Brendel wrote several things to me about the “Lohengrin” affair in Leipzig.  In my opinion, nothing further can be done for the moment, and you have every reason to be calm and satisfied. Lohengrin’s barque is drawn by a swan; the cackling of geese and the barking of dogs are of no avail.

Berlioz is coming to Hanover at the end of March, and goes from there to Dresden, where he will conduct a few concerts at the theatre.  Fischer wrote to me recently about an intended performance of “Cellini” at Dresden.  This is as yet a secret, which I, for my part, should like to see made public very soon.  The opera is Berlioz’s freshest and roundest work, and its failure in Paris and London must be attributed to low villainy and misapprehension.  It would be a fine thing if Dresden were to offer him a brilliant revanche, such as he deserves.

Brendel will publish his book within a few days.  When you have read it, tell me your candid opinion.  Raff also has finished a stout volume on the “Wagner Question” (!).  He refuses to show me anything of it, although he has read parts to several other persons.  Fortunately you are no longer to yourself nor to me a question....

[Here, Liszt illustrates with a 3 1/2 bar musical score example where the words “Ath — mest Du nicht die hol den Duf — te—­” are sung.]

Live in your “Rhinegold,” and think lovingly of

F. L.

Weymar, February 21st, 1854.

148.

Dear Franz,

Many thanks for your “Kunstler.”  You had in me a somewhat adverse judge of this composition—­I mean, I was not in the mood for it.  I have got so unaccustomed to judging in an objective sense that in everything I go entirely by inclination.  I take up only what attracts my sympathy, and enjoy it, without in the least analysing that enjoyment in a critical manner.  Imagine then the contradictions which the very choice of the poem necessarily roused within me.  It is more or less a didactic poem.  In it speaks to us a philosopher who has finally returned to art, and does so with the greatest possible emphasis of resolution;—­in brief Schiller to the life!  Besides this, a chorus for a concert!  I have no longer any feeling for that kind of thing, and could not produce it at any price.  I should not know where to take my inspiration.  One other thing:  my musical position towards verse and metre has undergone an enormous change.  I could not at any price write a melody to Schiller’s verses, which are entirely intended for reading.  These verses must be treated musically in a certain arbitrary manner, and that arbitrary manner, as it does not bring about a real flow of melody, leads us to harmonic excesses and violent efforts to produce artificial wavelets in the unmelodic fountain.  I have experienced all this myself, and in my present state of development have arrived at an entirely different form of treatment.  Consider, for instance, that