170 To Herr von Turanyi, Musical Conductor of the Town of Aix- la-Chapelle
[Published in the Allgemeine Musikzeitung, July 11th, 1890]
Weymar, January 3rd, 1857
Dear Herr Capellmeister,
Although I am still kept to my bed by a long-continued indisposition, yet I will not delay giving you my warmest thanks for the active pains you have so kindly taken to place my endeavors in the cause of Art in a better light than I could otherwise have expected in your neighborhood.
The result of the choice of myself as conductor of the Musical Festival at Aix-la-Chapelle this year—a result which was notified to me yesterday by the letter of the Committee of the Lower-Rhine Musical Festival—is a welcome sign to me of the gradual recognition which an open and honestly expressed, consistent, and thoroughly disinterested conviction may meet with in different places. Whilst feeling myself especially indebted to you for having brought about this result, I would express to you at the same time the fact of my readiness to answer your very flattering wishes to the best of my powers, and to put aside any hindrances that may be in the way, in order to fulfill the task entrusted to me, if the following remarks are brought to the attention of the Committee, as I consider them essential to the success and also to the importance of the Musical Festival.
My conducting in Aix-la-Chapelle can only have such significance as attaches to the less-known and newer works, and those which are more nearly allied to the Art-interests of today; its justification would be strengthened by an excellent performance of such works. I was on this account completely in accordance with the programme you so kindly sent me (with the addition of one or two numbers), as I am unable to be with the other programme, received in the letter of the Committee yesterday. The latter is as follows:—
First day: Messiah by Handel.—Second day: Mass (in D major) by Beethoven.
The former as follows:—
First day: Mass by Beethoven (preceded by one of the shorter works of Handel—or possibly by a Cantata by Bach [?]).
Second day: Schubert’s Symphony (in C); one of the larger choral works of Schumann (say, perhaps, “The Rose’s Pilgrimage”—or one of the Ballades), and, as I should propose, one of the longer scenes from Berlioz’ “Faust,” and one or other of my Symphonic Poems.
You will not expect of me, dear Herr Capellmeister, that I should go off into a great panegyric about Handel and, if you caught me doing it, you might stop me immediately with the words of the ancient Greek who did not want any more praises of Homer—“You praise him, but who is thinking of blaming him?” The fullness and glory of this musical majesty is as uncontested as the pleasant, emulating, easily attainable performance of the “Messiah,” a chef-d’oeuvre, which has been for years the “daily bread,” so to speak, of great and small vocal societies both in England and Germany. With the exception of Haydn’s “Creation” there is scarcely a work of that kind existing which could show such countless performances. I, for my part, chose the “Messiah” for performance again in Weymar (in August 1850)—partly because Herder had interested himself in the preparation of the German text—and in the previous August they celebrated the Middle-Rhine Musical Festival at Darmstadt with it. This latter circumstance enhances my general consideration as to the artistic judiciousness of a repeated performance of the Messiah, up to a special point in regard to the Aix-la-Chapelle Festival, and therefore I should like the question put to the Committee “whether they consider that, in the interests of the ‘fresher life of the Musical Festival there,’ it can be advantageous for the Lower-Rhine to repeat it after the Middle-Rhine.”
The sentence in the letter of the Committee, in which the hope is cherished and expressed that “the celebrated Frau Lind-Goldschmidt may be engaged,” leads me to an almost more serious consideration.—
Do not be alarmed, dear sir, and do not be in the least afraid that I am going to struggle, in the usual style of our unchivalrous Don Quixote of musical criticism, with the windmill of virtuosity. You could not fairly expect this of me either, for I have never concealed that, since the grapes of virtuosity could not be made sour for me, I should take no pleasure whatever in finding them sour in somebody else’s mouth.
Frau Land-Goldschmidt stands as incomparable in her glittering renown as a singer as Handel in his as a composer, with the difference—which is in Frau Lind’s favor to boot—that Handel’s works weary many people and do not always succeed in filling the coffers, whereas the mere appearance of Frau Lind secures the utmost rapture of the public, as well as that of the cashier. If, therefore, we place the affairs of the Musical Festival simply on the satisfying and commercial debit and credit basis, certainly no artist, and still less any work of Art, could venture to compete with, and to offer an equal attraction to, the high and highly celebrated name of Frau Lind. Without raising the slightest objection to this, I must express my common-sense opinion that with this magnet all others would be quite superfluous, which, however, cannot be quite so indifferent to me; for, as Louis XIV. represented the State, so Frau Lind would constitute the Musical Festival proper. This avowal (for which I deserve, at the very least, stoning with the usual ingredients of operations of that kind in our civilized age, if I did not happen to implore grace of the divine Diva herself)—this avowal I already made last year, on occasion of the Dusseldorf Musical Festival, to my esteemed friend of many years, Ferdinand Hiller. What is the use of orchestra and singers, rehearsals and preparations, pieces and programmes, when the public only want to hear the Lind, and then hear her again—or, more correctly speaking, when they must be able to say they leave heard her, in order to be able to wallow at ease in their enthusiasm for Art? What I foresaw then was also confirmed to a hair, for it proved, as everybody knows, that all the sympathy of the public went in favor of whatever Frau Lind did, so that the so-called Artist-concert on the third day was the most fully attended, because in it there were an aria from “Beatrice di Tenda” and Swedish songs as special attraction—for which marvels the very simplest pianoforte accompaniment was no doubt sufficient.—Should the Committee of Aix-la-Chapelle be minded to take to heart the motto of Hiller’s Symphony, “Es muss doch Fruhling werden,” [“The spring will surely come.”] in all its artistic endeavour, and, as you write, to steer clear towards the goal of a “fresher rekindling of the Musical Festival,” we shall be obliged, alas! to do without the Swedish Nightingale and Europe’s Queen of Song.
In short, the point of the matter of this year’s Musical Festival at Aix-la-Chapelle is, as concerns myself, as follows:-
If they decide on having the “Messiah,” I must beg to be pardoned for having to excuse myself from coming. [Liszt finally dropped his objection to the “Messiah.” He had it performed at the Musical Festival, conducted by him.]
If the Committee accepts the programme I have drawn (Schubert Symphony, etc., including the last numbers) for the second day, then it will be a pleasing duty to me to accept the honor of the invitation, always supposing that the means for a brilliant performance of the Beethoven Mass and the other works are forthcoming, as one cannot doubt will be the case in Aix-la-Chapelle—if my share in the Festival does not in any way give offence to the neighboring towns, in which case I should of course gladly and quietly retire, in order not to occasion any disturbance, or unsatisfactorily prepared discord in the customs of the musical Rhine-lands. I think there is no need for me to accentuate the fact that a musical conductor cannot blindly subscribe to just every programme that is put before him, and I hope that the honorable Committee will not consider that there is any assumption in my proposition to place the Aix-la-Chapelle programme more in accord with my own collective endeavors.
I am writing a few lines of thanks by the next post to President Herr Van Houten for the distinction shown to me about the consideration contained in this letter, which I beg that you will communicate to him verbally.
Awaiting further communications from the Committee, I remain, dear Herr Capellmeister, with warm acknowledgements and high esteem,
Yours very truly,
F. Liszt