Cordial wishes for the year '85, and ever your admiringly attached
F. Liszt
Give my best remembrances from Budapest to Delibes.
356. To Countess Mercy-Argenteau
What wonders you have just accomplished with your Russian concert at Liege, dear admirable one! From the material point of view the Deaf and Dumb and Blind Institutions have benefited by it; artistically, other deaf and dumb have heard and spoken; the blind have seen, and, on beholding you, were enraptured.
I shall assuredly not cease from my propaganda of the remarkable compositions of the New Russian School, which I esteem and appreciate with lively sympathy. For 6 or 7 years past, at the Grand Annual Concerts of the Musical Association ("Allgemeiner Deutscher Musik-Verein"), over which I have the honor of presiding, the orchestral works of Rimsky-Korsakoff and Borodine have figured on the programmes. Their success is making a crescendo, in spite of the sort of contumacy that is established against Russian music. It is not in the least any desire of being peculiar that leads me to spread it, but a simple feeling of justice, based on my conviction of the real worth of these works of high lineage. I do not know which ones Hans von Bulow, the Achilles of propagandists, chose for the Russian concert he gave lately with the Meiningen orchestra, of an unheard-of discipline and perfection.
I hope Bulow will continue concerts of the same quality in various towns of Germany.
The best among my disciples, brilliant virtuosi, play the most difficult piano compositions of Balakireff, etc., superbly. I shall recommend to them Cui's Suite (piano and violoncello).
Considering the rarity of singers gifted at once with voice, intelligence and good taste for things not hackneyed,—there is some delay in regard to the vocal compositions of Cui, Borodine, etc. Nevertheless the right time for their production will come, and for making them succeed and be appreciated. In France your translation of the words will be a great help, and in Germany we must be provided with a suitable translation.
A portion of the articles which you kindly sent me upon your concert at Liege shallbe inserted in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik. I shall endeavor to find another paper also, although my relations with the Press are by no means intimate.