281. To Francois Auguste Gevaert, Director of the Brussels Conservatoire

[Celebrated Belgian music teacher and composer, born 1828]

Very Honored, Dear Friend,

Among the recollections of my long artistic life one of the dearest to me is that of your kind sympathy. I cherish sincere grat.i.tude for it, of which I should be glad to give you a proof.

Allow me, to begin with, to dedicate to you the Symphonic Poem I have just written, which was suggested by a drawing by Michel Zichy ent.i.tled "From the cradle to the grave."--The score is short enough, and, it seems to me, free from superfluous repet.i.tion.

La.s.sen has spoken to you about the performance of your Quentin Durward at Weimar. The Grand Duke desires it to take place; his Theater-Intendant, Baron von Loen, was preparing for it, and the singers are certain to take great pains and show all alacrity in performing their several parts well.

To my own regret, in which his Royal Highness shares, as well as his theater company and the audience, the performance has to be adjourned; for the German translation is not forthcoming, and some dawdling on the part of your publisher throws obstacles in the way. Let him soon turn over a new leaf. As for the German translation, I particularly recommend to you my friend Richard Pohl (who is living at Baden-Baden, where he is editor-in-chief of the local newspaper of that charming place). Pohl is distinguished by great musical intelligence and cleverness in translating, of both of which he has given proof in Berlioz's Beatrice and Bennedict and Saint-Saens' Samson.

La.s.sen and Baron Loen will continue to correspond with you concerning the mise-en-scene of Quentin Durward at Weimar. Small towns have but small successes to offer. You are ent.i.tled by right to both large and small ones. Accept them.--

I do not scruple to ask a favor of you, my dear friend. The decoration of the Order of Leopold arrived at a time when I was ill in bed. It was accompanied by a few complimentary lines from the Secretary of the Foreign Office, Baron de Lambermont, as well as by the official doc.u.ment which was to be signed by me. It would have been my most agreeably imperative duty to have thanked Baron de L., and to have expressed my lively feelings of grat.i.tude for this royal favor. This I could not immediately do, owing to the state of my health, which did not allow of my writing, and still renders that occupation very difficult. Add to this that a good deal of disorder had got into my household; several letters and ma.n.u.scripts have been mislaid, and, notwithstanding all my endeavors, I have not been able to find Baron de L.'s lines again or the doc.u.ment they enclosed. I therefore beg you, dear and highly esteemed friend, to present my apologies to the Baron, and to ask him to send me a duplicate of the doc.u.ment I have to sign. My address from 22nd September to 2nd October will be: Bayreuth (Bavaria); after that, Via and Hotel Alibert, Rome.

Yours, in high esteem and cordial friendship,

F. Liszt

Weimar, September 19th, 188l

282. To Francois Auguste Gevaert

Highly Honored Master and Dear Friend,

Thanks to your kind help I have at last put my business with Baron Lambermont in order and have just written him a letter of very grateful acknowledgment.

Permit me to revenir a nos moutons. Panurge has nothing to do with them, nor has the honorable biscuit-seller of the Gymnase, still less his peaceable neighbor, your publisher Mr. Grus. What we want is the score of your "Quentin Durward" and composer's consent to the performance of it at Weimar. The Grand Duke's Theater-Intendant undertakes the payment of the German translator, my old friend, Richard Pohl, who will certainly take great pleasure in performing his task in the most satisfactory way possible. Baron Loen and La.s.sen will correspond with you concerning the performance, which is intended to take place in December '82.

My cordial thanks for your favorable acceptance of my dedication.

Some months are still necessary for the copying and publishing of the score together with the orchestral parts. Before this is finished 1 will send you the printed pianoforte arrangement for one and for two performers.

Be good enough, dear friend, to give my affectionate regards to Madame Gevaert and to your sons, and ever count upon my very grateful devotion.

F. Liszt

Bayreuth, October 8th, 1881

I shall be in Rome in eight days.

283. To Eduard von Mihalovich

Dearest Friend,

I must be found guilty [of negligence?]. I do not apologise. My aversion to letter-writing has grown excessive. But who could answer more than two thousand letters a year without becoming an idiot?

I have been ailing a good deal for the last three months. As soon as there was an improvement, something else appeared. Do not let us mention this any more, for you know how little my health occupies my thoughts, and how disagreeable it is to me to hear it talked of. In short, I feel sufficiently recovered to set out for Rome the day after tomorrow. My very dear granddaughter Daniela goes with me, and will remain till the beginning of January. This is a providential pleasure on which I did not count at all, but for which I thank the good angels.

I will tell you by word of mouth the minor reasons which prevented me from sooner communicating your two splendid scores and the pianoforte duet arrangements of them to the publishers, Breitkopf and Hartel. Your fine ma.n.u.scripts have at last reached Leipzig, and you will soon have a letter from the present proprietors of the ancient and ill.u.s.trious house Breitkopf and Hartel, with their conditions for publication, which will be their ultaiytalunz. They are aware of the sincere interest I take in your works, and will, I trust, share it, without leading you into any expense.

