Best Friend,
Cordial thanks for your kind letter, out of which for to-day I have only to answer the question about the result of the concert given in presence of the Queen.
The false reports about my quarrel with the directors of the Philharmonic Society here and my consequent departure from London are based upon the following incident.
When I went into the cloak-room after the fourth concert, I there met several friends, whom I made acquainted with my extreme annoyance and ill-humour that I should ever have consented to conduct concerts of such a kind, as it was not at all in my line. These endless programmes, with their mass of instrumental and vocal pieces, wearied me and tormented my aesthetic sense: I was forced to see that the power of established custom rendered it impossible to bring about any reduction or change whatever; I therefore nourished a feeling of disquietude, which had more to do with the fact that I had again embarked on a thing of the sort, much less with the conditions here themselves, which I really knew beforehand, but least of all with my public, which always received me with friendliness and approbation, often indeed with great warmth.
On the other hand, the abuse of the London critics was a matter of perfect indifference to me, for their hostility only proved to all the world that I had not bribed them; while it gave me, on the contrary, much satisfaction to watch how they always left the door open, so that had I made the least approach they would have tuned to a different pitch; but naturally I thought of nothing of the kind.
But on that evening I was really in a furious rage, that after the A major Symphony I should have had to conduct a miserable vocal piece and a trivial Overture of Onslow's; and, as is my way, in deepest dudgeon I told my friends aloud that I had that day conducted for the last time; that on the morrow I should send in my resignation, and journey home. By chance a concert-singer, R. — a German Jew-youth — was present: he caught up my words and conveyed them all hot to a newspaper reporter. Ever since then rumours have been flying about in the German papers, which have misled even you. I need scarcely tell you that the representations of my friends, who escorted me home, succeeded in making me withdraw the hasty resolution conceived at a moment of despondency.
Since then we have had the Tannhäuser Overture at the fifth concert; it was very well played, received by the public in a quite friendly manner, but not yet properly understood.
All the more pleased was I, therefore, when the Queen, who had promised (which is a rare event, and does not happen every year) to attend the seventh concert, ordered a repetition of the Overture. Now, if in itself it was extremely gratifying that the Queen should pay no regard to my highly compromised political position (which had been dragged to light with great malignity by the Times), and without hesitation assist at a public performance under my direction, then her further behaviour towards me afforded me at last an affecting compensation for all the contrarieties and vulgar animosities which I had here endured.
She and Prince Albert, who both sat immediately facing the orchestra, applauded after the Tannhäuser Overture — with which the first part concluded — with graciousness almost amounting to a challenge, so that the public broke out into lively and prolonged applause. During the interval the Queen summoned me to the salon, and received me before her Court with the cordial words: "I am delighted to make your acquaintance: your composition has enraptured me!"
In a long conversation, in which Prince Albert also took part, she further inquired about my other works, and asked if it would not be possible to have my operas translated into Italian, so that she might be able to hear them, too, in London? I was naturally obliged to give a negative answer, and moreover to explain that my visit was only a flying one, as conducting for a concert society — the only thing open to me here — was not at all my affair. At the end of the concert the Queen and the Prince applauded me again most courteously.
I relate this to you because it will afford you pleasure; and I willingly allow you to make further use of this information, as I see how much mistake and malice touching myself and my stay in London has to be set right or defeated. The last concert is on the 25th, and I leave on the 26th, so as to resume in my quiet retreat my sadly interrupted work.
Farewell! Cordial thanks for your friendship, and greetings to those who share it, from
Your
Richard Wagner.
I will deliver your greetings to the Ney.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 136