XVI LISZT

To Humbert Ferrand.

“24th July 1830.

“Dear Friend,—All that the most tender delicate love can give is mine. My exquisite sylph, my Ariel, loves me more than ever and her mother says that, had she read of love like mine, she could not have believed it.

“I am shut up in the Institute for the last time, for the prize shall be mine this year, our happiness hangs on it. Every other day Madame Moke sends her maid with messages. Can you credit it, Humbert? This angel, with the finest talent in Europe, is mine! I hear that M. de Noailles, in whom her mother believes greatly, has pleaded my cause, despite my want of money. If only you could hear my Camille thinking aloud in the divine works of Beethoven and Weber, you would lose your head as I do.”

“23rd August 1830.

“I have gained the Prix de Rome. It was awarded unanimously—a thing that has never been known before. What a joy it is to be successful when it gives pleasure to those one adores!

“My sweet Ariel was dying of anxiety when I took her the news, her dainty wings were all ruffled until I smoothed them with a word. Even her mother, who does not look too favourably on our love, was touched to tears.

“On the 1st November there is to be a concert at the Théâtre Italien. The new conductor, Girard, whom I know well, has asked me to write him an overture for it. I am going to take Shakespeare’s Tempest; it will be quite a new style of thing.

“My great concert with the Symphonie Fantastique is to be on the 14th November, but I must have a theatrical success; Camilla’s parents insist upon that as a condition of our marriage. I hope I shall succeed.

“I do not want to go to Italy. I shall go and ask the King to let me off. It is a ridiculous journey for me to take, and I might just as well be allowed my scholarship in Paris.

“As soon as I have collected the money you so kindly lent me, you shall have it. Good-bye, good-bye. I have just come from Madame Moke’s, from touching the hand of my adored Camille, that is why mine trembles and my writing is so bad. Yet to-day she has not played me either Beethoven or Weber.

“P.S.—That wretched Smithson girl is still here. I have not seen her.”

To Humbert Ferrand.

“October 1830.—You will be glad to hear that I am to be heard at the Opera. All thanks to Camille! In her slender form, witching grace, and musical genius I found Ariel personified. I have planned a tremendous overture, which I have submitted to the director. Ariel! Ariel! Camille! I bless, I adore, I love thee more than poor language can express. Give me a hundred musicians, a hundred and fifty voices, then can I tell thee all!

“That poor Ophelia comes again and again to my mind. She has lost more than six thousand francs in the Opéra Comique venture. She is still here, and met me the other day quite calmly. I was utterly miserable the whole evening, and went and told Ariel, who laughed at me tenderly.”

In spite of all my eloquence, I could not get out of that tiresome journey to Rome. But I would not leave Paris without having Sardanapalus performed properly, and for the third time my artist friends most generously offered me their aid, and Habeneck consented to conduct.

The day before the concert Liszt came to see me. We had not, so far, met. We began talking of Faust, which he had not read, but which he afterwards got to love as I did. We were so thoroughly sympathetic to each other that, from that day, our friendship neither faltered nor waned. At my concert everyone noticed his enthusiasm and vociferous applause.

As my work is exceedingly complicated, it is not surprising that the execution was by no means perfect; yet some parts of the Symphony made a sensation. The Scène aux Champs fell quite flat, and, on the advice of Ferdinand Hiller, I afterwards entirely rewrote it.

Sardanapalus was well done, and the Conflagration came off magnificently. It raised a conflagration in Paris too, in the shape of a war of musicians and critics.

Naturally the younger men—particularly those with that sixth sense, artistic instinct—were on my side, but Cherubini and his gang were wild with rage.

He happened to pass the concert-room doors as people were going in, and a friend stopped him, asking:

“Are you not coming to hear Berlioz’s new thing?”

“I need not zat I go hear how sings should not be done,” he replied.

He was much worse after the concert, and sent for me.

“You go soon,” he said.

“Yes, monsieur.”

“It vill be zat you are cross off ze register of Conservatoire, zat your studies are finish. But it seem to me zat you should make visit to me. One goes not out of Conservatoire like out of a stable.”

I very nearly said:

“Why not, since we are treated like horses?” but luckily had the good sense merely to say that I had not the slightest intention of leaving Paris without saying farewell to him.

So to Rome, nolens volens, I had to go, useless as it seemed.

The Roman Academy may be of service to painters and sculptors, but, as far as music is concerned, it is lost time, considering the state of music in Italy. Neither is the life led by the students exactly conducive to study and progress.

Usually the five or six laureates arrange to travel in company, and share expenses. A coach-driver agrees, for a modest sum, to take charge of this cargo of great men, and dump it down in Italy. As he never changes horses it takes a long time, and must be rather amusing.

I did not try it, as I had to stay in Paris for various reasons till the middle of January and then wished to go round by La Côte Saint-André—where my laurel wreath earned me a warm welcome—after which, alone, and dreary, I turned my face towards Italy.

To Humbert Ferrand.

“November 1830.—Just a few lines in haste to tell you that I am giving a gigantic concert at the Conservatoire—the Francs-Juges overture, the Sacred Song and Warrior’s Song from the Melodies, and Sardanapalus with one hundred performers for the Conflagration, and last of all, the Symphonie Fantastique.

“Come, oh, do come. It will be terrible. Habeneck conducts. The Tempest is to be played a second time at the Opera. It is new, fresh, strange, grand, sweet, tender, surprising. Fétis wrote two splendid articles on it for the Revue Musicale. Some one said to him the other day that I was possessed of a devil. ‘The devil may possess his body, but, by Jove! a god possesses his head,’ he retorted.

“December.—You really must come; I had a frantic success. They actually encored the Marche au Supplice. I am mad! mad! My marriage is fixed for Easter 1832, on condition that I do not lose my pension, and that I go to Italy for a year. My blessed symphony has done the deed, and won this concession from Camille’s mother.

“My guardian angel! for months I shall not see her. Why cannot I—cradled by the wild north wind upon some desolate heath—fall into the eternal sleep with her arms around me!”

To Ferdinand Hiller.

“La Côte Saint-André, January 1831.—I am at home once more, deluged with compliments, caresses, and tender solicitude by my family, yet I am miserable; my heart barely beats, the oppression of my soul suffocates me. My parents understand and forgive.

“I have been to Grenoble, where I spent half my time in bed, the other half in calling upon people who bored me to extinction. On my return I found awaiting me my longed-for letter from Paris.

“Now comes yours, to spoil all! Devil take you! Was it necessary to tell me that I am luxuriating in despair, that no one cares twopence for me, least of all the people for whom I am pining?

“In the first place, I am not pining for people, but for one person; in the second, if you have your reasons for judging her severely I have mine for believing in her implicitly, and I understand her better than any one.

“How can you tell what she thinks? What she feels? Because you saw her gay, and apparently happy, at a concert why should you draw conclusions adverse to me? If it comes to that, you might have said the same of me if you had seen me at a family dinner at Grenoble, with a pretty young cousin on either side of me.

“My letter is brusque, my friend, but you have upset me terribly. Write by return and tell me what the world says of my marriage.”

“31st January 1831.—Although my overpowering anxiety still endures, I can write more calmly to-day. I am still too ill to get up, and the cold is frightful here.

“Tell me what you mean by this sentence in your last letter: ‘You wish to make a sacrifice; I fear me sadly that, ere long, you will be forced to make a most painful one.’ For heaven’s sake never use ambiguous words to me, above all in connection with her. It tortures me. Tell me frankly what you mean.”