Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1

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Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 (1889)

By Richard Wagner; Franz Liszt; Francis Hueffer (translator)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
CORRESPONDENCE OF WAGNER AND LISZT, Volume 1
INFO ABOUT THIS E-TEXT EDITION

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

The German musical genius Richard Wagner (1811-1883) could be
considered to be one of the ideological fathers of early 20th
century German nationalism. He was well-suited for this role.
Highly intelligent, sophisticated, complex, capable of imagining
whole systems of humanistic philosophy, and with an intense need
to communicate his ideas, he created great operas which, in
addition to their artistic merits, served the peculiar role of
promoting a jingoistic, chauvenistic kind of Germanism. There are
things in his operas that only a German can fully understand,
especially if he would like to see his country closed off to
outsiders. It is unlikely, however, that Wagner expected these
ideas to achieve any popularity. Time and again he rails against
philistines, irrational people and politicians in his letters.
With great exasperation and often depression he expressed little
hope that his country would ever emerge out of its "philistinism"
and embrace "rational" ideas such as he propagated. Add to this
the great difficulties he had in getting his works performed, and
one might assume that he felt himself to be composing, most of
the time, to audiences of bricks. Yes, his great, intensely
beloved friend Liszt believed in, fully understood, and greatly
appreciated Wagner's works, but Liszt was just one in a million,
and even he, as Wagner suggested, associated with a base coterie
incapable of assimilating Wagnerian messages. Considering the
sorry state of music and intellectualism in Wagner's time and
setting, he surely would have been surprised if his operas and
his ideas achieved any wide currency. That he continued to work
with intense energy to develop his ideas, to fix them into
musical form and to propagate them, while knowing that probably
no sizeable population would ever likely take note of them, and
while believing that his existence as an underappreciated,
rational individual in an irrational world was absurd and futile,
is a testimony to the enormous will-power of this "ubermensch."

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

The best introduction to this important correspondence of the two
great musicians will be found in the following extract from an
autobiographical sketch written by Wagner in 1851. It has been
frequently quoted, but cannot be quoted too often, describing, as
it does, the beginning and the development of a friendship which
is unique in the history of art.

"Again I was thoroughly disheartened from undertaking any new
artistic scheme. Only recently I had had proofs of the
impossibility of making my art intelligible to the public, and
all this deterred me from beginning new dramatic works. Indeed, I
thought everything was at an end with my artistic creativeness.
From this state of mental dejection I was raised by a friend. By
the most evident and undeniable proofs he made me feel that I was
not deserted, but, on the contrary, understood deeply by those
even who were otherwise most distant from me; in this way he gave
me back my full artistic confidence.

"This wonderful friend has been to me Franz Liszt. I must enter a
little more deeply into the character of this friendship, which,
to many, has seemed paradoxical.

"I met Liszt for the first time during my earliest stay in Paris,
and at a period when I had renounced the hope, nay, even the wish
of a Paris reputation, and, indeed, was in a state of internal
revolt against the artistic life I found there. At our meeting
Liszt appeared. to me the most perfect contrast to my own being
and situation. In this world, to which it had been my desire to
fly from my narrow circumstances, Liszt had grown up from his
earliest age, so as to be the object of general love and
admiration at a time when I was repulsed by general coldness and
want of sympathy. In consequence, I looked upon him with
suspicion. I had no opportunity of disclosing my being and
working to m, and, therefore, the reception I met with on his
part was altogether of a superficial kind, as was indeed quite
natural in a man to whom every day the most divergent impressions
claimed access. My repeated expression of this feeling was
afterwards reported to Liszt, just at the time when my "Rienzi"
at Dresden attracted general attention. He was surprised to find
himself misunderstood with such violence by a man whom he had
scarcely known, and whose acquaintance now seemed not without
value to him. I am still touched at recollecting the repeated and
eager attempts he made to change my opinion of him, even before
he knew any of my works. He acted not from any artistic sympathy,
but was led by the purely human wish of discontinuing a casual
disharmony between himself and another being; perhaps he also
felt an infinitely tender misgiving of having really hurt me
unconsciously. He who knows the terrible selfishness and
insensibility in our social life, and especially in the relations
of modern artists to each other, cannot but be struck with
wonder, nay, delight, by the treatment I experienced from this
extraordinary man.

