Most honoured Sir and friend,
I think it is now time for me to come to some sensible arrangement with the firm of Schott & Sons, whom you yourself now personify.
You are already familiar not only with the difficulties which, from my point of view, have stood in the way of an edition of the music of my latest work “Parsifal”, but also with the reasons which persuaded me to consider taking special measures here. It is a question, therefore, of indicating the simplest way of reaching an agreement between us. I shall show you this means without further ado, by making the following proposal.
My chief concern is to prevent a theatrical performance of “Parsifal” from taking place anywhere other than Bayreuth. Since France and Italy are in a cartel with Germany, and since Belgium and England are already provided for by your firm, it is more especially Holland which worries me, since some impresario there could well permit himself a joke at my expense. I would ask you, therefore, to try to secure the copyright to my works - at least as far as stage performances are concerned - perhaps also having regard for Denmark and Sweden, in which case there will no longer be any obstacle in the way of your publishing the full score, too: in this way I shall be opening up a profitable market to you to the extent that I declare that I should have no objection to performances of individual sections of the work, of whatever length, in the concert hall, and, for my own part, would be happy to renounce a fee for the same. In this way I should secure for you unlimited copyright “of the melody”, and it seems to me that it could then be left to your ingenuity to safeguard this in the same way, perhaps, as Fürstner did in Berlin when he sued the firm of Breitkopf & Härtel over a fantasia on “O Star of Eve” from “Tannhäuser” which they had published 37 years previously, and was so successful that I had to come to Härtel’s assistance by declaring that Liszt had been authorized to publish this piece as a result of my special permission as private publisher of “Tannhäuser”.
Of the vocal score I can already offer you the first act, ready for engraving; the whole thing will be finished by the end of the year. We shall need the full score for a short time in order to copy out the parts; nevertheless, this, too, is completely at your disposal up to the time of the performances (at the latest).
I would set the purchase price at one hundred thousand marks, plus cancellation of all my outstanding debts with you. You offered me 40,000 marks for my exclusive account for the rights to the vocal score after it had been marketed for a period of three years. I should now like you to pay me this sum of 40,000 marks at once, upon relinquishment of the copyright, and agree to your paying the balance of 60,000 marks in three instalments from the end of December 1882 onwards.
Lest you consider my demands excessive, I would ask you to consider the example of an English publisher who believes it in order to pay Herr Gounod 100,000 francs for an oratorio (!). I think that my final and - I believe - my finest work may well compare favourably with that of this somewhat pallid Paris maestro! -
I cannot conclude these lines, however, without thanking you personally, my most honoured Sir and friend, for such manifold demonstrations of the most willing support and kindness, which I wanted to apprise you of here, together with my most sincere good wishes.
Yours respectfully,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 487