143 To August Kiel, Court Conductor in Detmold
[Autograph (without address) in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet, of Valentigney. The contents lead to the conclusion that the above was the addressee (1813-71).]
I have been prevented until now, by a mass of work and little outings, from sending you my warmest thanks for your kind forwarding of the opera text of “Sappho,” and I beg that you will kindly excuse this delay. The manner in which Rietz’s composition to the Schiller dithyramb is to be interwoven with the poem I cannot venture fully to explain. I confess also that the dramatico-musical vivifying of the antique is for me a sublime, attractive problem, as yet undecided, in the solution of which even Mendelssohn himself has not succeeded in such a degree as to leave nothing further to be sought for. Some years ago “Sappho” (in three acts—text by Augier, music by Gounod) was given at the Paris Opera. This work contains much that is beautiful, and Berlioz has spoken of it very favorably in the Journal des Debats. Unfortunately it did not appear in print, and up to the present time no other theater has performed it, although it made a sensation in Paris and ensured a first-rate position to the composer. If it would interest you, dear sir, to get to know the score, I will willingly write to Gounod and beg him to give me the work to send to you.
I have repeatedly heard the most gratifying tidings of the sympathy and care which you bestow in Detmold upon the works of Wagner and Berlioz. Regardless of the many difficulties, opposition, and misunderstandings which meet these great creations, I cherish with you the conviction that “nothing truly good and beautiful is lost in the stream of Time,” and that the pains taken by those who intend to preserve the higher and the divine in Art do not remain fruitless. In the course of this autumn (at the end of November at latest) I am going to see Wagner, and I promise to send you from Zurich a little autograph from his hand. I would gladly satisfy your wish sooner, but that the letters which Wagner writes to me are a perfectly inalienable benefit to me, and you will not take it amiss if I am more than avaricious with them.
Accept, my dear sir, the assurance of my highest esteem, with which I remain
Yours most truly,
F. Liszt
Weymar, September 8th, 1855
Enclosed are Berlioz’ letter and the manuscript of “Sappho.”