"This happened at a time when it became more and more evident
that my dramatic works would have no outward success. But just
when the case seemed desperate Liszt succeeded by his own energy
in opening a hopeful refuge to my art. He ceased his wanderings,
settled down at the small, modest Weimar, and took up the
conductor's baton, after having been at home so long in the
splendour of the greatest cities of Europe. At Weimar I saw him
for the last time, when I rested a few days in Thuringia, not yet
certain whether the threatening prosecution would compel me to
continue my flight from Germany. The very day when my personal
danger became a certainty, I saw Liszt conduct a rehearsal of my
"Tannhauser", and was astonished at recognizing my second-self in
his achievement. What I had felt in inventing this music he felt
in performing it; what I wanted to express in writing it down he
proclaimed in making it sound. Strange to say, through the love
of this rarest friend, I gained, at the moment of becoming
homeless, the real home for my art, which I had longed for and
sought for always in the wrong place.

"At the end of my last stay in Paris, when ill, miserable, and
despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on the score
of my "Lohengrin", totally forgotten by me. Suddenly I felt
something like compassion that this music should never sound from
off the death-pale paper. Two words I wrote to Liszt; his answer
was the news that preparations for the performance were being
made on the largest scale the limited means of Weimar would
permit. Everything that men and circumstances could do was done
in order to make the work understood. Success was his reward, and
with this success he now approaches me, saying, 'Behold we have
come so far; now create us a new work that we may go still
further.'"

Wagner's words, as above quoted, may have seemed an exaggerated
tribute of gratitude to many. After reading these letters one
comes to the conclusion that they are the expression of a plain
fact. It is a well-known French saying that in every love affair
there is one person who adores while the other allows himself to
be adored, and that saying may, with equal justice, be applied to
the many literary and artistic friendships of which, pace the
elder D'Israeli, history knows so many examples. Petrarch and
Boccaccio, Schiller and Goethe, Byron and Shelley immediately
occur to the mind in such a connection; but in none of these is
the mutual position of giver and receiver of worshipper and
worshipped so distinctly marked as in the case under discussion.

Nature itself, or, at least, external circumstances, had indeed
almost settled the matter. In the earlier stages of this
friendship the worldly position of the two men was a widely
different one. Liszt was at the time perhaps the most famous
musician alive, and although he had voluntarily abandoned an
active career, he remained the friend of kings and ecclesiastic
potentates, and the head and centre of an admiring school of
disciples.

Wagner at the same period was, in familiar language--nobody. He
had lost his position at the Royal Opera at Dresden through his
participation in the revolutionary rising of 1849, and he was an
exile from his country. As an artist his antecedents were not
very glorious. He had written three operas, all of which had met
with fair success, but none of which had taken real hold of the
public, and the Court theatres of Germany were naturally not very
prone to favour the interests of an outlawed rebel. In spite of
this disparity of fortune, it is curious to see how the two men,
almost from the first, assume the mutual position already
indicated. Liszt, from the beginning, realizes, with a self-
abnegation and a freedom from vanity almost unique in history,
that he is dealing with a man infinitely greater than himself,
and to serve the artistic and personal purposes of that man he
regards as a sacred duty.

