118 To Dr. Franz Brendel
You would have greatly deceived yourself, dear friend, if you had attributed any sort of personal aim to my last intimation regarding the conduct of the critical part of your paper. By no means could that be the case, and I think I even said to you in the course of conversation that, so long as my set of articles on various operas, which provisionally closes with the “Flying Dutchman”, is going on in the Neue Zeitschrift, it seems to me more becoming not to bespeak any other musical productions of mine. None the less do I consider it desirable and quite in the interest of our cause that, for the future, the more important productions, especially the works of R. Schumann, Hiller, Gade, etc., should be brought into consideration more fully and oftener than has been the case of late years. The bookseller’s views, as regards the sending or non-sending of works, appear to me unimportant and even injurious for the higher position which your paper maintains.—
I send you herewith Cornelius’s article on the Prize Symphony and the “Girondistes” Overture. It is very nicely written, and will probably suit you. If possible put it into your next number.
I cannot now undertake the discussion about the Schumann collective writings, as I am prevented by musical work for a long time. Still, if I write later on a couple of articles on the work, that need not prevent you from bringing out very soon one or more articles discussing the same work. There is much to take in and to bring out in it, which one critic alone is scarcely capable of conceiving. The best plan of all would be if you yourself will undertake the discussion of the Schumann writings. Should you, however, not have time for it, then Pohl would be the best man for this work. His predilection for Schumann, and his familiarity with Schumann’s views, qualify him thoroughly for this.
My articles on the “Flying Dutchman” must not wait so long as you propose to me in your letter. I wish explicity that the two articles on the “Weisse Dame” and “Alfonso and Estrella” should appear as soon as possible, and immediately afterwards the “Flying Dutchman”, so that by the end of September this series of twelve opera discussions may have all appeared in the Neue Zeitschrift.
At the same time with the proofs of the article on the “Weisse Dame” you will receive the “Alfonso and Estrella” article, and, as soon as these are out, the “Flying Dutchman”, which must be published in September—for various reasons, which cannot well be explained in a letter.
Raff’s book “Die Wagnerfrage” [The Wagner Question] has arrived here today, and I have already read it. The author is so pleased with himself that it would be a miracle if his readers were joined to him in the same proportion, and Raff is specially at variance with miracles!—
This book makes on me the effect of a pedagogic exuberance. Even the occasional good views (on harmony, for example) that it contains are obscured by a self-sufficiency in the tone and manner of them, of which one may well complain as insupportable. What Raff wishes to appear spoils four-fifths (to quote the time which he adapts so ridiculously to “Lohengrin” of what he might be. He is perpetually getting on scientific stilts, which are by no means of a very solid wood. Philosophic formulas are sometimes the envelope, the outside shell, as it were, of knowledge; but it may also happen that they only show empty ideas, and contain no other substance than their own harsh terminology. To demonstrate the rose by the ferule may seem a very scientific proceeding to vulgar pedants; for my part it is not to my taste; and without being unjust to the rare qualities of Raff’s talent, which I have long truly appreciated, his book seems to me to belong too much to the domain of moral and artistic pathology for it to help in placing questions of Art in their right light.
I beg you, dear friend, not to repeat this to anybody, for I could not go against Raff in any but the most extreme case, for which I hope he will not give me any occasion. Against the many charges to which he has exposed himself I even intend to shield him as far as possible, but I am very much grieved that he has mingled so much that is raw and untenable in his book with much that is good, true and right.
Farewell, dear friend, and give most friendly greetings to your wife from Yours most sincerely,
F. Liszt
August 12th, 1854
In the “Favorita” article a great error has been allowed to remain. “No lover, no knight behaves thus”—and not “A lover behaves thus,” etc. Send me at once the proofs of the “Weisse Dame”, and in September bring the “Fliegende Hollander”, which must not wait any longer.
I am now working at my Faust Symphony. The three-keyboard instrument arrived yesterday from Paris. It might be well to take the opportunity of my Catalogue appearing at Hartel’s to see about a special article on it in your paper.