Letters of Franz Liszt, vol 2, From Rome to the End | Page 9

certainly remain on the shelf.
Ad vocem of the Tieffurt Cantor, I will tell you that I have been thinking of him very particularly these last few days, whilst I was composing St. Francis's Hymn of Praise ("Cantico di San Francesco"). The song is a development, an offspring as it were, a blossom of the Chorale "in dulci jubilo," for which of course I had to employ Organ. But how could I be writing an Organ work without immediately flying to Tieffurt in imagination?--And lo, at the entrance to the church our excellent Grosse [The trombonist of the Weimar orchestra (died 1874), who was so faithfully devoted to Liszt, and whom the latter remembered in his will] met me with his trombone, and I recollected an old promise--namely, to compose a "piece" for his use on Sundays. I immediately set to work at it, and out of my "Cantico" has now arisen a Concertante piece for Trombone and Organ. I will send you the piece as an Easter egg by the middle of April. [Published by Kahnt in Leipzig] Meanwhile here are the opening chords:--
[Here, Liszt illustrates with a musical score excerpt of the opening chords of the Concertante, in F major]
and on a lovely evening in May will you play the whole with Grosse in your church at Tieffurt, and perpetuate me with Organ and Trombone!--
It has struck me that your name is not mentioned among the fellow-workers in the Johann Schneider Jubilee Album. If there is still time and space you might perhaps contribute your arrangement of the Fugue from the "Dante Symphony" (with the ending which I composed to it for you). This proposal is open to amendment, on the supposition that Hartels are willing to agree to it--and, above all, that it suits you.
.--. N.B.--I beg you most particularly to make no further use of the two Psalms "By the waters of Babylon," of which you have a copy, because I have undertaken to make two or three essential alterations in them, and I wish them only to be made known and published in their present form. I send the new manuscript at the same time as the Cantico di San Francesco.
My best greetings to your wife, and rest assured always of my sincere thanks, and of the complete harmony of my ideas with your own.
F. Liszt
Rome, March 11th, 1862
When I am sending several manuscripts at Easter, I will write a couple of letters to Weimar and thank Jungmann [A pupil of Liszt's in Weimar; died there in September 1892] for his letter. I feel the want of time almost as much in Rome as in Weimar, and I have observed a strict Fast in correspondence as a rule, so that for three months past I have hardly sent as many as three to four letters to Germany.
Remember me most particularly to Herr Regierungsrath Miller! [A friend of Liszt's, a multifarious writer on music; died 1876]

3. To Dr. Franz Brendel.
[Autograph in the possession of Herr Alexander Meyer Cohn in Berlin.]
Dear Friend,
Your friendly letter has again brought me a whiff of German air, which is all the more welcome to me here as I have not too much of it. One sees extremely few German papers in Rome--also I read them very irregularly--and my correspondents from Germany are limited to two, of whom friend Gottschalg, my legendary Tieffurt Cantor, is the most zealous. His letters flow from his heart--and are therefore always welcome to me.
For all of good news that you tell me I give you twofold thanks. Firstly, because you have for the most part brought it about, prefaced it, and seen it through. And then, because you tell it me in so friendly a fashion. Although I have long been prepared to bear the fiasco of my works quietly and unmoved, yet still it is pleasant to me to learn that the "Faust" Symphony in Leipzig did not have such a very bad fate. [In one of the "Euterpe" concerts, under Bronsart's conducting, at which Schnorr of Carolsfeld sang the tenor solo.] Do not fail, dear friend, to give Herr Schnorr my best thanks--and if perchance my songs would be a little pleasure to him will Kahnt be so good as to send Schnorr a copy (bound) at my order?
With regard to the Bronsart affair, I sincerely regret that I had not the opportunity of smoothing matters down sooner. Between people of one mind dissension and variance should never appear-- much less lead to an outbreak. As you ask me for my opinion, I openly confess that in the main Bronsart appears to me perfectly justified in vindicating his choice of new compositions for the musical directors, in spite of the fact that the two or three experiments he has made do not show in favor