Wagner's attitude in the matter will be judged differently by
different people, according to the opinion they have of the
permanent and supreme value of his work. He simply accepts the
position as he finds it. "Here am I," he may have said to
himself, "with a brain teeming with art work of a high and
lasting kind; my resources are nil, and if the world, or at least
the friends who believe in me, wish me to do my allotted task,
they must free me from the sordid anxieties of existence." The
words, here placed in quotation marks, do not actually occur in
any of the letters, but they may be read between the lines of
many of them. The naivete with which Wagner expresses himself on
this subject is indeed almost touching, and it must be owned that
his demands for help are, according to English notions at least,
extremely modest. A pension of 300 thalers, or about,œ45 of our
money, which he expects from the Grand Duke of Weimar for the
performing right of his operas, is mentioned on one occasion as
the summit of his desire. Unfortunately, even this small sum was
not forthcoming, and Wagner accordingly for a long time depended
upon the kindness of his friends and the stray sums which the
royalties on his operas brought him as his sole support. He for
himself, as he more than once declares, would not have feared
poverty, and with the touch of the dramatic element in his
nature, which was peculiar to him, would perhaps have found a
certain pleasure in going through the world, an artistic
Belisarius asking the lovers of his art for their obolus. But he
had a wife (his first wife), weak in health, and anxious of mind,
and to protect her from every care is his chief desire--a desire
which has something beautiful and pathetic in it, and is the
redeeming feature of the many appeals for a loan, and sometimes
for a present, which occur in these letters.

Liszt was only too willing to give, but his means were extremely
limited. He had realized large sums during his artistic career;
but he was liberal almost to a fault, and poor artists, inundated
Hungarian peasants, and the Beethoven monument at Bonn profited a
great deal more by his successes than he did himself. What little
remained of his savings had been settled upon his aged mother and
his three children, and at the time here alluded to his only
fixed income was the salary of less than [pounds] 200, which he
derived from the Weimar Theatre. This explanation he himself
gives to Wagner, in answer to the following remarkable sentence
in one of that master's letters:--"I once more return to the
question, can you let me have the 1,000 francs as a gift, and
would it be possible for you to guarantee me the same annual sum
for the next two years?" The 1,000 francs was forthcoming soon
afterwards, but poor Liszt had to decline the additional
obligation for two other years.

The above passage is quoted as an instance of many others, and
one must admire the candour of Wagner's widow, who has not
suppressed a single touch in the picture of this beautiful
friendship. But Liszt's help was not limited to material things.
What was infinitely more valuable to Wagner, and what excited his
gratitude to even more superlative utterance, was the confidence
which Liszt showed in his genius, and without which, it is no
exaggeration to say, Wagner's greatest works would probably have
remained unwritten.

The first performance of "Lohengrin" at Weimar, which was really
the starting-point of his fame, has already been alluded to.
Every further step in his career was watched and encouraged by
the loving sympathy of Liszt, and when Wagner, overpowered by the
grandeur and difficulties of his "Nibelungen" scheme, was on the
point of laying down the pen, it was Liszt who urged him to
continue in his arduous task, and to go on in spite of all
discouragement.

It must not, however, be thought that Wagner alone derived
benefits from this remarkable friendship. Not only did he in his
turn encourage Liszt in the career of a composer of great and
novel works, but he distinctly raised the intellectual and
artistic level of his friend. Liszt's nature was of a noble, one
may say, ideal kind, but he had lived in dangerous surroundings,
and the influence of the great world and of the glaring publicity
in which a virtuoso moves, had left its trace on his
individuality. Here, then, the uncompromising idealism, the
world-defying artistic conviction of Wagner, served as a tonic to
his character. If the reader will refer to Letter 21, or at least
to that portion of it which has been vouchsafed by Madame Wagner,
he will see how necessary the administration of such a tonic was
to a man who even at that time could think it necessary to
deprecate the "superideal" character of "Lohengrin", and to
advise in a scarcely disguised manner that the Knight of the
Grail should be brought a little more within the comprehension of
ordinary people. All the more beautiful is it to see how Liszt is
ultimately carried away by the enthusiasm of his great friend,
how he also defies the world, and adopts the device "L'art pour
l'art" as his guiding principle. Altogether the two friends might
have said to each other in the words of Juliet:--

