Letters of Franz Liszt Volume II Part 51

Budapest, March 19th, 1878

From the middle of April till the end of July I remain in Weimar; later, at the end of August, I go again to the Villa d'Este.

223. To Professor Dr. Ludwig Nohl

Honored and dear Friend,

Of the many pictures of the remarkable group of cypresses in the Villa d'Este your brother's [Max Nohl, painter] beautiful poetical drawing is my favorite. For the present of this and the inscription on it I thank you most heartily. I attempted (last October) to put down on music paper the conversation which I frequently hold with these same cypresses. ["Au Cypres de la Villa d'Este" [To the Cypress of the Villa d'Este). 2 numbers.

Schott, Mainz.] Ah! how dry and unsatisfactory on the piano, and even in the orchestra,--Beethoven and Wagner excepted--sounds the woe and the sighing [Das Weh and Wehen] of almighty nature!--

Nevertheless I will most modestly show you this Cypress-Memento at the piano when we next see each other--I hope in Vienna, where I am staying during the first week of April with my dear cousin as usual. Afterwards I go to Bayreuth and Weimar.

Sincerely yours,

F. Liszt

Budapest, March 20th, 1878

224. To Professor Dr. Siegmund Lebert

Honored Friend,

Quite excellent so. Let us divide the revision of the Cotta edition of the 4-handed Schubert, and for your part look after all the Sonatas, "Lebenssturme," Scherzi, etc.--If you wish it, a few pedal marks. and fingerings shall willingly be added to the Variations Op. 10 and 82. Send me both works to Weimar, with the rest of Schubert's Waltzes for four hands, which show more creative power than many big compositions--old or new.

With the few Schubert pieces send me also the scopes of the Beethoven Concertos and their accompaniments, arranged for a second piano by Moscheles. My arrangement I will forward you at the beginning of August. Meanwhile I beg you to give the Freiherr von Cotta my most grateful thanks.

Very respectfully yours,

F. Liszt

Budapest, March 27th, 1878

From the middle of April till the end of July I remain in Weimar.

225. To Edmund von Mihalovich

Very dear Friend,

I most sincerely feel with you in your grief. "Non ignara mali"...for I too have wept at the grave of my mother.

A sad but well-written book, "Stello" ("Consultations of the black doctor"), depicts the sufferings and death of three young poets,--Millevoye, Andre Chenier, Chatterton,--gathered home before they had acquired glory here below.

In these moving pages of Alfred de Vigny he asks, "What is one to think of a world which one enters with the hope of seeing one's father and mother die?"...Prayer alone can answer this question.

Let us then pray our heavenly Father that His Will may be done on earth as it is in heaven, and that the work of our life may be ever conformed to the Divine Will.

Ever yours,

F. Liszt

Bayreuth, April 13th, 1878

226. To Kornel von Abranyi

.--. What could I write to you about Wagner's "Parsifal?" The composition of the first act is finished: in it are revealed the most wondrous depths and the most celestial heights of Art.

Ever very sincerely yours,

F. Liszt

Bayreuth, April 14th, 1878

227. To Frau Ingeborg von Bronsart

Dear Kind Friend,

If you have not already done so, you will end by having a bad opinion of your old and very affectionate servant. My share of free locomotion is very limited. Having arrived at Weimar last Wednesday I could not pack off again immediately without inconvenience. I must therefore await a favorable week for my Hanover wish. In May "Rheingold" is to be given here, and St.

Saens's "Dalila" again, which I wish to hear and see. Monseigneur the Grand Duke a.s.sured me yesterday that this work made a success at its first performances; and several people, who often hold a contrary opinion, agree in their praises of "Dalila."

From the 13th to the 15th June (Whit week) a Tonkunstler- Versammlung is announced at Erfurt. It will seem pale as compared with that of Hanover of last year; but I want to be present at it, considering my unvarying interest in the work undertaken by the late Brendel and bravely continued by Riedel and Gille. After having said A, and even B and C, I ought to go through the whole alphabet.

Formerly, in the first period of your success, I had the pleasure of applauding and admiring you at the old theater of Erfurt. Now there is a new and very handsome one, I am told, with more than 1100 seats; besides that a new concert room which I do not know, any more than I do the theater. I dare not invite you to favor them with your presence, but if you should come with Hans it would be charming.

The next time I see X. I shall come upon him to show himself an editor rather than a shopkeeper ("Kramer") in the little negotiation of which you speak.

A thousand sincere wishes for the finis.h.i.+ng of "Hiarne" [The Opera composed by Frau von Bronsart, which was given for the first time in 1892 in Berlin with great success.] and my constant and very devoted homage to the persevering composer.

F. Liszt

Weimar, Sat.u.r.day, April 20th, 1878

228. To Eduard von Liszt

Dearest and most honored Cousin,

The accompanying copy of the Budapest telegram will tell you that I must go to Paris probably at the end of May. I had indeed refused several private invitations to visit the Paris Exhibition; for years past both long and short journeys-unless there is some special reason for them--have been inconvenient, difficult and repugnant to me. It was on that account that I told you and others of my having given up the collective-wonder of Paris.

Now the telegram from Trefort and Szapary (President of the Hungarian Exhibition in Paris) alters my negative decision.