My exalted lord and royal benefactor,
By a curious coincidence I have just received word of a distressing incident: Your Majesty will forgive the agitation which I am bound to feel in bringing this matter before its rightful tribunal!
It has been reported to me that Professor F. Dahn of Königsberg has put it about that, upon the strength of a letter which I wrote to him at the time, he approached Your Majesty, my royal benefactor, complaining of my refusal to fulfil my sovereign liege’s wish and complaining, moreover, in terms that were probably not to my own advantage. I recall that some considerable time ago F. Dahn sent me a volume of his poems (which I did not have time to read), including an Ode to Your Majesty; with regard to this Ode, he assured me of his belief that my royal benefactor would look upon it most favourably if I were to set the poem to music. I can well understand that F. Dahn might be keen to have one of his poems set to music by me (a man who has so far set only his own poems to music); but that Your Majesty might have expressed the wish to see it set to music struck me as being one of those boasts which I have encountered so often in the past on the part of literary figures and people in general who are unaware of my true situation, with the result that, for the sake of my peace of mind, I have been obliged to accustom myself to ignoring such invitations. Perhaps I judged wrongly in this instance; had I felt any doubt in the matter, however, I should have entreated Your Majesty to allow me to write my own verses for any music that may have been desired of me, since it would have been quite impossible to use the classical metre which Dahn had employed by forcing it artificially upon the German language and to use it for the only kind of music I can write.
If F. Dahn is right and if, by communicating my refusal to Your Majesty, he has really caused you to feel displeasure at me, I should of course regard it as a great misfortune but one which I had earned completely unwittingly, and on this point it would be of inestimable value to me to be reassured by some favourable sign from my royal benefactor. -
At the same time I see myself constrained to inform Your Majesty that, in consequence of your sovereign decisions that have recently reached me, I have had to abandon the projected performances of the Nibelung’s Ring; since I am prevented at the present time from issuing instructions for work to begin on the stage machinery and scenery, it is no longer possible to perform the work in 1875, so that in all conscience I can even less reasonably announce a performance for any subsequent year. I shall content myself therefore with having built the theatre with the help of my friends, and with knowing that my work shall one day be performed there for the very first time; and I may relieve my sorrow with the thought that for me, too, the performances had lost all significance since they were incapable of arousing further interest in my royal benefactor, for whose fame and enjoyment I had chiefly desired to summon them into existence.
From the bottom of my heart I repeat the expression of gratitude and most respectful good wishes which I asked Court Councillor Düfflipp to convey in person to my royal benefactor at the turn of the year. With the most implicit devotion I remain unto death
Your Majesty’s
most humble servant
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 420