220 To Johann von Herbeck
Dear Friend,
Warmest thanks for your persevering and well-wishing sympathy. It is a great pleasure to me that you are bringing about the performance of the Mass for men’s voices on the 23rd October, and I hope that, as you have once “made your way through it,” we shall also not succeed ill.
The “sneaking brood” (as you well name the people) can henceforth growl as much as they like. What does that matter to us, so long as we remain true and faithful to our task? In the performance last year at Jena (at the secular celebration of the University) I had the opportunity of convincing myself how capital your instrumentation of the Mass sounds, and I especially beg that you will not leave out one iota of it in the oboes or trombones. The organ alone is not sufficient, especially if there is a large chorus, and the completion of the accompaniment could not have been better accomplished than you have done it.
N.B.—At the Jena performance I hit upon the following alterations at the conclusion of the Gloria:
[Here, Liszt illustrates with a vocal score musical excerpt]
If you are agreed with this, then let this simplification serve for Vienna. I can only send you the score and parts of the “Prometheus” choruses towards the middle of November, as Klitzsch (in Zwickau) has arranged a performance of this work on the 12th to the 14th November, and I have already placed the parts at his disposal. If this delay does not hinder your kind intention of having the “Prometheus” choruses performed in Vienna, I will send the whole packet of parts to your address in Vienna, free, immediately after the Zwickau Concert. For the poem belonging to it, which I will also send with the rest, it is desirable that you should get an adequate tragic declaimer. In Dresden Davison undertook this, and in Zwickau Frau Ritter will declaim it. I am writing today to Herr von Bulow, but rather doubt whether he will be able to accept your invitation for this winter. According to what he told me lately, he thinks of going to Warsaw and Paris in the latter part of the winter. With regard to the eventual choice of a piece you may, moreover, pacify the strict gentlemen of the Committee. In case Bulow should make his appearance at the Philharmonic Concert he will, on my advice, not play my A major Concerto (nor any other composition of mine), but just simply one of the Bach or Beethoven Concertos. My intimate friends know perfectly well that it is not by any means my desire to push myself into any concert programme whatever…With regard to the scores and parts that you want, I have noted on a separate sheet which ones I have at my disposal, and where you can obtain the rest. In conclusion allow me once more to beg you kindly to let me have a couple of lines about the performance of the Mass. Perhaps some things may occur to you which might still be altered and simplified. Do not deprive me, dear friend, of your good advice, which I shall be glad to make use of in the score edition of the Mass which must shortly ensue. Naturally your name will stand on the title-page, and the responsibility of the instrumentation will be remitted to you.
With friendly thanks and highest regard, I am
Yours most truly,
F. Liszt
Weymar, October 11th, 1859