I thought I should get another 500 from Anderson after the fourth concert and in that case meant to send the 1000 francs for Wesendonck to Sulzer forthwith, intending also to send the long letter I promised him. Anderson, however, seems to have forgotten it, and as I have enough money to live on I would rather not remind him but go on waiting. Please say so to Sulzer, who, I hope, won't be so afraid of calling on a grass-widow as the blameless Wesendonck. Let us hope the good fellow doesn't suppose that it is only the husband's presence which prevents a woman carrying on all sorts of silly pranks with someone else. I'm sure he has no such sorry opinion of his wife, and, fortunately, neither have I of you, so I give you permission with all my heart to receive any visitor whom you find agreeable. This brings me to your account of the ill repute into which Mme. Wesendonck is fallen with Mesdames Marshall, Heim and Baumgartner. If the lady has really suddenly become so disagreeable that these people can't put up with her any longer it must be a bad case indeed, and I should be extremely sorry about it, for only a little while ago Mme. Wesendonck was universally thought a most amiable woman. To pity Wesendonck for his wife's unpopularity might certainly show charity to him but not to her; it is to defame her oneself, and I cannot think pity of this kind is genuine. But I hope you will set Mesdames H. and M. a good example and be lenient and indulgent towards eccentricities which may perhaps show themselves and may be really highly excusable and not so very terrible. Of course you are not to be constrained either, and if you have a real antipathy to Mme. Wesendonck I myself should not account the thanks presumably due to her sufficient reason to oblige you to keep up an intercourse which is distasteful to you. If, however, your dislike springs from any sort of suspicion that your honour is involved, I believe I may assure you that this suspicion is entirely unjustified and baseless and that, on the contrary, you may be convinced that no one better deserves your confidence and your friendship than Mme. Wesendonck, just as I, despite all differences of character and talents, place a heartfelt confidence in him as he does with full justification, I hope, in me. I have so often made no answer to what you say about Mme. Wesendonck that I thought I ought to express myself rather fully this time, noticing, as I am bound to do, that a quite mistaken suspicion has, however naturally, put you out and warped your judgment. I hope you are not cross with me for this? As for my grey hairs, tell the Wesendoncks, of course, without fear of hurting my vanity, for although in your last letter you call me your handsome husband I have no great opinion of my beauty. As to the "Uncle and Aunt" I am sorry to say I have no secret to tell you. There is absolutely nothing in it. You know surely that I often have odd ideas that really mean nothing whatever. So, frankly, with the best will in the world I must leave your curiosity unsatisfied this time.
But tell me, how did you come by the infamous idea that there is a bang on the gong in my Tannhauser Overture? On my life I know nothing of it, and therefore with the best will in the world cannot omit it, which otherwise I would gladly have done to please you. If I am not mistaken, this gong-banging arose in Sulzer's head. That's what one gets by leaving one's wife alone with strange young men! At the last concert we did a quite obscure and insignificant early overture by Weber to The Ruler of the Spirits. I was quite astonished and annoyed that it was asked for da capo and could discover no reason for it whatever. Now, however, it has been explained to me. It was a deliberate public demonstration in my favour to compensate me, as it were, for Herr Lucas's having been received earlier with his dull symphony, being an Englishman and director of the society, with more applause than he really deserved. That is just like these people. The thing itself makes no actual impression on them and leaves them cold, as I saw plainly again afterwards in the effect produced by the A major symphony, but if they once get interested in a person they show it with a determination that looks almost like enthusiasm. So everything is calculated! To revive another forgotten point, I may tell you that Ney's "Fidelio" left me very cold: a beautiful even soprano voice, but the whole thing very mechanical and mannered, which I detest. Besides she is hideously ugly. The whole performance was bad. In particular, Costa quite misunderstood the tempi and dragged everything, but Formes was very good as Rocco. I could make use of him some day.
It is natural, after all, that you should have read no more about our concerts in the Zurich papers; that could not be kept up. The usual notices in the press here are short, and always disparaging or appreciative according to party. Moreover there has been nothing special for discussion and it was only because there was something new, Lucas's symphony at the last concert, that Davison wrote something in The Times again. Furthermore I did not have to conduct Spohr's Nonet, which he thought so poorly executed. I am told very funny stories of this Davison. There is no doubt that he has been bought by Meyerbeer's agent, the Jewish music dealer Brandus, to cry me down, and prevent my getting on here lest I should crop up in Paris afterwards. He certainly felt that he had given me more importance than he could have wished by his monstrous tirade against me in The Times and he may have heard of it from the editor, so he has since confined himself to venting his gall on me in his own little rag, The Musical World. To be able to criticise me thoroughly there, he went on to print in it a literal translation of the text of Lohengrin, which I am assured is not at all bad. This translation is now being generally read with the keenest interest and is creating quite a sensation, so that the silly fellow has played into my hands again. But I have been further assured that Davison himself is quite entranced by the poem and recently told a friend of Liuders' quite unequivocally that the man who wrote this libretto must be a very demi-god! Now what's to be made of that! Praeger says that it is just his way; he may be quite carried away by something and yet tear it to rags next day if his position requires it. Pretty tales. I have still to wait and see whether anything true and wise will ever be written about me; in any case the public will have no opportunity of getting to know me thoroughly. Meanwhile, however, I light upon something about the second concert from the Spectator. It is appreciative in so far as the man who wrote it could know anything of me. Please give it to Sulzer to satisfy him for the time being.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 279