F. Liszt



42. To Abbe de Lamennais

[Autograph in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet at Valentigney.]

Permit me, illustrious and venerable friend, to recall myself to
your remembrance through M. Ciabatta, who has already had the
honor of being introduced to you last year at my house. He has
just been making a tour in Spain and Portugal with me, and can
give you all particulars about it. I should have been glad also
to get him to take back to you the score, now completed, of the
chorus which you were so good as to entrust to me ("The iron is
hard, let us strike!"), but unfortunately it is not with music as
with painting and poetry: body and soul alone are not enough to
make it comprehensible; it has to be performed, and very well
performed too, to be understood and felt. Now the performance of
a chorus of the size of that is not an easy matter in Paris, and
I would not even risk it without myself conducting the
preliminary rehearsals. While waiting till a favorable
opportunity offers, allow me to tell you that I have been happy
to do this work, and that I trust I have not altogether failed in
it. Were it not for the fear of appearing to you very indiscreet,
I should perhaps venture to trespass on your kindness for the
complete series of these simple, and at the same time sublime,
compositions, of which you alone know the secret. Three other
choruses of the same kind as that of the Blacksmiths, which
should sum up the most poetical methods of human activity, and