P.S.—If you see Count Tyskiewicz please repeat my invitation to him to come for a couple of days to Weymar. If he is free next Thursday, that would be a good day. We have a concert here at which the "Kunstler-Chor" and a new orchestral work of mine ("Les Preludes"), the Schumann Symphony (No. 4.), and his Concerto for four horns will be given.
109. To Louis Kohler
My very dear Friend,
I come late—yet I hope you have not forgotten me. I am sending you, together with this, the score and pianoforte arrangement of my chorus "an die Kunstler," ["To the artists.">[ and also those numbers of the Rhapsodies which have been brought out by Schlesinger. The "Lohengrin" score you have no doubt received two months ago from Hartel, whom I begged to send it you direct—also the "Harmonies" from Kistner, and the last number of the "Rhapsodies" from Haslinger. At the end of the year you shall get some still greater guns from me, for I think that by that time several of my orchestral works (under the collective title of "Symphonische Dichtungen" [Symphonic Poems.]) will come out. Meanwhile accept once more my best thanks for the manifold proofs of your well-wishing sympathy, which you have given me publicly and personally. You may rest assured that no stupid self-conceit is sticking in me, and that I mean faithfully and earnestly towards our Art, which in the end must be formed of our hearts' blood.—Whether one "worries" a bit more or a bit less, as you put it, is pretty much the same. Let us only spread our wings "with our faces firmly set," and all the cackle of goose-quills will not trouble us at all.
That your article has been rudely and spitefully criticized need not trouble you. You presuppose your reader to have refinement and educated feeling, artistic acuteness, a fine perception, and a certain Atticism. These, my dear friend, are indeed rare things—and only to be found in very homoeopathic doses among our Aristarchuses. Sheep and d[onkeys] have no taste for truffles. "Good hay, sweet hay, has not its equal in the world," as the artist-philosopher Zettel very truly says in the "Midsummer Night's Dream"! Moreover, dear friend, things didn't and don't go any better with other better fellows than ourselves. We need not make any fancies about it, but only go onward quietly, perseveringly, and consistently.
"Lohengrin" will be given here on the Grand Duchess's next birthday, April 8th. Gotze is coming this time from Leipzig, and sings the part of the Knight of the Swan. I hope that in May Tichatschek will undertake the role; he has already been studying the complete work for a long time past, and has had a splendid costume made for it. Perhaps you will be inclined to hear this glorious work here either in April or May. That would be very delightful of you, and I need not tell you how pleased I should be to see you among us again.—
Rafi is working hard at his "Samson," and tells me that he will have finished it by Christmas. Cornelius, whom I think you do not know (a most charming, fine-feeling and distinguished nature), has likewise a dramatic work, poem and music, in readiness for next season. We gave a good performance of Gluck's "Orpheus" lately, and for the last performance of this season (end of June I think we shall still give the Schubert opera "Alfonso und Estrella," if those same theater influences which already made themselves prominent by the "Indra" performance when you were at Weymar do not decide against this work, so interesting and full of intrinsic natural charm!—Farewell, dear friend, and send speedy tidings of yourself to
Yours most sincerely,
F. Liszt
Weymar, March 2nd, 1854