Rahter, the musical editor at Hamburg, and representative of Jurgenson in Moscow, will offer you in homage three of my Russian transcriptions,—Tschaikowsky's "Polonaise"; Dargomijsky's "Tarentelle" with the continuous pedal bass of A, A; and a "Romance" of Count Michel Wielhorsky. Let us add to these the "Marche tscherkesse" of Glinka, and, above all, the prodigious kaleidoscope of variations and paraphrases on the fixed theme
[Here, Liszt illustrates with a musical score excerpt]
It is the most seriously entertaining thing I know; it gives us a practical manual, par excellence, of all musical knowledge; treatises on harmony and composition are summed up and blended in it in some thirty pages, which teach the subject very fully— above and beyond the usual instruction.
My very amiable hosts at Antwerp, the Lynens, have invited me to return there this summer at the time of the Exhibition, of which M. Lynen is the president. I am tempted to do so after the Carlsruhe Festival, as I keep a charming remembrance of the kindness that was shown to me in Brussels and Antwerp.
In about ten days I return to Budapest, whence you shall receive a photograph of the old, sorry face of your constant admirer and devoted servant,
F. Liszt
Rome, January 20th, 1885
A pertinacious editor keeps asking me for my transcription of Gounod's "Ste. Cecile." If amongst your old papers you should find the manuscript of it, will you lend it me for a fortnight, so that it may be copied, printed, and then restored to its very gracious owner?
February and March my address—Budapest, Hungary.
357. To Camille Saint-Saens.