197 To Peter Cornelius in Mainz
[Weimar,] February 19th, 1858
It is very bad, dearest Cornelius, that you have so long forsaken us! Much as I must approve of your decision to finish writing your Opera [“Der Barbier von Baghdad”] completely, yet I am dreadfully sorry to be without you for so many months. I did hope that you would be with us on the 18th of February for certain; now you announce yourself for the middle of March, at which time I shall probably not be here. On the 12th of March I conduct a concert at Prague, at which the “Ideale” and the “Dante Symphony” will be given. Thence I proceed to Vienna, and later to Loewenberg (in Silesia) to my noble and most amiable patron Prince Hohenzollern-Hechingen, who, in spite of political changes, has not only retained his Hechingen orchestra, but has also increased it by fresh members.
I wish I could give you better tidings of my work, best friend, than I am able to do. The last few months have passed without my being able to do any steady work at my writing. I have merely sketched and patched.
By May will appear a new edition of the Kuenstler-Chor (with some important simplifications and improvements), and shortly after that the volume of my “Gesammelte Lieder” [“Collected Songs.”] (about thirty), one or two of which will not be displeasing to you. I shall not be able to set to the working out of my Elizabeth till my return from Vienna.
The three songs [by Cornelius] (dedicated to Princess Marie) [Princess Wittgenstein, now Princess Hohenlohe in Vienna.] are charming and excellent. There is in them such a refined and true proportion in union with such fervent and ardent mood that other people besides the author must love them.
In order to make no break in my wonted fault-finding, I observe that in the fifth bar of the first song the A-flat is more agreeable than G.
[Figure: Here Liszt writes 2 bars of music to illustrate.]
(page 2, last line, and page 3) you have done most happily—also the moonlight conclusion of it,
[Figure: Here Liszt writes 3 bars of music to illustrate.]
and the poetic delineation of the last verse in the third song (in which the rests in the voice part and the motive in the accompaniment, enlivened by the rhythm [Here follows in the original an illegible sign. In the song there come in here, in place of the quaver movement which has prevailed hitherto, some long-sustained chords in the accompaniment, which are again interrupted by the quaver movement.], make an excellent effect):- -
“Wenn mein Lied zu Ende geht, Sing ich’s weiter in Gedanken, Wie’s im Wald verschwiegen weht, Wie die Rosen sich umranken!”
[“When my song is ended quite, Yet in thought I still am singing, As the wood at silent night Echoes from the day is bringing!”]
Well and good, dearest Cornelius, and now some more soon, let me beg of you! Don’t make too long pauses in your hermitage, and allow us to tell you and prove to you how truly we love you.
F. Liszt
P.S.—About two months ago I at last sent Schott the proofs of the second year of the “Annees de Pelerinage,” together with the manuscript of Seroff’s arrangement for two pianofortes of Beethoven’s C-sharp minor Quartet. Will you be so good as to get Schott to let me know the fate of the C-sharp minor Quartet? Although two-piano arrangements are somewhat thankless articles of sale, yet perhaps Schott may manage to bring out this Quartet, of which I should be very glad.
Don’t forget, dearest friend, to remind him that he has left my letter about this matter hitherto unanswered—and I should be glad to let Seroff know something definite.