Klára Hamburger
Madame Liszt
The Correspondence between Liszt and his Mother

[...]

Liszt's correspondence with his mother does not offer as much in family gossip or of musical interest as his letters to his daughter Cosima or to his granddaughter Daniela.¹⁵ Yet I should report on how this collection of letters, given the authentic, original texts and the ^__ albeit broken ^__ reciprocity adds extra hues to the portrait of mother and son, the more so since their relationship was out of the ordinary. There is really no comparable documentation in the papers other great composers left behind.

Franz Liszt was a good son. He loved his mother. He mentioned her with tenderness and gratefully in a will dated September 14th 1860.¹⁶ Anna Maria Liszt, née Lager, 39 years of age, moved to Paris after the sudden death of her husband, into an alien ambience, taking up an entirely new role. She turned into Madame Liszt, although she had no French, becoming the confidante of the young travelling performer of growing reputation, taking care of him and of his affairs. Liszt maintained his mother from his boyhood to her death at the age of 78. He corresponded regularly with her though rarely saw her. The majority of the letters he wrote his mother are intimate and loving. Occasionally their relationship was troubled, but that was due to his mistresses of rank. Early in the forties, at a time when his mother had charge of his three children, Liszt, incited by Marie d'Agoult, was about to send his mother home to Austria. In the event his relationship with the Countess cooled, and he continued to entrust his children to his mother, who enjoyed his full confidence.

Anna defended her son when tout Paris gossipped that he was living with a married Russian princess and that he was about to abandon his life as a virtuoso. She wrote to him, anxious at first, although she would have loved to see him settled at the side of a lady beyond reproach in every respect: "bleib noch garçon und laß dich nicht viel ein mit hohe Damen du hast ja Lehrgeld gegeben."¹⁷ (Stay single and don't get mixed up with snooty ladies you have already paid your fees). But she wrote nicely to Princess Carolyne de Sayn-Wittgenstein, consoling her for her confiscated fortune, assuring her that it was love alone that was important.¹⁸ The Princess did not reckon the "mother-in-law" as her chief foe, but Marie, the children's mother. At first she wrote fawning letters to Anna, signing them "loving daughter", but things changed as soon as more suitable means offered themselves to alienate the children from their mother. At times like that the musician and the Princess, in complete cahoots ^__ without flinching ^__ put their knives not only into those affected, but also into the loving Granny, as her letters show.¹⁹ His complete letters reveal that in 1850, when Liszt asked his mother to come to Weimar, he did so at the instigation of the Princess, for purposes of a tough financial accounting.²⁰ At that time and in 1855, rightly considering the removal of her beloved grandchildren to be cruel, and then again in 1856/57 when Blandine Liszt returned to Paris, "Madame Liszt" even dared to contradict her son, of course in vain.²¹ Unpleasant confrontations between Carolyne and Anna also occurred, over which a deeply offended "Madame Liszt" complained to her son.²² A few of Liszt's very strong letters to his mother, which La Mara omitted, were the fruit of this family conflict.²³ The old lady had to move from a home shared with her grandchildren to somewhere more modest and solitary, handing over her possessions. With a view to putting an end to the Paris connections, the Princess later invited her to move in with them in Weimar. In 1849 Anna Liszt still dreamt "und solltest du einst [...] die furstinn legitimement besitzen, dann hoffe ich auch daß du nicht mehr so entfernt sein wirst von diese Kinder als auch von mir. vielleicht auch selbst in einen Haus ich mit die Kinder wohnen und du mit deiner Gattin."²⁴ ("and should you in the future … make an honest woman of the Princess then I hope that you will no longer be so far from these children and from me. Perhaps I shall live in the same house with the children and you with your wife.") When she became aware of the real aims and methods of the Princess, she preferred to give up her much missed son, choosing independent solitude in Paris for the days of her old age.

[...]

Liszt was known for his sarcasm and irony. No other relationship shows however that he could charm with his wit as well. La Mara took good care to excise this. Anna Liszt was a gay, cheerful soul who radiated her good humour to her surroundings. Noone else could have written to Liszt as his mother did on August 7th 1848: "dein Schreiben an mich als dieses für die Kinder hat uns große freude gemacht, und die Kinder die nun seit 15 July schon bei mir in die vacance sind, überlasen deinen brief oft mahlen und lachten mit Thränen im Augen dabei."³⁰ ("Your letter to me as well as that to the children was a great joy to us and the children who have been on holiday with me since July 15th re-read your letter time and time again, laughing with tears in their eyes.") Or on May 25th 1858: "Ich wünsche dass du mir so heiter, selbst lustig in deinen Schreiben seyn magst wie dieß letzte mal. Ich habe von herzen gelacht bei Durchlesung."³¹ ("I wish you were always as gay, even joyful in your letters as this last time. I laughed heartily as I read it.") La Mara excised those charming lines in which Liszt playfully mocks the way his mother, in her French, systematically confuses voiced and unvoiced consonants in the manner of her native German dialect. The passage, impossible to translate, runs as follows: "Schade dass Sie so eine ein-gefleischte Pariserin geworden sind 'barlez-fous vranzé, Matame? [="parlez-vous français, Madame" ^__ :…] 'adentez et addenzion' ^__ 'emprassez' les enfans et moi aussi avec, quoique je sois […] un honteux ^__ sans honte ^__ mais trčs bon enfant et trčs attaché fils au fond."³²

[...]

