Dear Herr Dannreuther!
You were already known to me before you approached me recently in such a pleasant manner. My best thanks for your good success, which was due to your own merit only. Indeed my hopes are centered in a new generation, now that the reasons for the decadence of the old one have become all too clear to me. But that new generation must develop just as you do, that is, music must extend far beyond simple "music-making" and include all its profundity. Try to get the incomparably beautiful essay of my young friend Professor Nietzsche in Basel. Its title is The Birth of Tragedy from Music—Leipzig, published by E. W. Fritzsch. Such a work inspires great hopes for the future and may even be highly regarded among English authors, though I do not really know what music may do to them. But they have a good classical education, are serious and thoughtful, a condition no longer to be found in Germany, as you know, except perhaps with Moltke.
My wife well remembers the Meistersinger evening in your company, and returns your greeting. I shall be glad to hear from you soon again.
Faithfully yours,
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 315