Franz Liszt | Collection of 28 autograph letters to Baroness Olga von Meyendorff, 1863-1886, apparently unpublished

Franz Liszt

Remarkable collection of 28 autograph letters and notes, signed ("F. Liszt"; "FL"), in French, to the composer's close friend and confidante Baroness Olga von Meyendorff

DISCUSSING WAGNER, observing that the latter has been really friendly towards him, so that he doesn't know what else he can do other than behave favourably towards him, expressing his genuine wish that Wagner fulfil his full potential in Vienna and become a figure of historical significance there, describing the rehearsal schedule for the Ring [in the summer of 1875], mentioning some of his own compositions, including the third volume of the Années de Pélérinage, referring also to J.S. Bach, a sonata by Beethoven, Giovanni Sgambati, a Romance by Tchaikovsky, the piano playing of Sophie Menter, concert programmes ("...votre ami Bach n'y manque point, ni Don Juan non plus..."), Carl Alexander, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar and his wife Sophie, Carl Gille, asking her for a volume of Molière ("autrement un Montaigne divertira du mieux") and other works, discussing his schedule, including dinner and concert invitations, and other matters

...Il [Wagner] a été tellement bienveillant envers moi, que je ne saurai pas faire autrement que d'être très partial pour lui. Aussi que je lui souhaite de tout coeur de remplir tout son mérite à Vienne, et d'y faire grande figure historique, pendant longues années...Chaque jour on répète un acte: le matin (10 heures) avec l'Orchestre seul....Le "Rheingold" et la "Walküre" sont terminés. Ce matin on commence "Siegfried"...Vous écrivez commes les immortels sans désigner ni jour ni heure. Craignant de mal deviner, je viendrai vous demander quelqu'éclaircissement sur votre aimable proposition de voisinage et me recommande à Jean Sébastien Bach pour obtenir votre indulgence...J'écris le morceau à titre esquivé. Pour en faire musicalement l'effectuation pittoresque, il me faut encore quelques heures...

41 pages, various sizes, two of the letters on visiting cards, with a third visiting card printed 'L'Abbé Liszt....Vatican' and inscribed by Liszt with 6 quotations in Latin from the Bible, and an autograph envelope, [Rome, Bayreuth and Weimar, 1863-1886 (one letter dated Bayreuth, 7 August 1875)], a few small tears

and also: 7 PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS OF LISZT, ONE SIGNED ("F. LISZT"):

1. Carte-de-visite-style photographic portrait, with facsimile signature below the image, by L. Frisch & Co., Weimar, 11.6 x 6.5cm, no date
2. Carte-de-visite-style photographic portrait, showing the composer in profile, by Erwin Hanfstaengl of Paris, 10.4 x 6.3 cm, no date, traces of mount to reverse
3. Cabinet-style photographic portrait, by Louis Held, Weimar, c.21 x 12.8cm, 1884, chipped at lower outer corner
4. Cabinet-style photographic portrait by Louis Held, Weimar, 16.8 x 10.7cm, no date
5. Carte-de-visite-style photographic portrait, by J. Albert of Munich, 10.3 x 6.3cm, no date
6. Cabinet-style photographic portrait showing Liszt on his deathbed, by Hans Brand, Bayreuth, 16.5 x 10.7cm, 1886, small stain to lower outer corner
7. Photographic portrait of the composer in old age, signed and inscribed by Alexander von Meyendorff on the reverse, 12.1 x 8.9cm, the inscription dated 1932; together with: with a cabinet-style photograph of Liszt's mausoleum, by Hans Brand, Bayreuth; a photograph of the Liszt monument at Weimar, by H. Hahn of Munich, and 3 others

together with autograph letters to Olga von Meyendorff by: Camille Saint-Saëns, discussing the unfavourable situation in Paris regarding the performance of Liszt's works, 4 pages, c.14.4 x 16.1cm, Paris, 12 November 1895; Anna de Noailles (a pencil note on card), no date; Louis Duchesne (3, one on a postcard); Eduard Lassen (3), mentioning Liszt and performances of Wagner's operas, 10 pages, various sizes, Bayreuth, Weimar and Munich, 1891-1903; Ersilia Caetani Lovatelli, 2 pages, 8vo, 26 February 1900; with copies of two other letters, including one by Saint-Saëns of 26 March 1906, in the hand of Alexander von Meyendorff, 2 pages, 8vo, copied 29 June 1954; and three other documents

