Will you, dear friend, be so good as to give my special thanks to Herr Klitzsch for his article in today's number? By the favorable manner in which he enters into the intentions of my Mass, and the artistic sympathy he shows for my endeavour, he has given me a very great pleasure. Probably a good opportunity will present itself, later on, for me to undertake a further work in the religious style, as I feel and conceive it, by the composition of a "Missa Solemnis" for mixed chorus and orchestra…For the present I cannot, however, occupy myself with this; but aufgeschoben soll nicht aufgehoben heissen. [A German proverb— "Put off is not given up.">[
When I come to Leipzig I shall have the pleasure of calling on Klitzsch and giving him my best thanks in person. If you think I ought to write him a few lines before then, let me know.
Litolff was here several days, and we have come nearer together both from a friendly and an artistic standpoint. His fourth Concerto (Conzert-Symphonie) is a marked advance on the previous ones. He played this, as well as the third Concerto, the day before yesterday, in a truly masterly and electric, living manner. Frau Dr. Steche will have told you about it. Perhaps in your next number you will put in a short appreciative notice of Litolfff's appearance here.
Rubinstein left for Leipzig at midday today. The performance of his Symphony ["Ocean"; given for the first time, November 16th, 1854, at the Gewandhaus Concert for the Poor.] is fixed for the 16th at the Gewandhaus, and later on he will also appear as a pianist. Hartel, Hofmeister, and Schott have already taken about thirty of his manuscripts, which is about the smaller half of his portfolio!—
About the Berlin "Tannhauser" affair I cannot for the moment say more than that I have always made Wagner feel perfectly at liberty to put me on one side, and to manage the matter himself, according to his own wishes, without me. But so long as he gives me his confidence as a friend, it is my duty to serve him as a discreet friend—and this I cannot do otherwise than by giving no ear to transactions of that kind, and letting people gossip as much as they like. Don't say anything more about it for the present in your paper. The matter goes deeper than many inexperienced friends of Wagner's imagine. I will explain it to you more clearly by word of mouth. Meanwhile I remain passive— for which Wagner will thank me later on.
Yours most truly,
F. Liszt
N. B.—Pohl wishes his Minnesinger article not to be signed with the name Hoplit, but with the letters R. P., when it appears in your paper.
126. To Anton Rubinstein
Your "Dialogue Dramatique" a propos of your "Ocean" is a little chef-d'oeuvre, and I shall keep it, in order, later on, to put it at the disposal of some future Lenz, who will undertake your Catalogue and the analysis of the three styles of Van II. We laughed with all our hearts, a deux, in the little blue room of the Altenburg, and we form the most sincere wishes that Gurkhaus, [Principal of the music firm F. Kistner in Leipzig.] the deus ex machine, may have come to put you out of the uncomfortable state of suspense in which the Gewandhaus public did you the honor to leave you. To tell the truth, this decrescendo of applause, at the third movement of your Symphony, surprises me greatly, and I would have wagered without hesitation that it would be the other way. A great disadvantage for this kind of composition is that, in our stupid musical customs, often very anti-musical, it is almost impossible to appeal to a badly informed public by a second performance immediately after the first; and at Leipzig, as elsewhere, one only meets with a very small number of people who know how to apply cause and effect intelligently and enthusiastically to a piece out of the common, and signed with the name of a composer who is not dead. Moreover I suspect that your witty account is tainted with a species of modesty, and I shall wait, like the general public, for the accounts in the newspapers in order to form an opinion of your success. Whatever may come of it, and however well or ill you are treated by the public or criticism, my appreciation of the value that I recognize in your works will not vary, for it is not without a well-fixed criterion, quite apart from the fashion of the day, and the high or low tide of success, that I estimate your compositions highly, finding much to praise in them, except the reservation of some criticisms which almost all sum up as follows—that your extreme productiveness has not as yet left you the necessary leisure to imprint a more marked individuality on your works, and to complete them. For, as it has been very justly said, it is not enough to do a thing, but it must be completed. This said and understood, there is no one who admires more than I do your remarkable and abundant faculties, or who takes a more sincere and friendly interest in your work. You know that I have set my mind upon your "Ocean" being given here, and I shall beg you also to give us the pleasure of playing one of your Concertos. In about ten days I will write and tell you the date of the first concert of our orchestra.