[Received January 12th, 1857]
Dear Sir,
On my somewhat delayed return to Weymar I find your friendly letter, for which I send you my
sincere and warmest thanks. I am very much pleased to learn from you that you have succeeded, thanks to your careful and intelligent preparation, in making such a good effect with the "Faust" (Student) Chorus. [It was the first choral composition which was conducted by Liszt in Vienna, and with the very same Mannergesangverein which Herbeck conducted.] This light little piece has been pretty successfully given several times by Mannergesangvereinen [Vocal societies of male voices] in Cologne, Berlin, etc., and even in Paris. When I published it fifteen years ago, I did not think much about making allowance for any possible laxity in the intonation of the singers; but today, when my experience has taught me better, I should probably write the somewhat steep and slippery passage as follows:—
[Here, Liszt illustrates with a vocal score musical excerpt at the point where the singer sings "Die Ko-chin hat ihr Gift gestellt, da ward zu eng ihr in der Welt, etc.">[
Probably this version would also be more effective—with the alteration in the last verse (in honor of prosody!):—
[Here, Liszt illustrates with a vocal score musical excerpt at the point where the singer sings "ha, sie pfeift auf dem letzten Loch.">[
I shall venture shortly to send you (by Herr Haslinger), my dear sir, a couple of other Quartets for male voices to look through. If, after doing so, you think you may risk a public performance of them, I leave the matter entirely in your hands.
There is not the slightest hurry about the Mass, [For men's voices. On the occasion of the Mozart Festival in Vienna in 1856, conducted by Liszt, he had played portions of this Mass to Herbeck, and the latter felt himself, as he wrote to Liszt, "electrified by the spirit of this work and its creator," and set himself "at the same time the artistic duty of a worthy rendering of this Song of Praise.">[ and I fear that the preparation of this work will cost you and your singers some trouble. Before all else it requires the utmost certainty in intonation, which can only be attained by practicing the parts singly (especially the middle parts, second tenor and first bass)—and then, above all, religious absorption, meditation, expansion, ecstasy, shadow, light, soaring—in a word, Catholic devotion and inspiration. The "Credo," as if built on a rock, should sound as steadfast as the dogma itself; a mystic and ecstatic joy should pervade the "Sanctus;" the "Agnus Dei" (as well as the "Miserere" in the "Gloria") should be accentuated, in a tender and deeply elegiac manner, by the most fervent sympathy with the Passion of Christ; and the "Dona nobis pacem," expressive of reconciliation and full of faith, should float away like sweet-smelling incense. The Church composer is both preacher and priest, and what the word fails to bring to our powers of perception the tone makes winged and clear.
You know all this at least as well as I do, and I must apologize for repeating it to you. If the extent of the chorus allows of it, it might perhaps be desirable to add a few more wind instruments (clarinets, bassoon, horns, indeed even a couple of trombones) to support the voices more. If you think so too, please send me a line to say so, and I will at once send you a small score of the wind instruments. [Herbeck himself undertook, at Liszt's desire (which, as he wrote, filled him with joy and pride), to write the instrumental accompaniment to the Mass.] You shall have the vocal parts from Jena immediately. For today accept once more my best thanks, together with the assurance of the highest esteem of