1. To Dr. Franz Brendel
[Rome,] December 20th, 1861
Dear Friend,
For the New Year I bring you nothing new; my soon ageing attachment and friendship remain unalterably yours. Let me hope that it will be granted to me to give you more proof of it from year to year.
Since the beginning of October I have remained without news from Germany. How are my friends Bronsart, Draseke, Damrosch, Weissheimer? Give them my heartiest greetings, and let me see some notices of the onward endeavors and experiences of these my young friends, as also of the doings of the Redactions-Hohle [Editorial den] and the details of the Euterpe concerts.
Please send the numbers of the paper, from October onwards, to me at the address of the library Spithover-Monaldini, Piazza di Spagna, Rome. Address your letter "Herrn Commandeur Liszt," Via Felice 113. "Signor Commendatore" is my title here; but don't be afraid that any Don Juan will stab me—still less that on my return to Germany I shall appear in your Redactions-Hohle as a guest turned to stone!—
Of myself I have really little to tell you. Although my acquaintance here is tolerably extensive and of an attractive kind (if not exactly musical!), I live on the whole more retired than was possible to me in Germany. The morning hours are devoted to my work, and often a couple of hours in the evening also. I hope to have entirely finished the Elizabeth in three months. Until then I can undertake nothing else, as this work completely absorbs me. Very soon I will decide whether I come to Germany next summer or not. Possibly I shall go to Athens in April— without thereby forgetting the Athens of the elms! .—.
First send me the paper, that I may not run quite wild in musical matters. At Spithover's, where I regularly read the papers, there are only the Augsburger Allgemeine, the Berlin Stern-Zeitung [Doubtless the Kreusseitung], and several French and English papers, which contain as good as nothing of what I care about in the domain of music.
Julius Schuberth wrote a most friendly letter to me lately, and asks me which of Draseke's works I could recommend to him next for publication. To tell the truth it is very difficult for me in Rome to put myself in any publisher's shoes, even in so genial a man's as Julius Schuberth. In spite of this I shall gladly take an opportunity of answering him, and shall advise him to consult with Draseke himself as to the most advisable opportunity of publishing this or that Opus of his, if a doubt should actually come over our Julius as to whether his publisher's omniscience were sufficiently enlightened on the matter!—
Remember me most kindly to your wife.