I have been suffering so severely from a nervous attack for six days past, dear Master, that I stayed in altogether to recover. Saw no one and had to cancel the Academy and music-school concert. I have employed this involuntary leisure—what I should prefer would be some months’ imprisonment in a fortress, where I should at least be spared pianoforte-strumming above and below me—in working at my edition of Beethoven, and have finished op. 106, at the cost of great exertion. This work of mine will, it seems to me, be really worth something. Do you know that, although it only deals with a part of Beethoven’s unaccompanied pianoforte music, the volume I am now publishing contains from four hundred to four hundred and fifty engraved pages? Will you allow me to dedicate this work publicly to you (with a carefully considered preface)? It will not be an entirely unworthy contribution to your “deutsche Vortragsstil.”
I saw Richter yesterday morning. When he called the day before, I was too exhausted to have him admitted. As I had to write to Düfflipp in the afternoon, I put it seriously to him that he must warn Perfall to obey your orders with regard to Rheingold promptly, precisely, and good-naturedly, not to put up any opposition as in the case of the Meistersinger, and to suppress the ridiculous variants by which he attempts to affirm his non-nullity. I have Düfflipp’s oral consent to take over the management.
Flaxland very kindly telegraphed the enormous success at the Lyrique yesterday. (Have notified Düfflipp on account of Parsifal.) I lay great importance on this striking success. The enclosed copy of Figaro contains a Jewish manœuvre—and no isolated one—to put a fresh spoke in your wheel. Your pamphlet has had an even more striking effect than one expected. Even here, where the “chosen” are numerically few, I have been made to suffer horribly by it. Still, I feel it an honour if not a pleasure. The Lachner affair does hang together with the pamphlet, as you rightly supposed. In spite of all the ignoble exploitations of my noblesse, I cannot consider the step I took as a faux pas. Indirectly it cleared the air just as the pamphlet did, although for the moment the atmosphere is heavy with eau de mille chiens: the effect of the spring sun on the town gutters.
What I demanded categorically from Perfall and finally from Düfflipp, as Perfall is a cowardly good-for-nothing swine (I will go into it more at a calmer moment), was a rescript from on high which should impress upon the members of the court theatre and orchestra their duties towards me as their chief. Only a few of them are delinquents, but these few are the more fanatical. The intrigues of a Strauss (horn), a Vogl, a Bausewein, a Kindermann, or a Stehle are becoming such a common danger objectively and professionally that I can no longer maintain my subjective, personal indifference to them if my exhausting activity is to have any meaning. P. shifts the blame on to me whenever I am the object of a dastardly attack; which is natural, as he has to put on record his independence vis-à-vis a member of the coterie which made him intendant. If I make a serious complaint he threatens me with his successor. For six months now he has been telling me that he has taken the preliminary steps towards his resignation. As if the Mère-fall and the little Père- and Mère-falls objected to the extra two thousand florins of salary! The latest, by the way, is that he is becoming sultanesque. [...] Who in the world would be Perfall’s successor? Is Schmidt to rise again from the dead? No. After all, it was Merinos who rescued us from the worst of their intrigues. It is generally said, by the way, that the hitch in my case is the matter of Lachner’s pension, which has again been refused him. This leads them to think there is no solid basis, and they play at weathercocks so as to be safe en tout cas. Merinos has not of course given up Wüllner or his leaning to opera. Meanwhile he is having Rheinberger’s Seven Ravens rehearsed by way of preparation for Tristan (Vogl has the principal part in both), has granted Stehle and Mallinger leave at the same time, and has sent for a beginner from Linz, Fräulein Kaufmann, who is to appear in the Huguenots and Trovatore. (You may be sure I shall not conduct these for him.) All this harmonizes quite well with Richter’s mission to obtain new opera-recruits at a time when the Church closes the theatres.
The whole story must seem to you almost an accusation against myself, considering that I described Perfall as possible and recommended him to you. But who else was there, when you come to think of it? Only a foreigner; and the most acceptable one, Puttlitz, was turned down in high places. What about Moy? You know him. Could we try him, if only as a “new” interim-broom?
