Volume I Part 1 (1/2)
Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt
Volume 1
by Francis Hueffer (translator)
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
The Gerner (1811-1883) could be considered to be one of the ideological fathers of early 20th century Gerhly intelligent, sophisticated, co whole systems of humanistic philosophy, and with an intense need to coreat operas which, in addition to their artistic oistic, chauvenistic kind of Gers in his operas that only a German can fully understand, especially if he would like to see his country closed off to outsiders It is unlikely, however, that Wagner expected these ideas to achieve any popularity Tiainst philistines, irrational people and politicians in his letters
With great exasperation and often depression he expressed little hope that his country would ever ee out of its ”philistinisated Add to this the great difficulties he had in getting his works perforht assu, reat, intensely beloved friend Liszt believed in, fully understood, and greatly appreciated Wagner's works, but Liszt was just one in a ested, associated with a base coterie incapable of assi the sorry state of , he surely would have been surprised if his operas and his ideas achieved any wide currency That he continued to ith intense energy to develop his ideas, to fix the that probably no sizeable population would ever likely take note of the that his existence as an underappreciated, rational individual in an irrational world was absurd and futile, is a testimony to the enormous will-power of this ”ubermensch”
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The best introduction to this ireatextract froner in 1851 It has been frequently quoted, but cannot be quoted too often, describing, as it does, the beginning and the development of a friendshi+p which is unique in the history of art
”Again I was thoroughly disheartened fro any new artistic scheme Only recently I had had proofs of the iible to the public, and all this deterred ht everything was at an end with my artistic creativeness
From this state of mental dejection I was raised by a friend By the most evident and undeniable proofs he made me feel that I was not deserted, but, on the contrary, understood deeply by those even ere otherwise ave me back my full artistic confidence
”This wonderful friend has been to me Franz Liszt I must enter a little more deeply into the character of this friendshi+p, which, to many, has see my earliest stay in Paris, and at a period when I had renounced the hope, nay, even the wish of a Paris reputation, and, indeed, was in a state of internal revolt against the artistic life I found there At ourLiszt appeared toand situation In this world, to which it had been rown up froeneral love and adeneral coldness and want of sympathy In consequence, I looked upon hi and working to m, and, therefore, the reception I ether of a superficial kind, as was indeed quite natural in a ent impressions clai was afterwards reported to Liszt, just at the tieneral attention He was surprised to find himself misunderstood with such violence by a man whom he had scarcely known, and whose acquaintance now seemed not without value to hier attee my opinion of him, even before he knew any of my works He acted not from any artistic sy a casual dishar; perhaps he also felt an infinitely tenderreally hurt me unconsciously He who knows the terrible selfishness and insensibility in our social life, and especially in the relations of modern artists to each other, cannot but be struck onder, nay, delight, by the treatment I experienced from this extraordinary man
”This happened at a time when it became more and more evident that my dramatic works would have no outward success But just when the case see a hopeful refuge to s, settled down at the small,been at horeatest cities of Europe At Weimar I saw hiia, not yet certain whether the threatening prosecution would coht froer became a certainty, I saw Liszt conduct a rehearsal ofmy second-self in his achieve thisit; what I wanted to express in writing it down he proclaih the love of this rarest friend, I gained, at thehoed for and sought for always in the wrong place
”At the end of , I sat brooding over rin”, totally forgotten bylike compassion that this music should never sound from off the death-pale paper Tords I wrote to Liszt; his ansas the news that preparations for the perforest scale the li that men and circumstances could do was done in order to make the work understood Success was his reward, and with this success he now approaches , 'Behold we have coo still further'”
Wagner's words, as above quoted, ratitude tothese letters one comes to the conclusion that they are the expression of a plain fact It is a well-known French saying that in every love affair there is one person who adores while the other allows hi may, with equal justice, be applied to the many literary and artistic friendshi+ps of which, pace the elder D'Israeli, history knows so many examples Petrarch and Boccaccio, Schiller and Goethe, Byron and Shelley immediately occur to the mind in such a connection; but in none of these is the iver and receiver of worshi+pper and worshi+pped so distinctly marked as in the case under discussion
