You must not resent my long silence, beloved friend, for I have not been myself at all this last fortnight. I was physically exhausted too and had time neither to nurse myself nor to get the one long sleep I needed. But all that hangs together with the fine victory we have had. February 27 (Sunday) was a memorable day. The opposition was silenced. The Ideale, with Liszt conducting, made an overwhelming impression and roused undivided enthusiasm. Liszt’s appearance was greeted with storms of applause, and at the end of the work he was recalled several times with even greater vehemence. Not one of the opposition dared to protest. So you see we have full satisfaction out of it. A more dazzling revenge could not have been foreseen or imagined. The press is silent. Not a word from the critics about my concert. Only in the political part of the papers is there a brief mention of the concert and its success as of a historical event of the day. But we have had our revenge for the Liszt concert of 1855. The unprejudiced admit that a crying injustice has been done. The Ideale positively drew sparks and we have at least something to take our stand on now. No longer outside the pale, we have won for ourselves the right to live and move.
I know better than to indulge in sanguine illusions about the near future, but the importance of this concert should not be underestimated. Everything possible had been done to kill us and bury us in an uproar, but the whole conspiracy gave way before the instinct of reason displayed by the mass of the audience. The program opened with my orchestral fantasia, to which, on Liszt’s advice, I affixed the title: “A Symphonic Prologue to Byron’s Cain” (which Karl must not interpret as any fundamental disloyalty to him). The audience listened attentively, the orchestra showed its mettle, friends behaved discreetly, but clapped enough to drown two or three fairly timid hissers, who did not feel justified in depriving me of the honour of their ill will. I had really expected this in a more intense form, and that is why I sent my unpopular piece into the flames, as you might say. Next came the Schubert pianoforte fantasia, orchestrated and conducted by Liszt, which was received with great enthusiasm. I played well and was called out several times, though I naturally kept them waiting a bit to escape the reproach made by the critics recently that I most readily accepted the demonstrations of approval (that is, could have no right to protest against the disapproval expressed in other quarters). After that the Ideale. The second part began with your Faust Overture, which I am also going to produce at Prague on March 12 because it has not yet taken hold there, on account of unskilful conducting. It went well and made a very decided impression. In between, Fräulein Genast of Weimar sang two Schubert songs—one The Erl-King—with great success. For the rest, the Capriccio for pianoforte and orchestra on motives from Beethoven’s Ruins of Athens, Liszt’s Mignon sung by Fräulein Genast, and Berlioz’s Roman Carnival all held the audience, down to the very last bar. The Princess of Prussia came in at the beginning of the second part, and this circumstance was most favourably interpreted by the crasser philistines. Next season I hope to bring off three concerts, opening the new campaign with Liszt’s great mass.
As you see, then, January 14 has proved a successful coup d’état, and those who worship success have come over into our camp. But you will have had enough of my badly written account of this personal Berlin affair. Forgive me for boring you.
I am sorry I have nothing good to report in your own affair. Lohengrin has only reached its third performance, though this was a far more successful one than the first two, and the house was sold out. But now all is silence again. The Duke of Brabant, or rather Elsa’s father, a Bückeburger brewer, has seen fit to die, and Fräulein Wippern prefers to mourn as a human being rather than to do her duty as an artist; and Hülsen is a humane creature, as you will have gleaned from Kladderadatsch. Meanwhile Tannhäuser was put on again last Sunday, the day of my concert, and there was a full house. All the same, I am afraid the end of the quarter will not bring you in any magnificent sum. You need not worry about the seventy-five reichstalers for Goldstein, though; let him wait till the end of June. As I shall be in Paris at the beginning of April, better write to Teichmann (who is a thoroughly good and obliging fellow) and ask him to send you the money direct; or else write to Goldstein and commission him to draw for you so that you lose nothing on the exchange.
I arrive at Prague on March 8 for rehearsals. In any case I shall stay there a week, until the 15th exclusive. Then the distance between us will be somewhat diminished. We shall be in the same country—a thought which is very comforting to me. Write to me there, anyhow, but particularly if you should have any commissions for Berlin. [...]
Your Karl really is a curious fellow. Wrote me a charming letter, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I sacrifice the hours after midnight after a very tiring day and answer him with a detailed epistle eloquent of my appreciation. Since then not a word, and I hardly know whether to be angry or hurt. Did you receive my portraits, of which one was for Karl? The Prussian postal system is so careless in dispatch and delivery that letters and parcels often get lost, are in fact never delivered.
Liszt is in a tolerably good humour, thank Heaven, and feels better than when he last stayed here. But the many callers, his connexion with the court, and so on give him no chance to rest and be alone with us, which is what we had looked forward to so much. He returns to Weimar tonight, and my wife follows him in a few days, while I hurry off to Prague. From there I also go to Weimar and thence with Cosima to Paris. As I said, it will be the first of May before I see Berlin again, but I hope in spite of my wanderings to keep in constant touch with you. Though I may not be outwardly so overworked and excited as I was a short time ago, I still have a positive craving to hear from you and even to write you these tedious letters. Alwina sent me the enclosed note for you two days ago. Cosima sends kindest remembrances.
Thank you for the letter to Formes; it has given him new fire. He breaks lances for you everywhere. Such a good soul he is, one of those whose intelligence is born of goodwill.
I must say good-bye for today, but I certainly hope to continue the correspondence from Prague and to receive a sign of life from you also.
I think you will find I have not done the close of Tristan (A major) too badly for you. I have retained almost everything. From the first G major I modulate immediately to a minor third below: [music example] and make the echoes of the last bar gradually slower until the complete dying away (roll of drums ppp on E). I also gave the middle parts B sharp to resolve into C sharp in the suspension, so that the harmony appears to waver between minor and major. If you scold me you must remember that it is your own fault, for it would only have cost you a stroke of the pen to have made a decent job of it. [...]
PS. As usual, please excuse this hasty scrawl.
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. 281