Klindworth has just played me your great Sonata! -
We spent the day alone together: he dined with me, and afterwards I made him play for me. My dearest Franz! you, too, were here in the room with me - . The Sonata is beautiful beyond belief; great, lovable, deep and noble, - as sublime as you yourself. I was most profoundly moved by it, and all my troubles here in London have suddenly been forgotten. There is nothing more I can say at the moment - immediately after listening to this work, but I am as full of what I could say to you as is humanly possible. Once again: you were here beside me: - oh, if only you could be here in the flesh, and soon: only thus would life be tolerable!! -
Klindworth has amazed me with his playing: no lesser a man than he could have dared perform your work for me for the first time. He is worthy of you: indeed he is! - It was wonderful! -
Good night: many many thanks for such infinite enjoyment!
Your
R. W.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 184