Mme Liszt was fond of icecream and Liszt sometimes sent her extra money for the purpose. Schiller was her favourite poet⁴¹ and she was much moved by Les Misérables⁴². She drew the attention of Liszt to pamphlets on Görgey, Batthyány and Kossuth by Bertalan Szemere, an exile who was a friend, and she sent them to him.⁴³ As long as she was able she attended recitals, always accompanied. Thus she heard Paganini and Rubinstein⁴⁴ play, and she wrote to Liszt about the Paris success of his pupils.⁴⁵ She sympathized deeply with the victims of war and revolution, writing to her son in 1849, after the defeat of the Hungarian War of Independence: "wie hättest du können gleichgültig bleiben mit deinen gefühlen?"⁴⁶ ("How could you have remained indifferent in your sentiments?") Her piety was great, nevertheless she opposed any commitment to the Church by her son, perhaps because her husband whom she loved and to whom she was true for forty years as a widow, had almost joined the Franciscans as a youth. In 1858, when Liszt became their confrater in Pest, she wrote him: "ich muss dir aufrichtig sagen, ich war gar nicht enchanter […] was hast du denn mit die Franciscains zu thun […".⁴⁷ ("I must honestly tell you, I was not enchanted in the least. What business have you with the Franciscans?") When, in 1865, she found out that Liszt had taken minor orders in Rome, she burst out crying. Here, as a conclusion to this short dual portrait sketch, is Anna Liszt's last surviving letter to her son, with the French words in italics, in keeping with the different scripts for different languages in the original.

Paris le 4 Mai 1865⁴⁸

Mein liebes Kind,

Man spricht oft so lange von einer Sache bis sie sich in Wirklichkeit zeigt, so ist es mit deiner jetzigen Standes-Veränderung^{49 __} Öfter sprach man hier in die journeaux dass du den geistlichen Stand gewählt hast wo ich sehr dawider kämpfte, wenn man mir davon sprach. Dein Schreiben von 27n avril⁵⁰ welches ich gesternerhielt erschütterte mich, ich brach in Thränen aus. Verzeih mir, ich war wirklich nicht gefasst auf solche Nachricht von dir. Nach Überlegung (man sagt die Nacht bringt Conseil) ergab ich mich in deinen, als auch den Willen Gottes, und ward ruhiger, denn alle guten Eingebungen kommen von Gott und dieser Entschluss den du nun gefasst hast ist nicht ein Entschluss vulgaire. Gott gebe dir Gnade im zu seinen Wohlgefallen zu erfüllen. Es ist eine grosse Sache, aber du hast dich auch schon seit langer Zeit dazu bereitet au monte Mario⁵¹ ich merkte aus deine Briefe an mich seit einiger Zeit, sie lauteten so schön, so religieuse, das ich oft sehr gerührt war und weihte dir einige Thränen en lisant. Und nun in diesen letzten mein Kind tu me demande pardon ^__ oh! ich habe dir nichts zu verzeihen deine guten Eigenschaften übertrafen viel, viel deine Jugendfehler, du hast deine Pflichten immer streng in jeder Hinsicht erfüllt wodurch du mir Ruhe und Freude gewahrtest, ich kann leben ruhig und ohne Kummer, was ich nur dir zu verdanken habe. Lebe nun glücklich, mein liebes Kind, und wenn der Seegen einer schwachen sterblichen Mutter etwas bewirken kann bei Gott, so sey tausendmal gesegnet von mir. Ollivier est touché de ta resolution et te tés quelques lignes si amicale a lui dans mon lettre, aussi, lui il restra toujours le méme pour toi.⁵²

Baron Larrey⁵³ kam gestern mich sehen. Er las in die journeaux von dir. Er wollte wissen ob es wahr sei il me charger des Compliement et d'amietiée sincere pour toi, Rominge⁵⁴ aussi kam um zu wissen die Wahrheit. Ich werde nun viele visites haben jetzt über dieses évenement.

Adieu mein liebes Kind, du machst mir die Hoffnung dich dieses Jahr noch hier zu sehen möchte Gott dass dieses Versprechen in Erfüllung geht, oder gehen kann.⁵⁵ Ich befehle dich den lieben Gott und verbleibe

deine
treue Mutter
Anna Liszt.

Wenn du mir schreibst nihm schwarze Tinte und eine bessere Feder, meine Augen sind Schwach.

[...]

