Dear Franz,
I can at last tell you something definite about London. A Mr Anderson, treasurer of the Philharmonic (director of the Queen’s Band) came especially to Zurich to arrange the matter. I felt uneasy about it: it is really not my business to go to London and conduct Philharmonic concerts, even if - as is their wish - I am to perform excerpts from my own compositions, (since I have written nothing for the concert-hall). But I felt quite clearly that it was a question here of definitively turning my back once and for all on every prospect and every attempt to influence present-day audiences, - or else of grasping the hand that has been held out to me here on this occasion.
London is the only place in the world where it might still be possible for me to perform my Lohengrin, at least as long as these foolish kings and princes in Germany have better things to do with their time than to offer me an amnesty. It might be an interesting idea to see if I can win over the English to the extent of their establishing an exquisite German opera for me next year, under Court patronage, where I could perform my own works under my own leadership. I freely admit that I could receive no better introduction than as conductor of the Philharmonic (the old one!), and so I ended up having no further objections to selling myself in this way, albeit at a very low price (two hundred pounds for four months). As a result I shall arrive in London at the beginning of March for eight concerts, of which the first takes place on the 12th of March, the last on the 25th of June. At the beginning of July I shall be on the Seelisberg. - It would be splendid if you were to visit me in London: at all events I shall have to perform something of yours there. Think about it.
I am also thinking of Joachim and Hans Bülow: once I am in London I intend to ensure that Bülow, especially, joins me there. -
That you have finished your Faust is wonderful news: and that I am incredibly keen to see it, you can well imagine; but that you do not intend showing it to me until much later is terrible. However - if I cannot hear you perform it properly immediately - I shall not scorn an opportunity to play through it at the piano with you at least to begin with, and get to know it in that way: there is nothing even to approach the powers of lively communication which you yourself are able to muster. And I set increasing store by the need to acquire a proper impression right from the very outset, so much do I distrust a merely abstract acquaintance with the notes. -
Funnily enough, I too have just been overwhelmed by a great desire to revise my old Faust overture: I have written a whole new score, revised the instrumentation throughout, completely altered much of it, and given it somewhat greater amplification and significance (2nd motif) in the middle. In a few days’ time I shall be performing it at a concert here, and shall call it - “A Faust Overture”.
Motto:
The god who dwells enthroned within my breast
Can stir my inner vision’s deepest springs,
But he who binds my strength to his behest
Brings no command to sway external things.
Thus life has taught me, with its weary weight,
To long for death, and the dear light to hate.
On no account, however, shall I publish it.
Your New Year’s article alarmed me. But here, too, I soon realized that I had reason to be grateful to you simply for your increasing interest in me. And yet, when you hold out my works as something tremendous, I feel you must be confusing the basic standard: what strikes me as utterly insignificant and pitiful are present-day audiences and the spirit of our means of presentation etc., whereas my works are simply of decent human proportions and appear gigantic only when we attempt to force them into so unworthy a framework. Thus, whenever we claim that our intentions are chimerical and eccentric, we are really only flattering the current worthlessness of present-day audiences, and ultimately giving them the seal of respectability. - We should not impose upon people in this way! -
Dearest Franz, each of your letters is like gold to me - nay, they are worth far more than that! - but - I receive very few actual answers from you: - many of my questions you treat as though they had never been asked. On the other hand, you always have something new to tell me, which is splendid - : but - an answer is sometimes no bad thing either! -
Well, let me have a proper letter from you: and let me see you in London. I shall be taking my work with me: I hope to complete the instrumentation of the Valkyrie there. -
Adieu, dearest Franz!
But how are you? - Kind regards from my wife: and best wishes from me to you both.
Yours,
R. W.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 178