Dearest friend,
So much do I owe to your bold and high genius, to the fiery and magnificent pages of your Tannhäuser, that I feel quite awkward in accepting the gratitude you are good enough to express with regard to the two performances I had the honour and happiness to conduct. However that may be, your letter has given me the liveliest pleasure of friendship. I thank you with all my heart for the thanks you proffer me. Once for all, number me in future amongst your most zealous and devoted admirers; far or near, count on me and dispose of me.
Herren Zigesar, Genast, and Biedenfeld have described to you in detail the impression which your masterpiece has made on our public. In the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung you will find a few lines I have sent to Brockhaus at his request. Biedenfeld has put the little article into shape. I shall send you by post the article that appeared in our Gemeindeblatt, where the prologue of Schober, who had the sense to turn Tannhäuser to good account, is also printed.
Talking of people with good sense, do you know what I mean to do? No more nor less than to appropriate for the piano, after my fashion, the overture of Tannhäuser and the whole scene O du mein holder Abendstern of the third act. As to the former, I believe that it will meet with few executants capable of mastering its technical difficulties, but the scene of the Abendstern should be within easy reach of second-class pianists. If you will propose to Meser to have it engraved, or if you will allow me to dispose of it for the benefit of H. or Sch., I should like to have it published soon. Perhaps, if you have no objection, I should dispose of it in favour of an album for which my assistance has been asked for the last two months, the album published by the Ladies' Society for the German Fleet. In vain I told them that I suffered from a drought of both manuscripts and ideas; they would not leave me alone; and I have just received another letter from a nice lady, who presses it upon me again. Write to me as to the destination you prefer for your Abendstern; and when we meet, I shall have the impertinence to play you, with my two hands, your overture, such as I have prepared it for my particular use. Remember me very affectionately to Tichatschek; he has been an admirable artist and a charming comrade and friend. It will be a true pleasure to me to see him here again in the month of May, according to his promise. If you could on the same occasion dispose of a few days, we should be only too happy to see you.
Franz Liszt
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #3835, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 1, No. 14