Düsseldorf, Feb. 7, 1834.
My dear Friend,—Pardon my long silence; I know how guilty I am, but I reckon on your indulgence. I am so deeply buried in my work and papers, that even now I think I should not have emerged from them, were it not that a special circumstance obliges me to write to you. So let me pass over the last four months and all my excuses into the bargain, remembering what a dear old friend you are, and how ready to forgive.
Thus encouraged, I fancy myself in Chester Place, and wish you “Good-evening.” What I have to say is this: I have ventured to dedicate to you, without asking your permission, a piece which is to appear at Simrock’s, and which I am very fond of. But that is not what I was going to say. I had thought how nice it would be if you met with it during one of your trips to Germany; but now my Rondo Brillant is just finished, and I have the very greatest desire to dedicate that also to you: but I do not venture to do it without your special permission, for I am well aware that it is not the correct thing to ask leave to dedicate two pieces at once; and perhaps you will think it rather an odd proceeding on my part, but I cannot help it, I have set my mind upon it.
12. First Page of the Original Score of Mendelssohn’s Overture to the “Isles of Fingal,” given to Moscheles. On perusing it fifty years later, Gounod made the note appended. ([See page 77].)
In general, I am not very partial to dedications, and have seldom made any; but in this case they are to convey a meaning, inasmuch as, not having been able to send you a letter for a long while, I wanted at least to let you have some of the work I have been doing. Write me a line on the subject, as the Rondo is to appear in Leipzig too; and once you have written that line you may feel inclined to add another, or perhaps a few more, as you did in your last kind letter, for which I have not even thanked you yet.
Klingemann is not prodigal of words, so that I have heard but little of London friends, and particularly little of those in Chester Place. What do you all look like? What can Felix say? Does Serena remember her humble servant with the carnations? And how fares the Sonata for four hands? Do tell me all about that and your other work. I would ask Mrs. Moscheles to let me know all about it, but I feel she must be so angry with me that I don’t think I can summon courage to write to her. The last of your compositions I heard of was the Impromptu for Mary Alexander, and since then I am sure you have produced all manner of delightful things. My own poverty in shaping new forms for the pianoforte once more struck me most forcibly whilst writing the Rondo. It is there I get into difficulties and have to toil and labor, and I am afraid you will notice that such was the case. Still, there are things in it which I believe are not bad, and some parts that I really like; but how I am to set about writing a calm and quiet piece (as you advised me last spring), I really do not know. All that passes through my head in the shape of pianoforte music is about as calm and quiet as Cheapside; and when I sit down to the piano and compel myself to start improvising ever so quietly, it is of no use,—by degrees I fall back into the old ways.