Today I ought to be with you and prepare your Christmas tree, where the rays and gifts of your genius should shine. And now we are apart, you troubled with erysipelas, and I with all manner of red roses grown in similar gardens. But this abominable FLORA shall not delay the joy of our meeting too long. You probably know that I have to go to Vienna, in January, to conduct the Centenary Mozart Festival, which takes place on January 27th, and will require at least a few weeks' preparation. At the beginning of February I shall be back here. Berlioz is coming on the 8th of February, and Johanna Wagner on the 20th. Berlioz's Faust and Cellini will be given before the 16th, and your niece is announced in three roles. As soon as this is over I shall write to tell you when I can come to Zurich, but I am afraid I shall have to wait for the summer. At Berlin, where I stayed three weeks, I attended a few pianoforte rehearsals of Tannhäuser, by invitation of Messrs. von Hulsen and Dorn, and if the first performance is not delayed after January 6th to 8th (for when it is announced), I shall be able to send you a report of it as an eye and ear witness. Johanna will sing and act Elizabeth beautifully, and Formes is studying his part most conscientiously. Dorn has already had a number of pianoforte and string rehearsals, and makes it a point of honour to produce the work as correctly and brilliantly as possible. No doubt Tannhäuser will become a "draw" at Berlin, which is the chief thing, even for the composer, and I hope that the CRITICAL treatment which I received at the hands of the critics will redound to the credit of Tannhäuser, and that the infallible impression of your work on the public will not be impaired by carping notices. I shall write to you about this at great length.
The day after tomorrow, Boxing-day, we shall have Tannhäuser here, which retains its position as a "draw," a distinction which it shares at Weymar, with Lohengrin and The Flying Dutchman. Next spring Lohengrin is to be mounted again here. Up to the present we still want an Ortrud, and, unfortunately, cannot get a good one from elsewhere. The Leipzig one would, for example, be quite useless, and the voice of Frau Knopp is still much impaired by her late illness. I am looking forward to Lohengrin, that wonderful work, which, to me, is the highest and most perfect thing in art-until your Nibelungen is finished. At Berlin, at Count Redern's, I heard a few pieces from Lohengrin splendidly executed by several regimental bands, and was reminded of our pompous entry into the Drei Konige of Basle: Our new Weymar Union has adopted the entry of the trumpets [Musical notation] as its Hoch, and I wish we could sing it to you in chorus soon.
Of my concert affairs, etc., I have nothing to tell you. When I come to you I shall bring some of my scores with me. The rest will not interest us much. With similar compositions, the only question is, what is IN them? The publication I shall delay a few months (although six numbers are already engraved), for the reason that some of my EXCELLENT friends (an expression which Kaulbach is fond of using for people who do not like him) had the EXCELLENT intention of producing these things at once by way of a WARNING EXAMPLE. That amiable intention I want to forestall by a few performances under my own direction during the winter.
Franz Liszt
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #4234, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 2, No. 206