and including: a lock of greyish hair contained loose in a gilt metal frame, presumably belonging formerly to Olga von Meyendorff (possibly Liszt's hair?), original red morocco case (c.6.5 x 6.5cm), clasp, no date; AN APPARENTLY UNPUBLISHED AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT ESSAY IN FRENCH BY ALEXANDER VON MEYENDORFF ON LISZT'S LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER, with extensive autograph revisions, annotations and corrections, 37 pages, 4to, no place or date; an autograph manuscript copy of a letter by Alexander von Meyendorff rebutting an article regarding Liszt by Ernest Newman (The Sunday Times, 29 September 1957), with an annotated typed draft of the same, and other related documents; an unidentified drawing of Liszt, executed in red chalk on paper, on one half of a folded sheet (27.7 x 19.6cm), annotated by Alexander von Meyendorff ("very bad / A.M."), no date; and two annotated typed lists, one detailing 51 photographs relating to Liszt in the Meyendorff collection at Viborg, 3 pages, 4to, no date, the other listing various letters to Olga von Meyendorff in the Meyendorff collection

...C'est aussi que je me souviens de son enthousiasme pour Mozart: "Quelle richesse...", une autre fois: - "La musique s'épuise[,] il faudra accepter les quarts de ton". Evidemment que sa pensée était toujours en travail...Mais à la fin de sa vie elle [Olga von Meyendorff] formulait la somme totale des ses souvenirs par ces mots. Au fond Liszt n'aimait que la musique...

A LISZT DISCOVERY.

This is an important collection of Liszt-related material all ultimately deriving from one of the composer's closest and most significant personal friends during the last sixteen years of his life, Baroness Olga von Meyendorff (1838-1926).

The letters that Liszt wrote to the baroness are reckoned among his most important, revealing as they do a darker side of the composer, especially the change in personality that occurred in his old age (they do not, however, reveal a love-affair that some biographers have hoped to find). The bulk of the original correspondence - some 400 letters - was sold in these rooms in 1934 (sale of 23 April, lot 218); they are now preserved at Harvard University, part of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection bequeathed to the University by Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss in 1969.

Liszt's acquaintance with Olga dated from the early 1860s when she was in Rome with her diplomat husband Felix von Meyendorff. After a stint as Russian ambassador to the court of Weimar (from 1867), Meyendorff was posted to Karlsruhe, where shortly afterwards, in January 1871, he died. Disconsolate at her new circumstances, and with four young sons to bring up, Olga returned to Weimar, chiefly to be close to Liszt. There Olga provided Liszt with welcome companionship, supervising his domestic arrangements, acting as a hostess for him, and seeing to his affairs when he was away from the Grand Duchy. In addition to being able to provide these useful services, she was a talented pianist to whom Liszt dedicated a number of works, including the Fünf kleine Klavierstücke, S.192 (some twenty autograph music manuscripts of Liszt once in the possession of Olga von Meyendorff are now to be found in the Library of Congress). Liszt's American pupil Amy Fay (1844-1928), writing home from Weimar in the 1870s, provided a vivid description of the baroness:

...This haughty Countess, by the way, has always had a great fascination for me, because she looks like a woman who "has a history". I have often seen her at Liszt's matinées, and from what I hear of her, she is such a type of woman as I suppose only exists in Europe, and such as the heroines of foreign novels are modelled upon...She is always attired in black, and is utterly careless in dress, yet nothing can conceal her innate elegance of figure. Her face is pallid and her hair dark. She makes an impression of icy coldness and at the same time of tropical heat. The pride of Lucifer to the world in general - entire abandonment to the individual. I meet her often in the park, as she walks along trailing her "sable garments like the night", and surrounded by her four beautiful boys - as Count S. says, "each handsomer than the other". They have such romantic faces! Dark eyes and dark curling hair. The eldest is about fourteen and the youngest five...

The youngest of those handsome boys was Alexander von Meyendorff (1869-1964). His wide-ranging manuscript essay on the Liszt-Meyendorff correspondence, included with this lot, appears to have been intended as an introduction to a projected, but never realised, foreign-language edition of the letters by C. Bertram Thompson, who had acquired through the antiquarian booksellers Maggs the letters sold at the 1934 auction. Apparently unpublished, it contains, in addition to its vivid and detailed descriptions of the Meyendorffs' family life in Weimar, a unique analysis of the relationship between the Olga von Meyendorff and Liszt, and many invaluable eye-witness recollections concerning the composer, who came to be regarded as a surrogate father.

LITERATURE:

The Letters of Franz Liszt to Olga von Meyendorff 1871-1886, trans. William R. Tyler, with an introduction by Edward N. Waters (Dumbarton Oaks, 1979); Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Final Years 1861-1886 (New York, 1996), passim