Karlsruhe: the charge against Levi is unfounded. The article in question has been inserted in all the papers through the medium of a Jewish “autographic correspondence” in Frankfurt. Levi looks worse than he is and has always been a Wagnerianer, as I learn from his friend Dräseke (they were conservatorists together at Leipzig). Besides, he owes those ovations, most unusual tributes to his conducting, to his revival of the work. As things are, that is, considering the progress that has been made in Judaizing the German people (without intermarriage), I venture to think that the Jews who are in agreement with your pamphlet will be equal in number to the non-Jews of the same opinion. I am seeing the dark side: I no longer believe in the possibility of our being saved from general degradation—i.e., Judaization—the disease has spread too far. And since the positive forces in State and society—nobility, Army, clergy—are no longer very powerful, regeneration can only come through the masses. But they would need a bell-wether, and, there again, none but a Jew would be able to qualify for the mission. So we should have to wait for the coming of the opposite of a Messiah—namely, one who would fasten his people to the cross.
Excuse my sub-Devrient style. I am really only writing to you for my own distraction, and the harm it does you to read this is less than the good it does me to write it.
I fully endorse the choice of singers for Rheingold. Even if I did not, I should raise no opposition. I too should have suggested Stehle for Fricka, and Schlosser for Loge. Bausewein-Biedermayer as Fafner is the only thing that I am afraid of, as it means Kindermann’s singing Fasolt. If only the voices could be changed over, an exchange of roles would be better. Old Frau Diez will not be able to let them swing her as Rhine-“mother” in the first scene. By the way, she does not sing six-eight and nine-eight time with the necessary rhythmic precision. Yes, yes, Master, there are triple and there are quadruple musicians and singers; Schlosser, for instance, belongs to the first, Kindermann to the last.
I have just had a visit from Kahnt, the music-dealer at Leipzig, who was present at the first performance of Liszt’s St. Elisabeth in Vienna. A stupendous triumph for the composer, whose work is to be repeated next Sunday. I am glad—also on Ludwig II’s account. As Schott has been decorated, Mr. Kahnt now desires to be similarly honoured as the publisher of St. Elisabeth, and to work it through me. But I soon got rid of him, which was not difficult.
Julius Lang always reminds me of La Pommerais of blessed memory, whose head you ought really to have had glued on again. Couldn’t you ask for a couple of photographs from Paris (one for me)?
Cornelius, who had gone to Paris with his brother, asked for an extension of leave (and obtained it). Lucky beggar, he always comes off better than I. I hope he will write you an entertaining letter about Rienzi.
The Jews’ telegram to Nachbaur (of Breslau) I have had put into the Signale. We must nurse the effect of the pamphlet carefully. And, generally speaking, we need a chronicle; that is why Pohl’s engagement here is very desirable. Perfall should install him as secretary in his office; Pohl, however, would be sworn in by you.
This evening you will see my children. I could not bring them to the station, unfortunately, and the weather was vile too. It was hard to leave them; rarely as I see them, I have grown tremendously fond of them because they so steadily retain their native kindness of heart. Their mother will, I believe, have her pleasure in them, and I rejoice for her sake that she should. My mamma is leaving me too, a few days hence, to go to Wiesbaden. Then I shall be quite solitary—that is, without friends. Without enemies would be my preference. Well, I shall try to work in spite of the noisy streets, to which I am growing increasingly sensitive, and the evening concert season about to commence at the English café opposite.
I propose to give notice at Michaelmas, to leave Barerstrasse, and, if Cosima agrees, to move for the present into your rooms.
My Regensburg concert tour for Peter’s pence (the restoration fund for the Theatre of Marcellus) is not yet fixed, as Liszt is having himself fêted at Pest, and the rendezvous he was to have given me at Regensburg will probably fall through. I have now definitely realized that Liszt, if his life is to be prolonged, feels a pressing need of dazzling successes to compensate for the monstrous things without number that he has had to endure. Sorry as I am not to see him before he returns to Rome—he is naturally somewhat embarrassed with me too—I submit with a good grace as to all the doings of Providence.
His Majesty has deigned to promote von Hersch, the banker, to the rank of hereditary baron. Also traceable to the pamphlet perhaps? It would be just like Lipovsky, of whom I could tell many a clever and generous tale.
Some days ago I had another “invaluable” experience with a sixteen-year-old pianoforte-Bochert (Bochert in German means: a young Israelite in his callow years). Why, why must you be so right in everything, and wrong only when for once you do not look on the black side?
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. 293