[Spring, 1859.]

Dear Friend,

At the same time with your letter I received from Brendel fuller information about the Leipzig preliminaries, to which he will also receive a fuller reply.

I am not of opinion that the Orchestral concert is to be given up immediately on account of the negative decision of Rietz. Very possibly David will undertake to conduct it, and I advise Brendel to come to a good understanding with him about it. On the other hand it might be expected, in a case of necessity, that the Weimar and Sondershausen orchestras would unite to carry out the Programme. But this latter must be as strictly adhered to as was formerly determined, and not lose its exclusive character as "compositions by collaborators of the newspaper only"—Schumann, Berlioz, Wagner, R. Franz, and lastly my humble self. I cannot therefore in any respect agree to the concession enjoined by Brendel, of admitting works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc., nor do I see the motive of it. As far as the musical is concerned, I consider it impossible to give such an exceedingly rich programme on one evening without stupifying the public; that would go beyond the ill-famed London concerts which last six hours, not to speak of the fact that we should have to put the recognised classics far too much in the shade!—But, above all, such an over-loaded programme is thoroughly unsuitable to the jubilee-celebration of the Neue Zeitschrift, which on this occasion [ought] especially to emphasize its just claims and the progress in Art which it aims at and supports. On this account it is necessary to adhere to the limits of the programme originally agreed upon.

Finally, in case insurmountable hindrances should arise to prevent the carrying out of this same, I have no inclination to substitute for the Orclaestral-concert one for Chamber-music. But the word "Evening entertainment" must, as is self-evident, be entirely dispensed with. Our business is to raise, to educate the audience, not to amuse them; and if indeed, as Goethe very pertinently says, "deep and earnest thinkers are in a bad position as regards the public," we will therefore not so much the less, but so much the more earnestly maintain this position. Meanwhile it is advisable to advertise the first evening's musical performance by the expression Concert in the Gewandhaus, until we have quite decided whether it shall be a concert with orchestra, or only with chamber-music. [An orchestral concert took place in the theater, when compositions by Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Chopin were, nevertheless, included among the others.]

N.B.-Please not to communicate these remarks to any one except perhaps Brendel, as the very outspoken opinions herein about the Concert-programme must absolutely be kept secret.



399. To Dr. Eduard Hanslick

[The letter refers to Hanslick's notice of Liszt's book "Les Bohemiens et leur musique," in the Vienna Presse (the old one).]

Sir,

Experience having taught me to regard as a fate attached to my name the impossibility of publishing anything which does not instantly gather round it opinions as contrary as they are forcibly enunciated, I am, although quite accustomed to these little storms, very sensitive to the kindly judgment of those who, not letting themselves be influenced by this transitory impulse, desire to take into consideration what I have written, with sobriety and composure, just as you have done in your account of my book "Des Bohemiens."-I am above all extremely obliged to you for having admitted that, if the requirements of my subject, and the opinion which after some twenty years of reflection I have formed of Bohemian music, compel me to attribute to a nomad people an art thoroughly imbued with a poetry which could only have been developed in a wandering nation, I have none the less endeavored to bring into prominence everything for which this art is indebted to the comprehension and taste which the Hungarians have always had for the music of Bohemia. I desire in no way to diminish the merit of the works, while at the same time I see the impossibility of considering as emanating from them the expression of sentiments which could not in their nature belong to them, however sympathetically they were associated therewith.—

