Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, vol 2 | Page 9

speaks to us a philosopher who has finally returned to art, and does so with the greatest possible emphasis of resolution;--in brief Schiller to the life! Besides this, a chorus for a concert! I have no longer any feeling for that kind of thing, and could not produce it at any price. I should not know where to take my inspiration. One other thing: my musical position towards verse and metre has undergone an enormous change. I could not at any price write a melody to Schiller's verses, which are entirely intended for reading. These verses must be treated musically in a certain arbitrary manner, and that arbitrary manner, as it does not bring about a real flow of melody, leads us to harmonic excesses and violent efforts to produce artificial wavelets in the unmelodic fountain. I have experienced all this myself, and in my present state of development have arrived at an entirely different form of treatment. Consider, for instance, that the ENTIRE instrumental introduction to the "Rhinegold" is based upon the common chord of E flat. Imagine then how sensitive I am in these matters and how startled I was when, on opening your "Kunstler," I hit upon the exact contrary of my PRESENT system. I do not deny that I shook my head while going on, and that stupidly I observed in the first instance only the things which startled me--I mean details, always details. At the same time, there was something in these details which seemed to strike me in spite of my unsympathetic mood. At the close I reflected and arrived at the reasonable idea of letting the WHOLE pass by me in full swing. In fact, I imbibed it in a manner with the most fortunate results. I saw you suddenly at your desk, saw you, heard you, and understood you. In this way I received another proof of the experience that it is our own fault if we cannot receive what is magnanimously offered. This your address to the artists is a grand, beautiful, splendid trait of your own artistic life. I was deeply moved by the force of your intention. You give utterance to it, body and soul, at a time, in circumstances, and before people who would be well advised in trying to understand you. You have done well in drawing Schiller's lines out of their literary existence and in proclaiming them loudly and clearly to the world with trumpet sound. You have, as I say, done well. How to do it was your own affair. YOU knew HOW these lines should be proclaimed to the world, for to none but you had occurred the necessity of that proclamation. I at least know nobody who could do something of this kind with such force. WHAT an artist intends to do shows to him HOW he should do it, and by this HOW we recognize the WHAT. What you intended to do here you could not have expressed otherwise than by this tremendous display of eloquence, of emotion, of overpowering strength. This is my criticism. I have no other. But who will be able to sing this to your liking? Mercy on me when I think of our tail-coated concert singers! During the performance at Carlsruhe you had, probably from your own inspiration, worked yourself into such a state of excitement, that you thought you heard them sing as they should have sung. I suspect, however, that the public heard correctly what was sung, and therefore could of course not understand the matter at all. Dear friend, you require singers such as I want for my Wotan, etc. Consider this! I have become so abominably practical that the moment of actual representation is always before my eyes, and this is another source of my joyful despair.
Thanks then for your "Kunstler." I feel as if it were meant for a present to myself only, and as if no one else were to know what you have really given to the world.
I am hard at work. Can you tell me of any one who would be able to compile a score from my wild pencil sketches? I worked this time quite differently from what I did before, but this having to make a clean copy kills me. I lose time over it which I might employ to better purpose; and apart from this, the continual writing tires me to such an extent that I feel quite ill and lose the inclination for real work. Without a clever man of this kind I am lost; WITH HIM the WHOLE will be finished in two years. For that time I should require the man. If there were a pause in the scoring, he might copy parts in the meantime. Look out for one. There is no