I am writing by the same post to Mr. Engelhardt in Berlin to thank him for his letter, and to tell him that I feel quite flattered at seeing my name attached to a score of Glinka's.
188. To Carl Haslinger
[autograph without address in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet in Valentigney—The above was presumably the addressee.]
Dear Friend,
The writing of notes [music] draws me more and more away from the writing of letters, and my friends have already much to pardon me in this respect. With the best will in the world to fulfill my obligations, it is nevertheless impossible for me, owing to the countless claims that are made on me, to find time to do so. So do not scold me, dear friend, for having left your last letter unanswered. I had given myself a great deal to do with some manuscripts; the final proofs of the Faust and Dante Symphonies, in particular, which will now soon be engraved, had occupied me much longer than I expected. The two works are now as well finished as I am in a position to make them, and will, I hope, hold their POSITION.
I congratulate you most warmly on the performance of your opera. You may safely expect various disagreeables in connection therewith, which are inseparable from musical work. The great thing is to remain cheerful, and to do something worth doing. The cuckoo take the rest!—
Let me have a talk with you about the Zellner matter in Vienna, if, as seems likely, I have to go there at the end of May for the performance of my Mass. Meanwhile thank you very much for the pains you have taken over the proof-sheets of this long- protracted work, and I should be glad if the whole were ready to come out by the time I reach Vienna.
Tausig, who is to come out in Berlin at the beginning of January,
will probably come with me. There is again a real "bravo,"
[Literally, iron-eater.] as Hummel said of me when he heard me in
Paris in the twenties.
Will you be so kind as to give the enclosed letters to Winterberger and Rubinstein? How is our friend Winterberger getting on in the not very suitable atmosphere of Vienna? Let me know something about him soon. Yours ever,
F. Liszt