Stern [Adolph Stern in Dresden, author of the libretto.] has given me fairly good news as to the preparations for the performance of your Haubar at Dresden. Young composers are always too impatient.--

Pray remember me cordially to our excellent friends the Veghs, Albert Apponyi, Madame d'Eotvos and her daughter, Mademoiselle Polyxena, and...I was just going to add the name of a charming woman with whom I am out of favor.

Yours ever,

F. Liszt

Bayreuth, October 8th, 1881

My address from the middle of October to the lst of January: Via and Hotel Alibert, Rome.

You are held in affectionate remembrance at Wahnfried. Wagner is finishing the instrumentation of the 2nd act of Parsifal, and gives it his most pa.s.sionate attention. We shall have something new, marvellous, unheard of, to hear.

M. Humperd.i.n.k, the lucky triple laureate of the three scholarships, "Mozart," "Meyerbeer," "Mendelssohn," is at work here copying the score of Parstfal; [E. Humperd.i.n.k, born in 1854, made Wagner's acquaintance in 1880 at Naples, and at the first performance of Parsifal conducted the choruses from on high and the music on the stage. He has been teacher at the Barcelona Conservatoire since 1885.] Joseph Rubinstein [Born 1847 in Russia, he lived a great deal in Wagner's society after 1872, and took an active part in the rehearsals for the Bayreuth Festival Performances in 1875 and 1876, He died by his own hand the 15th of September, 1884, at Lucerne.] is continuing his arrangement of it for piano at Palermo just now, and will complete it later on at Bayreuth. Other artists on the high road to celebrity are also employed in copying this same Opus magnum, the performance of which we shall applaud in July 1882. It will be a next to miraculous and highly fashionable pilgrimage.

P.S.--The busybody Spiridion has been so careless as to carry off a little gold watch of mine that I had merely given him leave to wear while he was in my service. Please ask Spiridion to give you this watch on New Year's Day. You will return it to me about the middle of January 1882, when I go back to Budapest.

284. To Jules de Zarembski

Dearest Friend,

I have rarely done a minor work--big ones bother me--with as much pleasure as that of setting your two Galician Dances for Orchestra. It is quite finished, with a few additions of which I hope you will not disapprove; but my scrawl of a ma.n.u.script cannot possibly be sent you: therefore I have asked Friedheim [One of the most pre-eminent among the younger pupils of the Master.] to undertake to copy it, and I will send you this copy before the New Year. If the publisher Simon is inclined to publish this orchestration I will let him have it for a thousand marks; if not, keep it yourself; and make any use you like of it; first of all at the concert in which you are going to bring forward your own compositions exclusively. I wish I could be present at it, and on this occasion I renew to you the sincere and sympathetic esteem in which I hold your n.o.ble and rare talents. They will fructify by means of perseverance.

Friedheim's copy will reach you in time to have the parts copied and to add the necessary nuances. Please send me a programme of the concert of which Zarembski as composer is to fill the list.

The other programme you are meditating, to be devoted to my works for the pianoforte, seems to me to be too long; this is a defect for which I can only be very thankful to you, and yet I am going to ask you to reduce your recital to the average proportion. An hour and a half of pianoforte music of mine, however admirably played, is more than sufficient.

M. Becquet, President of the Brussels Musical Society, writes to me concerning the performance of my Elizabeth, and M. Radoux, Director of the Liege Conservatoire, likewise. I fear the translation of the libretto and its proper adaptation to the work will be impediments. Nevertheless, if your friend Franz Servais were good enough to undertake the work of revision and of intelligent adaptation to the vocal parts, I should be more easy in my mind, and should only wish to look through the whole before the publisher, Kahnt, prints the French version under the German original. I am now writing this to M. Becquet. Pray give my cordial regards to Franz Servais and my grateful remembrances to Maitre Gevaert.

Enclosed are the photographs with signature for MM. Dumon and Dufour; to which I add a third (recently taken in Rome) for yourself.

I am honored, flattered, and also...overwhelmed by numbers of letters. I have received more than a hundred during the last six weeks; I should have to give ten hours a day to letter-writing if I were to attempt to pay my debts of correspondence: this I cannot do. Even the state of my health, which is not bad but forbids any continuous occupation, is opposed to it. Besides, when my old mania for writing music lays hold of me--as is the case just now--I feel quite unable to use my pen in any other way. I therefore beg you to convey my apologies and very affectionate thanks to M. and Mme. Tardieu for the kindness they show me.

I hope to repeat all this to them personally, for it is not said that I shall not return to Brussels, although travelling is becoming arduous for me. M. Tardieu's present of spirituous liquid has restored me several evenings during my work,...which may be superfluous, but completes what has gone before.

Your very devoted friend,

F. Liszt

Rome, December 4th, 1881