Dearest,
Do not be astonished that I have not answered you for so long a time! I did not like to write again while in my former humour, which, besides, must have distressed you, and therefore wished to wait until I had inwardly recovered. This, to a certain degree, has taken place, and I am again in better spirits. Outward circumstances have contributed thereto; first of all Frau R. again supplied me with money; also I have found a publisher for my book. Liszt's article on Lohengrin in the Illustrirte Zeitung, which I lately read through, warmed and most thoroughly comforted me, and excited me anew to artistic activity. And it happens also now that Breitkopf and Härtel promise to print the pianoforte score of Lohengrin. I have just received their letter, which prompts me to write to you quickly and briefly. Unfortunately it does not mean money for me, because I have an old debt with Härtels which the honorarium will just wipe off. However, I am highly pleased with the affair. Now attention! Send off your pianoforte score forthwith to Härtels, with the enclosed letter to the firm: I mention to them that as yet you have received no honorarium for it, and that they would have to settle with you for your work. Write to them in the same sense. That they will pay you much for such a desperately hopeless undertaking is not to be thought of, and scarcely to be demanded. Why do you have anything to do with me?
One thing you must at once change in the pianoforte score: the second part of Lohengrin's narration in the last act must be taken out. I have for good reasons cut it for performance, and for the same good reasons it must not be printed. This cut, and a small change in the interlude immediately following (three bars instead of the incorrect two bars), you must manage thus:
[Musical example: Sein Ritter ich bin Lohengrin genannt … ritard.]
(Please arrange it in your own way!)
One thing more: I really wanted Härtels to show themselves generous and to have the score engraved. To that they have not given a positive refusal, only they wished to wait for a more favourable turn of things with regard to me, and so on, before they entered upon so costly an undertaking. Anyhow, they want a copy of the score from me. I cannot at all manage this at my own expense, and I should be loth to part altogether with my autograph score, the only tiny possession remaining to me of my work. I wonder whether old Fischer (ask him!) could get the copy which Lüttichau possesses for the price he paid for it (36 thalers)? Are you marking the instrumentation here and there in characteristic places? Do take care that the scenic remarks are the same in the pianoforte as in the full score!
Well, there's a piece of business again. J. J. Weber at last wrote to me that he would pay me an honorarium of 100 thalers for my book. Being in want of money I was about to accept, when my brother-in-law A. offered, besides the 100 thalers, to pay me another 75 thalers after the sale of 400 copies; also concerning the rights of further editions I shall come more promptly to an understanding with him. So he will print it. But, if I were compelled to live by my pen!!!
K. will, I believe, soon return to Dresden, in order to have active influence on the future movements of his family, in so far as it stands within his power. I am, as one might well imagine, thoroughly safe here. You must not ponder much more over my remarks about yourself; you must already have understood my brotherly hint. Your article on the Mangold opera has pleased me very much — not so your great attack on Bischoff: it was too much spun out, and the catchwords repeated to weariness. The bit about Krebs was very amusing; but will it do you any good? After looking into the Hamburg article on Meyerbeeriana, together with the energetic editorial remarks, as well as the notice of Schumann's Genoveva, with the somewhat vulgar attack on me, etc., etc., you will probably not insist on my withdrawing my opinion.
Besides, I have already cooked a private little dish for this place. Soon a pamphlet of mine will appear here, "A Theatre in Zurich," in which I show in a very practical manner the possibility of a theatre here which should be all the more distinctive in that it could and ought to be an original theatre. I cannot count on an immediate success, but, with good fortune, on a gradual one. I base all my courage only on the hope of practical realization. You shall have the pamphlet as soon as it is out.
Excuse my horrid scribbling; I had to write to you, and could do no better.
Salute the R.'s a thousand times! Greetings to your wife and children, and farewell — but do come soon!
Your
R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 24