Thank you enormously, O divine one! Your few lines have so refreshed me that I am in ecstasy. All hail to your brain-child, who puts the old foam-born lady in the shade. Daily rehearsals, you say! I could dance for joy. I was half dead with fright from depressing reports that had been spread by vagabond theatrical agency pirates. Heaven give you patience and tranquillity among it all! You will need them.
My wife, who was not at all well today, was also quite refreshed by the news from you. She sends kindest regards to you and Frau Minna and thanks you for your inquiries.
Do you want a Wolfram? A week ago Hardtmuth, the court opera-singer, wrote to me from Dresden asking me to send him the French translation of Tannhäuser at once so that he could get Wolfram into his head. Hardtmuth is a man of musical culture with a very attractive personality. He might perhaps be regarded as a reservist for possible emergencies. I have not heard him on the stage. In my Prague concert the year before last, he sang Schubert’s Wanderer in a very sympathetic, metallic voice. The song was encored.
Liszt is spending these days in Vienna to put an end to certain royal intrigues. The conclave of cardinals in Rome decided in favour of his marriage, the dispensation is in the Princess’s hands, and the main question is in order. But unexpected villainies which suddenly reared their heads in Vienna with a view to upsetting the decision sent Liszt into a flaming passion (as a woman who was there told me), and he hurried to the capital to straighten things out. The first Tannhäuser performance in Paris may possibly coincide with his wedding. A case for a double celebration. Popular feeling runs high just now in Weimar. All classes are uniting in preparation for a grand demonstration (torch-light procession and so on) on Liszt’s birthday, the 22nd. I only hope he is back by then. It will be to some extent a demonstration against Dingelstedt and possibly a more exalted personage. The neighbouring towns of Thuringia—Jena, Apolda, and others—are to join in, so we shall see some fun.
Bronsart is on the right path at Leipzig. He may yet cut out the Gewandhaus by his Euterpe concerts. His vigorous talent will certainly defeat Reinecke’s flabby mentality in the contests of the present season. Otherwise nothing has happened in the world of music to annoy or to please me. In Germany there is only the Tristan performance to get excited about.
Dräseke has been at home in Coburg for some time but is now again in Dresden [...] feeling very lonely and out of spirits, as he is faced with the prospect of shortly becoming entirely deaf. I wish this evil fate might have fallen on some other of us young ones—myself for example—instead of on the most gifted among us. Tausig is going to tour Scandinavia. He seems to be fairly well off financially and is also on better terms with Weimar again. But these petty family affairs have no sort of interest for you now. Be indulgent with me for gossiping, and let me thank you again a thousand times for your note.
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. 286