["No worm dost Thou e'er forget…The kid amid the shrubs and berries…The fly that sips the sweetest juice…And the lark that pecks the blade of corn."…]
All and everything fits in so exactly with the music, syllable by syllable, that it seems as if the poem and music had sprung up together. Verily, dear friend, you are an extremely kind and most perfect magician. Now do not be vexed with me if my grateful appreciation of your skill should prove somewhat covetous, and I again ask you to do me a favor. A little French poem of 48 short lines, "Sainte Cecile, Legende," by Madame Emile Girardin (Delphine Gay) is awaiting your poetic courtesy. Allow me to send you my finished composition of this Cacilia, the musical foundation of which is furnished by the Gregorian antiphone: "Cantantibus organis, Caecilia Domino decantabat." It is to be hoped that I have not spoilt it, and I trust to your friendly kindliness to send me a German translation of it before the next Cacilia Festival (22nd November), soon after which it shall be printed, and a performance of it given in Pest.
The delay with the edition of your two Operas I sincerely regret. They deserve much greater appreciation and a much wider circulation than hundreds of others that are printed, and the publication of the pianoforte scores is sure to effect this for them. Meanwhile I am glad that you have made use of my suggestion to base the Overture of the "Barber" on the pleasantly characteristic motive—
[Here, Liszt illustrates with a 4-bar musical score excerpt.]
Next summer we shall meet in Munich.—With hearty thanks, your sincerely attached
F. Liszt
Villa d'Este (Tivoli), August 23rd, 1874
If you should see Frau Schott in Mainz, give her my kindest remembrances. For some time past various manuscripts have been lying ready which I should have liked to hand over to Schott's house of business; but fear that they might arrive at an inopportune moment. The very title, "Drei symphonische Trauer- Oden" ["Three Symphonic Funeral Odes">[ might prove alarming; and besides, the scores—all about 20 pages in length—would have to be published simultaneously with the pianoforte transcriptions (for one or two performers). Well, "we can wait."…
I am working pretty industriously at the "Sanct Stanislaus." Of this you will tomorrow receive a full report—and an urgent request for speedy, energetaeally accentuated pains over the essential but not lengthy alterations of the text.
155. To Ludwig Bosendorfer in Vienna