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more
I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite." A few
words should be said of the spirit in which the translator has
undertaken his extremely difficult task. There are in these pages
many things which are of comparatively little interest to the
English reader,--allusions to circumstances and persons with
which he cannot be expected to be familiar, especially as the
latter are frequently veiled by initials. There is no doubt that
judicious omissions might have made these pages more readable and
more amusing. But then such a book as this is not meant to amuse.
It is almost of a monumental character, and his deep respect for
that character has induced the translator to produce its every
feature,--a remark which applies to manner no less than to
matter. In consequence, not a line has been omitted, and the
manners and mannerisms of the writers have been preserved as far
as the difference of the two languages would allow. Such
effusions of German enthusiasm as "dearest, best, most unique of
friends," "glorious, great man," and the italics which both
Wagner and Liszt employ with a profusion of which any lady might
be proud, have been scrupulously preserved. These slight touches
give a racy flavour to the letters; and although they may
occasionally call forth a smile, they will, no doubt, be
appreciated by those who with Sterne "can see the precise and
distinguishing marks of national character more in these
nonsensical minutiae than in the most important matters of
state."

That the task of reproducing these minutiae without doing too
much violence to the English idiom was an extremely difficult
one, the experienced reader need not be told. Liszt, it is true,
writes generally in a simple and straightforward manner, and his
letters, especially those written in French, present no very
great obstacles; but with Wagner the case is different. He also
is plain and lucid enough where the ordinary affairs of life are
concerned, but as soon as he comes upon a topic that really
interests him, be it music or Buddhism, metaphysics or the
iniquities of the Jews, his brain gets on fire, and his pen
courses over the paper with the swiftness and recklessness of a
race-horse, regardless of the obstacles of style and
construction, and sometimes of grammar. His meaning is always
deep, but to arrive at that meaning in such terrible letters, for
example, as those numbered 27, 35, 107, 255, and many others,
sometimes seems to set human ingenuity at defiance. It would of
course have been possible, by disentangling dove-tailed sentences
and by giving the approximate meaning where the literal was
impossible, to turn all this into fairly smooth English. But in
such a process all the strength and individual character of the
original would inevitably have been lost. What I have endeavoured
to do is to indicate the diction which a man of Wagner's peculiar
turn of mind would have used, if he had written in English
instead of in German.

To sum up, this translation of the correspondence is intended to
be an exact facsimile of the German original. To supply notes and
a serviceable index, to give a clue to the various persons who
are hidden under initials--all this must be left to another
occasion, provided always that the Wagner family consents to such
a course, and that the interest shown by English readers in the
work as it stands holds out sufficient inducement to so toilsome
a piece of work.

FRANCIS HUEFFER.

CORRESPONDENCE OF WAGNER AND LISZT, VOLUME 1 (OF A 2-VOLUME SET)

I.

DEAR SIR,

If I take the liberty to trouble you with these lines, I must in
the first instance rely solely on the great kindness with which
you received me during your last short stay in Paris in the late
autumn of last year, when Herr Schlesinger casually introduced me
to you. There is, however, still another circumstance which
encourages me to this step: My friend Heinrich Laube, the author,
wrote to me last summer from Carlsbad that he had there made the
acquaintance of one of your countrymen, who boasted of being your
friend; that he had spoken to that gentleman of me and my plans,
and engaged his interest in me to such an extent that he (the
gentleman) of his own accord promised to introduce me to YOU, as
he was on the point of starting for another watering-place, where
he would be sure to meet you.

You observe, dear sir, with what remote and uncertain
contingencies I am obliged to connect my great hope; you observe
how anxiously I cling to feeble possibilities to attain a
priceless boon. Was that promise ever fulfilled, and could it
have been? My eternally unlucky star almost forbids me to believe
it. The question, however, I owed to myself, and all I ask for at
present is the honour of a Yes or a No!

With full admiration, your most devoted

RICHARD WAGNER

25, RUE DU HELDER, PARIS, March 24th, 1841.

2.

