To Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, from the Geheim Cabinetsrath Müller.[81]
Berlin, March 5th, 1855.
It is proposed to set to music the choruses of the trilogy of “Agamemnon,” the “Choëphorœ,” and the “Eumenides,” to be combined and curtailed for performance. According to Tieck’s information, you declined the composition in this form. The King can scarcely believe this, as his Majesty distinctly remembers that you, esteemed Sir, personally assured him that you were prepared to undertake this composition. I am therefore commissioned by the King to ask, whether the affair may not be considered settled by your verbal assent, and whether, in pursuance of this, you feel disposed to be so kind as to declare your readiness to undertake the composition, which will be a source of much pleasure to the King, and in accordance with your promise, gladly to comply with any wishes of his Majesty.—I am, Sir, your obedient,
Müller.
To Geheim Cabinetsrath Müller, Berlin.
Frankfort, March 12th, 1845.
His Majesty the King never spoke to me on the subject of the choruses in the combined and curtailed trilogy of “Agamemnon,” the “Choëphorœ,” and the “Eumenides.” His Majesty certainly was pleased to appoint me the task last winter of composing music for the choruses in Æschylus’s “Eumenides.” I could not promise to supply this music, because I at once saw that the undertaking was beyond my capabilities; still I promised his Majesty to make the attempt, not concealing at the same time the almost insuperable difficulties which caused me to doubt the success of the attempt.[82]
Since then, I have occupied myself for a considerable time, in the most earnest manner, with the tragedy. I have endeavoured by every means in my power to extract a musical sense from these choruses, in order to render them suitable for composition, but I have not succeeded, and have only been enabled to fulfil the task in the case of one of them, in such a manner as is demanded by the loftiness of the subject, and the refined artistic perceptions of the King. Of course the question was not that of writing tolerably suitable music for the choruses, such as any composer conversant with the forms of art could write for almost every word, but the injunction was to create for the Æschylus choruses music in the good and scientific style of the present day, which should express their meaning, with life and reality. I have endeavoured to do this in my music to “Antigone,” with the Sophocles choruses; with regard, however, to the Æschylus choruses, in spite of all my strenuous efforts, I have not hitherto succeeded even in any one attempt.
The contraction of these pieces into one, exceedingly augments the difficulty, and I venture to assert that no living musician is in a position to solve this giant task conscientiously,—far less then can I pretend to do so.