204 To Prince Constantin von Hohenzollern-Hechingen
[Autograph in the possession of Herr Alexander Meyer Cohn in Berlin.—This very musical Prince was for years Liszt’s patron, and often invited the latter to stay with him at his Silesian residence at Lowenberg, where he kept up an orchestra.]
Monseigneur,
When Your Highness was kind enough to express your views to me respecting your noble design of encouraging in an exceptional manner the progress of musical Art, and to question me as to the best mode of employing a certain sum of money for this object, I think I mentioned to you Mr. Brendel, the editor of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, as the best man to make your liberal intentions bear fruit. As much on account of the perfect uprightness of his character, which is free from all reproach, as for the important and continuous services which his paper and other of his works have rendered to the good cause for many years past, I consider Mr. Brendel entirely worthy of your confidence.
It is not lightly that I put forward this opinion—and I venture to flatter myself that my antecedents will be a sufficient guarantee to Your Highness that in this matter, as in any others in which I may have the honor of submitting any proposition to you, I could follow no other influences, no other counsels, than those of a scrupulous conscience. Putting aside all considerations of vanity or personal advantage foreign to the end in view, my sincere and sole desire is to make Your Highness’s intentions and capital the most productive possible. It is with this view that I have openly spoken of the matter to Brendel, whose letter, which I venture to enclose herewith, corresponds, as it seems to me, with the programme in question.
I venture to beg you, Monseigneur, to look into this attentively, and to let me know whether you will grant permission to Brendel to enter into these matters more explicitly by writing to you direct. In the event of the propositions contained in his letter meeting with the approval of Your Highness, as I trust they may do, it would be desirable that you should let him know without too much delay in what manner you would wish your kind intentions carried out.
In order to fulfill its task of progress, the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik has not spared its editor either in efforts or sacrifices. By the fact that it represents, in a talented and conscientious manner, the opinions and sympathies of my friends and myself, it is in the most advanced, and consequently the most perilous, position of our musical situation; therefore our adversaries lose no opportunity of raising difficulties for it. Our opinions and sympathies will he sustained, I doubt not, by their worth and conviction; but if Your Highness condescends to come to our aid, we shall be both proud and happy—and it is by spreading our ideas through the Press that we can best strengthen our position.
In other words, I am convinced that, in granting your confidence to Mr. Brendel, the sum that Your Highness is pleased to devote to this matter will be employed in the most honest manner, and that most useful to the progress of Art—and that all the honor and gratitude which your munificence deserves will spring from it—as is the earnest desire of him who has the honor to be, Monseigneur, Your Highness’s most devoted and humble servant,
F. Liszt
Weymar, August 18th, 1858