394. To Joseph Dessauer
[Draft of an autograph letter, without address, date, and conclusion, in the Liszt-Museum at Weimar.]
[Probably at the beginning of the fifties.]
Heartiest thanks for your Songs. I rejoice that you consider me worthy of a dedication, and I promise you that if we meet again I will sing you the songs by heart. Perhaps you will bring me again into such a mood for songs as will impel me to write something of that sort. My earlier songs are mostly too ultra sentimental, and frequently too full in the accompaniment.
395. Testimonial for Joachim Raff
[Draft of an autograph letter, without address and date, in the
Liszt-Museum at Weimar]
[Probably at the beginning of the fifties.]
The talents of M. Raff as composer and musician are a fact so evident and certain, his recent orchestral compositions as well as his works for voice and piano furnish such forcible proofs of it, that I consider it superfluous to add to this evidence and to certify it further.
Having had more opportunity than others, during the few years of our intercourse, of appreciating his capacities (notably at the time of the Musical Festival at Bonn for the inauguration of Beethoven's monument in 1845,-and of those to Herder and Goethe at Weymar in 1850, etc.), knowing thoroughly both the score of his four-act Opera "King Alfred," given many times with great success in Weymar under the author's conductorship, as well as many of his manuscript works, which I sincerely esteem, I shall always make it my duty seriously to recommend M. Raff to those of the Musical Institutes which attach a value to the possession of an intelligent director and one well acquainted with the exigencies and the progress of the art.
F. Liszt