How could I have “anything better to do at New Year” than to write to you, dear and honoured friend, always provided it is not for the conveyance of mere trivial “good wishes”? I grudge myself the relaxation all the less for having had you on my hands in an unpleasant sense all day. In other words, I have been copying out the violin parts of the Prelude to Lohengrin, which I am including in my audacious concert on January 14. I have only sixteen fiddles in all and had therefore to arrange the violini divisi accordingly. I had to do it myself too, for the copyist would probably have made nonsense of it. What is in the head will fill the pen.
May I tell you about my concert? It opens with Liszt’s Ideale. Then comes Cossmann in a ’cello concerto, Frau von Milde in a Cellini aria, then the Beethoven G major (op. 58), the finest of the pianoforte concertos, for which I have written some jolly cadenzas. The second part opens with the Lohengrin Prelude so that Taubert may learn how he has to conduct it on the day of the first performance, January 18. After that, Milde is to sing Elisabeth’s Prayer (the whole of it, mind!). By way of introduction to it I have put in twelve bars of the Pilgrims’ Chorus, orchestrated in much the same way as at the end of the Overture, for bassoon, clarinet, and horns. I shall do no more of the orchestral part after the Prayer than is really necessary. Finally Cossmann will play a solo, Milde will sing two of Liszt’s songs, and we finish with Berlioz: Francs Juges or The Corsair.
I am living in an alternation of excitement and exhaustion, which must of course continue until the 14th, or rather 18th, of January. Taubert is said to be really taking some trouble over his part, but singers and orchestra are very mulish. I am curious as to the result. It looks as if there would be a more furious battle for and against than in the case of Tannhäuser.
I am glad we now both know what my wife is there for. I am truly lucky especially in having so understanding a wife, who only opens letters addressed to me when they are urgent. She did quite right and I kissed her hand with special appreciation for her prompt action, for which she deserves the title of “better half.” You will now have fifty talers left. Don’t be offended if I come back to an old problem. You know I shall not dream of pocketing that seventy talers for the arrangement of Iphigenia in Aulis. The money is there intact as a reserve for you in case you ever find yourself in a really tight corner. I did the work for you and want no more than your thanks at the most for so small a work of love. Do me the one favour to accept it without ceremony and see that you get into that tight corner nice and soon so that I can be rid of my ill-gotten gain. Would to Jehovitsch (as Tausig says) I could do a bigger deal for you!
My concert tour with Laub in Königsberg and other places was a tolerable pecuniary success and I was therefore able to begin the new year free of debts. A most agreeable sensation. You will have heard at length from Breslau, where Rienzi made an even greater furore than Tannhäuser. A bad sign for the taste of the masses, but possibly a good omen for the brilliant revival (for such it is practically certain to be) of your dramatic Eroica. The Prince Regent, who is personally much more amiable to me than his wife, spoke to me recently with particular enthusiasm of the sublime melodies in Rienzi, which of all your works pleases him most. At the next opportunity I shall play him a transcription from it and try to sound him as to whether he would not like to command a repetition of the opera in Berlin. You would have a claim to royalties in that case, I hope? At Königsberg they have been asking for chorus-singers for Lohengrin. The orchestra there has a thoroughly good conductor now, a really vigorous, hefty fellow called Landdien.
Did you mind my not answering that beautiful letter of yours? It seemed to me that it would be a profanation to turn your monologue into a duologue. But you must know without any doubt that when you do honour me with a glimpse into your inmost feelings, it sinks deep into my soul and reverberates there for a long time. Or do you not realize that one feels so puny and helpless beside you that the only thing is to listen reverently to what you have to say and to refrain from mathematizing any rotten counterpoint to it? I shall very soon be inflicting a photo of myself upon you, which I have had specially taken for the purpose. Please don’t hang it beside the Winterbergers. (You see how arrogant I am.) It will follow in a day or two, before you have time to protest.
Tristan: Wie könnt’ die Liebe mit mir sterben, die ewig lebende mit mir enden? [music example]
Excuse my asking, but isn’t there a misprint? I have puzzled a good deal over it, and as many things which are crude and unpleasing on the pianoforte sound well and smooth on the orchestra, I have ventured to make the following popular adaptation: [music example]
Forgive me if it is too stupid!
Liszt is really a splendid fellow, and I think the first act of Tristan, which sends him into ecstasies, has proved real balm to him.
Kind regards to Karl, please, and keep a little affection in the new year for me and for my wife (ὕστερον πρότερον), who sends her love.
PS. Cosima has just brought me the enclosed letter for you.
Source: Letters of Hans von Bülow to Richard Wagner, Cosima Wagner, His Daughter Daniela, Luise von Bülow, Karl Klindworth, Carl Bechstein, ed. Richard Count Du Moulin Eckart, trans. Hannah Waller, ed. Scott Goddard (Alfred A. Knopf, 1931), No. 278