DEAR SIR,

At last you are within safe reach of me, and I take this long-
desired opportunity to gain you, as far as is in my power, for
our scheme of celebrating Weber's memory by a worthy monument to
be erected in Dresden. You are just on the point of crowning your
important participation in the erection of the Beethoven
monument; you are for that purpose surrounded by the most
important musicians of our time, and in consequence are in the
very element most favourable to the enterprise which of late has
been resumed chiefly through my means. As no doubt you heard at
the time, we have transferred Weber's remains to the earth of his
German home. We have had a site for the intended monument
assigned to us close to our beautiful Dresden theatre, and a
commencement towards the necessary funds has been made by the
benefit performances at the Dresden, Berlin, and Munich theatres.
These funds, however, I need scarcely mention, have to be
increased considerably if something worthy is to be achieved, and
we must work with all our strength to rouse enthusiasm wherever
something may still be done. A good deal of this care I should
like to leave to you, not, you may believe me, from idleness, but
because I feel convinced that the voice of a poor German composer
of operas, compelled to devote his lifelong labour to the
spreading of his works a little beyond the limits of his
province, is much too feeble to be counted of importance for
anything in the world. Dear Herr Liszt, take it well to heart
when I ask you to relieve me of the load which would probably be
heaped on me by the reproach that I had compromised our dear
Weber's memory, because it was none other than I, weak and
unimportant as I am, who had first mooted this celebration. Pray,
do what you can in order to be helpful to our enterprise, for
gradually, as I observe the vulgar indifference of our theatres,
which owe so much to Weber, I begin to fear that our fund might
easily remain such as it is at present, and that would be
tantamount to our having to commence with very inadequate means
the erection of a monument which doubtless would have turned out
better if a more important personality had started the idea.

I add no more words, for to you I have probably said enough. The
committee of which I am a member will apply to you with proper
formality. Would that you could let us have a gratifying answer,
and that my application might have contributed a little towards
it!

With true esteem and devotion, I am yours,

RICHARD WAGNER

MARIENBAD, August 5th, 1845

3.

MOST ESTEEMED FRIEND,

On and off I hear that you remember me very kindly and are intent
upon gaining friends for me; and I could have wished that, by
staying in Dresden a little longer, you had given me an
opportunity of thanking you personally and enjoying your company.
As I perceive more and more that I and my works, which as yet
have scarcely begun to spread abroad, are not likely to prosper
very much, I slowly familiarize myself with the thought of
turning to account your friendly feeling towards me a little,
and, much as I generally detest the seeking and making of
opportunities, I proceed with perfect openness to rouse you up in
my favour. There is at Vienna, where you happen to be staying, a
theatrical manager, P.; the man came to me a year ago, and
invited me to produce "Rienzi" at his theatre in the present
spring. Since then I have not been able to hear again from him,
but as our "Tichatschek" goes to his theatre in May for an
extensive starring engagement, and thereby the possibility of a
good representation of "Rienzi" would be given, the backing out
on the part of this P. begins to make me angry. I presume that
he, who is personally stupid, has been subsequently set against
my opera by his conductor, N. For this Capellmeister N. has
himself written an opera, which, because our King had heard it
and disliked it elsewhere, was not produced at Dresden, and the
wretched man probably thinks he owes me a grudge for it, although
I had no influence whatever in the matter. However trivial such
considerations may be in themselves, they and similar ones
largely furnish the real cause why works like mine occasionally
die in Germany; and as Vienna for pecuniary reasons, apart from
anything else, is of importance to me, I go straight to you, most
esteemed friend, to ask that you will set Manager P.'s head
right, in favour of an early performance of my "Rienzi" at his
theatre. Pray do not be angry with me.

I have ventured to send you through Meser the scores of my
"Rienzi" and "Tannhauser," and wish and hope that the latter will
please you better than the former.

Let me thank you sincerely for the great kindnesses you have
shown me. May your sentiments remain always the same towards

Your faithfully devoted

RICHARD WAGNER

DRESDEN, March 22nd, 1846

4.

DEAR FRIEND,

Herr Halbert tells me you want my overture to Goethe's "Faust."
As I know of no reason to withhold it from you except that it
does not please me any longer, I send it to you, because I think
that in this matter the only important question is whether the
overture pleases you. If the latter should be the case, dispose
of my work; only I should like occasionally to have the
manuscript back again.

You will now have to go through capellmeister agonies of the
first quality; so I can imagine, and my opera is just the kind of
thing for that to one who takes a loving interest in it. Learn to
know these sufferings; they are the daily bread I eat. May God
give you strength and joy in your hard work.

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