Still, the point which I notice first, in consequence of the very violent and premature attacks of which I have been the object, is not the one which I regard as the most important in my volume. As a matter of fact it would signify little to me as artist to know whether this music is originally from India or Tartary. That which has appeared to me worthy the study of an artist is this music itself, its meaning, and the feelings it is destined to reproduce.—It is in trying clearly to account for these latter that I have only found it possible to connect them with people placed in the exceptional conditions of the Bohemians; and it is through asking myself what the poetry of this wandering life would be (a question so often raised), that I have become convinced that it must be identical with that which breathes in the Art of the Bohemians. This identity once made evident to my mind, I have naturally sought to make it felt by and evident to my readers. The better to succeed in this I have corroborated my opinion by grouping together as a sort of complement various suppositions about the question of these sources. But the scientific side of this question has never been, in my eyes, anything but very accessory; I should probably not have taken up the pen to discuss it. If I have raised it, that has been the consequence, not the aim of my work. Artist, and poet if you like, I am only interested in seeing and describing the poetical and psychological side of my thesis. I have sought in speech the power of depicting, with less fire and allurement possibly, but with more precision than music has done, some impressions which are not derived from science or polemics-which come from the heart and appeal to the imagination.

Poetical and descriptive prose being little used in Germany, I can easily conceive that, on the announcement of the title of my book, a set of lectures, rather than a kind of poem in prose, will be expected. I own that I would never have attempted to lecture on a subject the materials of which did not appear to me sufficient for this purpose. How small a number of people, moreover, would have been interested in learning the little which it would be allowable to affirm in this case? Whilst the expression of the innermost and deep feelings, whatever they be, from the moment that they have been powerful enough to inspire an art, is never entirely unattractive, even to the more extended circle which includes not alone musicians, but all those who feel and wish to understand music. Thanking you once more, Sir, for the perfect impartiality and clearness with which you have stated and criticised the compilation of my book, I beg you to accept this expression of my complete esteem and distinguished consideration.

F. Liszt

September 20th, 1859



END OF LETTERS OF FRANZ LISZT, VOL. II.



INFO ABOUT THIS E-TEXT EDITION

This volume of "Letters of Franz Liszt" is the second volume of a 2-volume set. The letters were selected by La Mara, and translated into English by Constance Bache. The edition used was an original 1894 Charles Scribner edition (New York), printed in America. Each page was cut out of the book with an X-acto knife and fed into an Automatic Document Feeder Scanner to make this e- text; hence, the original book was, well, ruined in order to save it.

Some adaptations from the original text were made while formatting it for an e-text. Italics in the original book were ignored in making this e-text, unless they referred to proper nouns, in which case they are put in quotes in the e-text. Italics are problematic because they are not easily rendered in ASCII text, although, unlike in the first volume, they often add some useful emphasis to Liszt's expression.

Almost everything occurring in brackets [ ] are original footnotes inserted into the text. The marking .—. appeared in the original volumes and indicates points where original material in the letters was lost or fragmented.

Also, special German characters like U with an umlaut, and French characters like a's and e's with various markings above them were ignored, replaced with their closet single-letter equivalents. U with an umlaut is U, A with a caret above it is A, and so on. Words altered include Gotze, Tonkunstler, Gluck, Handel and Bulow, among numerous others.

In addition, the English spellings of words like "honour," "colour," "humour," "splendour," "favour," "endeavour" "labour," "vigour," "neighbour" "saviour," "behaviour" and "theatre" were changed into American equivalents like "honor," "color," "humor," "splendor," "favor," "endeavor" "labor," "vigor," "neighbor" "savior," "behavior" and "theater."

This electronic text was prepared by John Mamoun with help from numerous other proofreaders, including those associated with Charles Franks' Distributed Proofreaders website. Thanks to M. Fong, N. Harris, S. Morrison, J. Roberts, R. Zimmerman, P. Rydzewski, D. McKee, R. Rowe, E. Beach, M. Beauchamp, K. Rieff, D. Maddock, T. Mills, B. Wyman, J. Hyllegaard, T. McDermott, M. Taylor, K. Peterson and several others for proof-reading.

This e-text is public domain, freely copyable and distributable for any non-commercial purpose, and may be included without royalty or permission on a mass media storage product, such as a cd-rom, that contains at least 50 public domain electronic texts, even if offered for commercial purposes. Any other commercial usage requires permission. The biographical sketch was prepared for this e-text and is also not copyright and is public domain.

THE END