Dear Sir!
I wish to thank you myself for the page which Liszt sent me from you for my music album. It has given me indescribable joy, and I am much envied for it. At the same time I beg to express the genuine admiration which, after having heard Tannhäuser six times, I felt for this colossal work! At first it seemed to me as if I saw a building before me, of such dazzling height, of such gigantic proportions, of such strange style, that I could marvel at it in astonishment, but could neither quite grasp it nor understand it. Only later did it grow clear to me how wonderfully poetry and music are interwoven here, erecting a fairylike palace, full of the loveliest, the most overwhelming apparitions! What a treasure of poesy and melody you bear in your breast, dear Sir! What can misfortune, what can the hate of mankind do to you? The source of purest joy lies deep in you, and nobody can deprive you of it. But is it possible that the earnest and noble path you tread could ever find imitators? I am afraid, no—only a person as talented as you could climb to such heights! And where to find such a person—somebody whom nature has endowed as lavishly as you with two rare gifts? And so I believe that your works will in time exist for posterity—great, lofty, powerful, and solitary as, for instance, one of the highest Alps! The first performance of Tannhäuser was awaited here with feverish impatience—the rehearsals were as crowded as a regular theater performance, and everybody was grateful to Director Kittl, who by the participation of the Conservatory had made the performance possible. The Bohemian, I should like to say, is a born musician, and even the people hold in affection their old, generally serious, and simply constructed songs. The usual sugar water of Italian operas does not meet with approval here! And so I can say with sincere joy that I have even heard people of the lower classes utter the wish: "If only I could hear Tannhäuser." Seats are still in such demand that a great number of my acquaintances have not as yet been able to attend any performance. . . .
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 143