Nature itself, or, at least, external circumstances, had indeed ales of this friendshi+p the worldly position of the two men was a widely different one Liszt was at the tih he had voluntarily abandoned an active career, he res and ecclesiastic potentates, and the head and centre of an adner at the sae--nobody He had lost his position at the Royal Opera at Dresden through his participation in the revolutionary rising of 1849, and he was an exile frolorious He had written three operas, all of which had met with fair success, but none of which had taken real hold of the public, and the Court theatres of Germany were naturally not very prone to favour the interests of an outlawed rebel In spite of this disparity of fortune, it is curious to see how the two men, almost from the first, assuinning, realizes, with a self- abnegation and a freedo with a reater than himself, and to serve the artistic and personal purposes of that ner's attitude in the ed differently by different people, according to the opinion they have of the permanent and supreme value of his work He simply accepts the position as he finds it ”Here a with art work of a high and lasting kind; my resources are nil, and if the world, or at least the friends who believe in me, wish me to do my allotted task, they must free me from the sordid anxieties of existence” The words, here placed in quotation marks, do not actually occur in any of the letters, but they may be read between the lines of ner expresses hi, and it lish notions at least, extremely modest A pension of 300 thalers, or about,45 of our money, which he expects froht of his operas, is mentioned on one occasion as the summit of his desire Unfortunately, even this sly for a long time depended upon the kindness of his friends and the stray suht him as his sole support He for himself, as he more than once declares, would not have feared poverty, and with the touch of the dramatic element in his nature, which was peculiar to hih the world, an artistic Belisarius asking the lovers of his art for their obolus But he had a wife (his first wife), weak in health, and anxious of mind, and to protect her fro beautiful and pathetic in it, and is the redee feature of the many appeals for a loan, and sometimes for a present, which occur in these letters
Liszt was only too willing to give, but his e su his artistic career; but he was liberal alarian peasants, and the Beethoven reat deal more by his successes than he did his had been settled upon his aged mother and his three children, and at the time here alluded to his only fixed income was the salary of less than [pounds] 200, which he derived froner, in answer to the following remarkable sentence in one of that master's letters:--”I once more return to the question, can you let ift, and would it be possible for you to guarantee me the same annual su soon afterwards, but poor Liszt had to decline the additional obligation for two other years
The above passage is quoted as an instance of ner's ho has not suppressed a single touch in the picture of this beautiful friendshi+p But Liszt's help was not lis
What was infinitely ratitude to even more superlative utterance, was the confidence which Liszt showed in his genius, and without which, it is no exaggeration to say, Wagner's greatest works would probably have rerin” at Wei-point of his fame, has already been alluded to
Every further step in his career atched and encouraged by the loving syrandeur and difficulties of his ”Nibelungen” sche down the pen, it was Liszt who urged hio on in spite of all discouragener alone derived benefits from this ree Liszt in the career of a coreat and novel works, but he distinctly raised the intellectual and artistic level of his friend Liszt's nature was of a noble, one s, and the influence of the great world and of the glaring publicity in which a virtuoso moves, had left its trace on his individuality Here, then, the unco artistic conviction of Wagner, served as a tonic to his character If the reader will refer to Letter 21, or at least to that portion of it which has been vouchsafed by Madaner, he will see how necessary the administration of such a tonic was to a man who even at that time could think it necessary to deprecate the ”superideal” character of ”Lohengrin”, and to advise in a scarcely disguised ht a little more within the comprehension of ordinary people All the more beautiful is it to see how Liszt is ultireat friend, how he also defies the world, and adopts the device ”L'art pour l'art” as his guiding principle Altogether the two friends ht have said to each other in the words of Juliet:--