the university of Konigsberg.