unique friend,
The Musical Festival at Carlsruhe will take place on September 20th, and I write you these few lines in haste to ask you to send me the altered passage in the score of Lohengrin at Weymar. If not inconvenient to you, I should be glad if you could lend me for six weeks your Zurich parts of the overture to Tannhäuser and the pieces from Lohengrin for use at the Carlsruhe festival; send them straight to Devrient. As the Hartels have not printed the parts, it will not injure their interests; and we shall at least be sure that the parts are correctly copied, as you have already used them at Zurich. From Weymar I shall bring the parts of the Tannhäuser overture with me.
At the two concerts of the Carlsruhe festival the orchestras and artists of the Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Carlsruhe theatres will co-operate. As the performances take place at the theatre, the trebling of the parts will be quite sufficient, for the house does not hold more than fourteen or fifteen hundred people, and an orchestra of a hundred and ninety and a chorus of something like a hundred and sixty will consequently have a good effect. As soon as the programme is settled I shall send it to you; for the present I tell you only that the Tannhäuser overture will make the commencement of the first concert and the Lohengrin pieces the close of the second. In addition to this, there will be two pieces by Berlioz, the finale of Mendelssohn's Loreley, the Ninth Symphony, etc. Frau Heim will, I hope, on this occasion be the reporter for Zurich, and I shall do my best to put her in a good temper.
Johanna sings this evening at a concert in the theatre for the benefit of a local actress. Tannhäuser will not be given tomorrow. After the concert I shall see Schmidt, and shall inquire as to particulars. In case J. is still here tomorrow, I shall pay my most humble respects to her. She appeared first as Romeo, and yesterday sang Fides for the benefit of the Pension Fund. With E. Devrient I spent a few hours yesterday at Badenweiler. He is going to visit you at Zurich, but can make no certain plans for the present, as he expects the Prince Regent at Badenweiler. His daughter suffers a great deal, and his wife also appeared to me in very weak health. Frau Meyerbeer also I met at Badenweiler. With Schindelmeisser I shall communicate by telegraph early tomorrow morning, and in case Lohengrin is given on Thursday, I shall run over to see it, and return home to Weymar on Friday.
Through your hat I nearly got into difficulties with the police at Carlsruhe, because its species and colour are considered specially suspicious, being accounted red, although grey. I was accidentally advised of this; nevertheless I have got on well so far, and shall always maintain that the hat is well-conditioned and loyal, because you have given it to me. Apropos, neither of the two persons to whom I have hitherto talked about it was inclined to believe in your wholly unpolitical position and mode of feeling. It will certainly take some time before a more correct opinion of your circumstances and your whole individuality is arrived at.
My best compliments to your wife, and many thanks for the kindness and love she showed me during my stay at Zurich. Do not forget either my most well-conditioned homages to Frau Kumner and her sister. To our Grutly brother and his wife say all the friendly and true things which I feel for them, and to Baumgartner give a good shake-hand, translated into musical Swiss, in my name. The days at the Zeltweg remain bright, sunny days for me. God grant that we may soon be able to repeat them.
Once more I ask you, if possible, to grant the Tannhäuser and Lohengrin parts to the Carlsruhe festival, and kindly to write a few words to that effect to Devrient. I am off to the concert. Johanna sings three songs by Schubert (Wanderer, Trockne Blumen, and Ungeduld), and I sing. Pardon me if I have put the bars in the wrong places, and whistle it better for yourself.
Richard Wagner
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #3835, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 1, No. 117