Dearest Richard,
I returned here yesterday from the Düsseldorf Musical Festival, tired and dull. Hiller, who conducted the whole, had invited me, and it interested me to go through the whole thing for once, to hear Paradise and the Peri, and to applaud Jenny Lind. I need not tell you anything about it, and I am not much the wiser myself. Although the whole festival may be called a great success, it wanted something which, indeed, could not have been expected from it. In the art world there are very different kinds of laurels and thistles, but you need care very little about such. "The eagle flies to the sun."
Then you are reading Dante? He is excellent company for you. I, on my part, shall furnish a kind of commentary to his work. For a long time I had in my head a Dante symphony, and in the course of this year it is to be finished. There are to be three movements, hell, purgatory, and paradise, the two first purely instrumental, the last with chorus. When I visit you in autumn, I shall probably be able to bring it with me; and if you do not dislike it, you must allow me to inscribe it with your name.
With the Härtels little can be done. If the arrangement for four hands of the Faust overture has already been made, I do not advise you to propose some one else. The only thing that can be done with the four-hand arrangement is to ask Klindworth to make some corrections in accordance with your instructions, and to have some of the plates newly engraved without mentioning Klindworth's name on the title-page. Another time it would be a practical thing to send in the four-hand arrangement together with the score, and to come to terms with the publisher about it.
The attitude of the Härtels towards us is naturally always a little reserved. I, for my part, cannot complain of them, and they have always treated me in a decent and gentlemanly manner. But I should not rely upon them for many things, because their intimate friends are decidedly adverse to us; and for the present we shall not be able to arrive at more than a peaceful, expectant footing with them. Although this may sometimes be inconvenient, I think it best to let it continue.
I am surprised that you found so many mistakes in the proofs of the Faust score, for, amongst other advantages which they possess as publishers, one is bound in justice to admit that the Härtels have excellent readers (Dörffel, Schellenberg, etc.). Therefore use time and patience in correcting, and where necessary let the plates be engraved over again.
When shall you be back in Zurich? At Düsseldorf they were saying that you had already left London, and jealous Philistia received the news with a joy which I was not sorry to spoil. Whatever may happen, and however it may happen, I implore you to "Hold out and persevere."
In your capacity of poeta sovrano, you must, as Dante says of Homer, pass on your way quietly and undisturbedly, sì come sire.
All this dirt does not touch you. Write your Nibelungen, and be content to live on as an immortal!
Later on I shall ask Klindworth to let me see the pianoforte arrangement of the first act of the Valkyrie. How about that of the Rhinegold? Has H. kept it? Write to me about it, so that I may know how to get at it.
I have advised H. to settle in Berlin, where his position at the music school will be very useful to him. There is not much to be got by travelling about in our days. Later on he may go to Paris and London, but for the next few years Berlin will be a good field for his activity.
I shall stay here during the summer, until I start for Gran at the end of August. The musical task which occupies me is a new and considerably altered score of my choruses to Prometheus, which I want to publish next winter. As soon as it is finished I shall return to my Dante symphony, which has partly been sketched.
Farewell, dearest, most unique of friends, and write soon to your serf, body and soul, F. L.
The Princess and the Child send cordial greetings.
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #4234, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 2, No. 189