My dear Herr Brahms,
Please accept my thanks for the manuscript which I have just received and which, you will agree, is not distinguished by any outward elegance, since the Paris copy was very badly done up at the time; but! - quite apart from any sentimental reasons - it is of great value to me because it is more complete than the copy which Cornelius put a thick line through.
I am very sorry not to be able to send you the full score of the Mastersingers which you asked for, but I have no more copies of it left, in spite of repeated deliveries from Schott’s, so that I can offer you nothing better than a copy of the full score of the Rhinegold; without waiting for your consent, I am sending it to you today, since it is distinguished by the fact that it is a de luxe edition which, in its day, was resplendently displayed at the Vienna World Exhibition by Schott’s. I have sometimes been told that my music is like theatrical scenery: the Rhinegold must suffer grievously under the weight of this reproach. None the less, it may not be without interest for you to follow the remaining scores of the Ring of the Nibelung and see how I have been able to base all kinds of musical themes upon the foundations of the theatrical scenery that has been set up here. In this sense the Rhinegold may perhaps be found worthy of your kind attention.
I am, Sir, most respectfully,
Your very obedient and grateful servant,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 431