NOTES

15	^	Klára Hamburger: Franz Liszt. Lettres à Cosima et à Daniela. op. cit.; Klára Hamburger: "Liszt, Father and Grandfather. Unpublished letters to Cosima and Daniela von Bülow." In: The New Hungarian Quarterly, No. 121, vol. 32, Spring 1991; pp. 118–131; Klára Hamburger: "Zur Bedeutung der unveröffentlichten Familienbriefe für das Thematische Verzeichnis Franz Liszts." In: Stud. mus., 34, 1992. pp. 435–443.
16	^	Franz Liszts Briefe, hrsg. von La Mara, 5 vol. No 127. p. 55. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1909.
17	^	The first letter in the volume under preparation: A 25, dated 1849, Feb. 13. In the Richard-Wagner-Archiv: RWA II Cg, 21. The second: A 18, 1847, Dec. 9., G[oethe- und] S[chiller]-Archiv, Weimar, 59/22,13.
18	^	Carolyne de Sayn-Wittgenstein, née Iwanow-ska, 1819–1887. The letter's data: AW 4, 1849 March 8. RWA, II Cg, 67
19	^	See A 31, 1855 Sept. 3., RWA II Cg, 27/1–2 and as listed in Note 21.
20	^	See F 72, 1849. Oc t. 22. RWA II, Cb-1,45
21	^	Note 19 and [in the volume] A 40, 1856. Dec. 29, RWA, II Cg, 36; A 41, 1857 Feb. 9, RWA II Cg, 37; A 42, 1857. Feb. 17, RWA II Cg, 38/1–2.
22	^	Note 19.
23	^	Jacques Vier, op.cit: XXVIII, 1850. March 25. XXIX, 1850 July 15. [In the volume under preparation:] F 87, 1856 Nov. 14, RWA II Cb, 120; F 88, 1857. Jan. 2, RWA II Ca-2, 58/1–2.
24	^	A 29, 1849 Aug. 1., RWA II Cg, 25.
30	^	A 20, 1848 Aug 7. GSA 59/22, 13.
31	^	A 53, 1858 May 25, RWA II Cg, 46. It refers to: F 94, 1858 May 8, RWA II Ca-2, 69/1–2.
32	^	F 82, 1854 Apr. 20, RWA Ca-2, 53.
41	^	Friedrich von Schiller, 1759–1805.
42	^	Anna Liszt's letter to Blandine Liszt–Ollivier, 1862. July 8.: Bibl. Nat. Paris, N.a.fr.25.179, tome V. Klára Hamburger: "Madame Liszt", Stud. mus. 27, 1985, p. 348.
43	^	A 36a, 1856 March 12, RWA II Cg, 32/2; A 60, 1859 Aug. 12, RWA II Cg, 53. Bertalan Szemere, 1812–1869, Home Secretary in the first Hungarian Government responsible to Parliament. He and his family, in exile in Paris, were Anna Liszt's friends. His pamphlets on Count Lajos Batthyány (1806– 1848) Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894) and Arthur Görgey (1818–1914) were published by Hoffmann in Hamburg.
44	^	A 5, 1832. March 25, RWA II Cg, 5; A 44, 1857 Apr. 24, RWA II Cg, 39. Niccolò Paganini, 1782–1840, Anton Rubinstein, 1829–1894.
45	^	Hans Bronsart von Schellendorf, 1830-1913. A 41, 1857 Febr. 9, RWA II Cg, 37; A 42, 1857 Febr. 17, RWA II Cg, 38; A 43, 1857 March 30, RWA II Cg II. Hans von Bülow, 1830-1894, A 58, 1859 March 29, RWA II Cg, 50. Carl Tausig, 1841–1871, A 58 as above. 66. Ingeborg Starck; v. Bronsart, 1840–1913, A 58 as above, 1860 Apr. 2, RWA II Cg, 59.
46	^	A 24, 1849 Jan. 26, RWA II Cg, 20.
47	^	A 53, 1858 May 25, RWA II Cg, 48.
48	^	A 70, GSA 59/22, 13. This letter was written after a gap of almost four years, at least, the last letter before it was dated July 1861
49	^	Liszt took minor orders on April 25th 1865
50	^	He writes beautifully about this to his mother. Vier, XLIX, pp. 137–139.
51	^	Since June 20th 1863 Liszt had been a resident of the Madonna del Rosario Convent on Monte Mario.
52	^	In the same letter Liszt assured his liberal son-in-law Ollivier that his sympathies for him were in no way affected by this step. Ollivier in turn reciprocated also via Anna Liszt. He repeated his assurances in a letter to Princess Wittgenstein dated May 31st 1865 (in: Anne Troisier de Diaz op. cit. p. 56) adding that Liszt's step had not surprised him. What had really upset Anna Liszt (according to Ollivier) was the thought of Liszt wearing that dreadful tricorn.
53	^	Hippolyte Larrey (1808–1869) Physician to Napoleon III, his father was a famous surgeon in the Grande Armée.
54	^	An unknown acquaintance
55	^	This wish was not fulfilled. Anna Liszt passed away on February 6th 1866. By the time Liszt arrived in Paris on March 5th 1866 (for the performance of the Gran Mass) he was only able to visit her grave in the Cimitière Montparnasse.

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Klára Hamburger
is Secretary General of the Hungarian Liszt Society. Her many publications on Liszt include a biography in English, published by Corvina Books (1987).