Best Friend!
Cordial thanks for your dear letter, to which I have nothing special to answer today, except the question about the outcome of the concert before the Queen.
First of all, as regards the false rumors about my quarrel with the directors of the local Philharmonic Society and my consequent departure from London, these are based solely on the following incident. When I stepped into the dressing room after the fourth concert I met several friends there to whom I expressed extreme annoyance and ill humor about having agreed to conduct such concerts at all; they are simply not my sort of thing. These endless programs, with a mass of vocal and instrumental numbers, tire me out and offend my aesthetic sense: I had to admit, in face of the power of established custom, the impossibility of introducing any kind of moderation or change, and thus nursed an ill humor which was more concerned with the fact that I had again let myself in for anything like that; much less, however, with the local conditions, which I really knew beforehand; but least of all with my audiences, who had always received me favorably and with respect, often even with great warmth. Quite immaterial to me, on the other hand, was the abuse of the local critics who, with their hostility, only showed the whole world that I did not bribe them; on the contrary, it gave me pleasure to observe how they always kept the door still open for me, so that the least advance on my part would have changed their minds; which, of course, I would not think of doing. But on that evening I was really indignant that I had to conduct a bad vocal number and a trivial overture by Onslow after the A Major Symphony of Beethoven, and being what I am, I openly told my friends in deep resentment that I had conducted today for the last time; tomorrow I would ask for my dismissal and go home. By chance, a concert singer named Reichart—a Jew from Germany—was present; he overheard my remarks and took them right to a newspaperman. Ever since then the rumors which have confused you too have been circulating in the German papers. I guess I don't have to tell you that the arguments of my friends who accompanied me home succeeded in dissuading me from my decision which I made hastily and in ill humor.
Since then we've had the Tannhäuser Overture in the fifth concert; it was very beautifully played, and favorably received by the audience, but was still not completely understood. I was the more pleased, therefore, that the Queen, who had promised (which happens only very rarely and by no means every year) to attend the seventh concert, ordered a repetition of the overture. While it was in itself very gratifying that the Queen quite overlooked my severely compromised political position (which was publicly alluded to with great malice by The Times), and freely attended a public performance which I conducted, her continuing attitude toward me gave me a really warm satisfaction which made up at last for all the chicanery and mean attacks I have suffered here. She and Prince Albert, who were seated in front, applauded after the Tannhäuser Overture which completed the first part, with an almost challenging cordiality, so that the audience broke out into the most lively sustained applause. During the intermission the Queen summoned me to the reception room and received me in the presence of her court with the cordial words: "I'm happy to make your acquaintance; your composition has delighted me." In the course of a lengthy conversation, in which Prince Albert also took part, she inquired about my other works and asked if it were not possible to translate my operas into Italian so that she could also hear them in London. Of course, I had to say No to this and altogether to tell her frankly that my stay here could be only a temporary one, since the only thing which is available for me here, the conducting of a concert orchestra, is really not in my line. At the end of the concert the Queen and the Prince again applauded very cordially.
I write this to you because it will give you pleasure, and very gladly permit you to pass my report on, since I see how much misunderstanding and malice about me and my stay in London has to be corrected and disproved. On the 25th I have the last concert and I leave on the 26th, so that at last, in my quiet seclusion, I can once more resume my work, which has unfortunately been badly interrupted. Farewell! Cordial thanks for your friendship and remember me to those who share it.
Your
Richard Wagner
I'll deliver your greeting to Ney.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 154