Dear Fellow!
Look you! L. K. is a silly owl! He only looks at opera- and drama-making as a thing for itself: of the subject from which this is only given off as an external manifestation of its inner essence — of the free man — he has as yet no conception. Whence this enthusiasm is really derived is a mystery to me — an enthusiasm for an artistic form without contents! Good heavens! and such men are my propagandists! Well, it does no harm, but neither does it do any good; especially as the good which could result from such propaganda must be quite an imaginary one. O, ye men! act as ye feel; be free — then shall we feel healthily; produce Art! But whosoever fondly dreams of the conversion of theatre managers and the public, he is really as great a fool as the rest! Never mind! Besides, K. is decidedly more enthusiastic about Brendel than about me.
Yesterday I saw Marschner's Vampyr. A new method of cure: "Moonshine does the trick!" I was much amused to find that the public were not at all affected by the loathsomeness of the subject; of course this is only dulness of feeling, which in the contrary case would be equally unconcerned at its tenderness. In an opera children may be slaughtered and eaten, and the public will take no note of what is going on. This time the music quite disgusted me: this duet, trio, and quartet singing and drawling is downright stupid and devoid of taste, as it does not even charm the senses, and so only offers so many notes played and sung. I willingly grant that there are some exceptions to be made; but now first I see how far above this so-called "German" manner my operas stand. Heaven knows this is only a German soled-and-heeled Italian music, impotent sophistry; nothing more nor less. The poisoned flute in "Austin" amused me much.
March 25th. Yesterday I received a letter from a lady (of aristocratic birth) who thanks me for my writings: "they have been her salvation"; she declares herself a thorough-paced revolutionary. So it is always women who, with regard to me, have their hearts in the right place, whilst I must almost entirely give up men. If I were to compare this woman with L. … K.! (A letter has just come from Fischer which I must read.) 'Twas nothing, only about seeing to the parts for the Flying Dutchman.
I have read your last letter through once more, and have found nothing special to answer. Only one wish has it strongly called forth — to see you soon again! That you should not pay me a visit this year pains me deeply, and all the more as I see how much less happy you will be during that time in Dresden than you would if you came here! In truth I greatly pity you, and your resignation naturally does not much comfort me. How merrily and (under certain conditions) how prosperously could we, who are on intimate terms, live, if we made trial of an intelligent communism! If, in leading a modest life of close communion, the united income of a family were distributed among us, what sufficiency we all should have to enjoy our little bit of life without a care! On what miserable living is it now expended! Truly, between theory and practice there is an infernal difference!
Yesterday a portrait painter and lithographer pounced upon me: he wants to take me entirely on his own account; his trial-sketches have much pleased me; so at last I am in for it. In connection with this, Brendel came into my mind. If he means to give me, he ought not to take the old daub: as it concerns my physiognomy, I am a little interested in the matter; I am tired of that silly dressing-gown portrait. So beg him rather not to give my portrait. If I am taken by the painter here it will naturally be in large size, and thus it probably will not do for the newspaper. So let the matter quite alone!
For the moment friend and fiddler Ernst is here: this G-to-E being was, in a measure, recommended to me, and so I cannot altogether escape from his melancholy string-existence. He brought me a message from Hiller, who, with regard to a remark in my Preface, begs to assure me that, though he might not always understand me, yet he is not only my "former" but also my present friend. (People of this sort are now beginning to feel highly piqued: my retiring into my shell casts a fatal shadow on their path.)
No answer yet from Leipzig: Rietz must have taken fright at me. Only Sturm and Koppe have inquired of the theatre director here if he perchance knew why I had not answered them!
I now send you to-day a newly arranged score of the Flying Dutchman, with the request that you will keep it by you once for all, so that in case the score should ever be asked for, the copy could be made from it as in the case of Tannhäuser. As Liszt is thinking of giving this opera in the summer, I particularly beg you to ask him to return at once the score which he has there — the one which was sent to him by my wife in the summer of 1849 — so that you may set it right before the parts are copied out. You would then send him back the corrected copy.
(Put all this down to our half-yearly account, as I lately mentioned.)
At first I did not wish to systematically revise this score: for on closer examination I found that to rearrange the instrumentation, in accordance with my present experience, I should have, for the most part, to do all the work over again; and, naturally, the desire for such a task cooled down at once. In order to reduce the whole brass, for instance, to reasonable proportions, I should have had to alter everything consistently therewith; for the brass was not merely incidental here, but was determined by the whole manner not only of the scoring, but of the composition itself.
This discovery certainly vexed me, but I would rather confess the fault than improve it in an unsatisfactory manner. Only, therefore, where it was purely superfluous have I struck out some of the brass, here and there given it a somewhat more human tone, and only thoroughly overhauled the coda of the overture. I remember that it was just this coda which always annoyed me at the performances; now I think it will answer to my original intention. The changes must be clearly indicated in the score, and often it would be best for them to be written out on fresh sheets of stout paper: better spend a little money on it than have anything unclear!
This work, however, has altogether much interested me: it has an uncommonly impressive colour, and, indeed, one most definite in character. It is striking to see how embarrassed I then was by musical declamation; and the operatic style of singing (for instance, [musical example]) still weighed heavily on my imagination.
Your article on the Schumann symphony was again wonderfully learned: you are a d—d fine fellow!
I am curious to see what will come of it. For the rest, it does not occur to me to expect anything from the paper for myself! I know that in all that concerns the practical present I speak to the wind, and must wait in vain; but I am content if I prove this in effect, and thus ever reveal anew the necessity for the total overthrow of our modern practice — at any rate, to all thinking minds.
The song did not satisfy me: it were better it had been left out; it is all made bar by bar, and with no grasp of the whole. These eternal harmonic tricks are becoming quite intolerable to me now, and I believe — now that I have my rhythmic verse to hand — that in future I shall be able to proceed quite otherwise with harmony than formerly. By this I do not mean that I should return to patriarchal simplicity: but my harmonies will move in broader expansion, more distinctly, and more definitely. This at least is how my new lyrical element — made possible by means of my new verse — is revealing itself to me.
With regard to X.'s assurance and your timidity, you have quite the right feeling: you understand what the matter is, but X. and company do not understand it. The K. article really shows me how fearfully far behind they are still, and still more so his pencil lines to Br. For them art is always something cut off from life, something too definitely the master of its own caprice. If one shouts this in their ears — as I have done, amongst other places, in the Preface and in the second part of Oper und Drama — they well-meaningly close their ears and say: "O yes, those are your exaggerations, but they don't mislead us."
How lucky it is that they cannot be misled! O! the strong men! Weak women are anyhow easier to mislead.
I send you, together with the score, all that you wished for besides: only I can't find the Glassbrenner calendar; I'll send it another time!
With the advent of spring my great poem takes ever stronger hold of me: I shall soon be at work; the wealth of material grows almost to excess, and I must soon begin, so as to be soon rid of it.
Anyhow it will be something; it will be the best I can do.
So farewell then for to-day! Unfortunately I have no news yet from my doctor; yet I am resolved not to go to an establishment again. I will write shortly to the R.'s (to the mother): greetings to them and at home — also to the two-cans-of-"milk"-measure Siegfried.
Adieu! hold me in kind remembrance.
Your
R. W.
In the score of the Dutchman you will find also the supplementary additions to Tannhäuser written down by Fischer, and with these you can have a new score prepared.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 59