[...] The Mastersingers nears completion. I hope to finish the composition of the second act this month. I shall not leave my present quarters till the third act and, consequently, the whole, is complete. I hope to bring off a model first performance in the spring. After that, my most popular work is to be available at once for performance at all theatres.
Directly after the full score, I want published an [...] easy and serviceable pianoforte arrangement for singers and theatres, and I have just written to ask my friend Esser to do this. I count on Bülow for a really worthy model pianoforte arrangement, but for this he needs time, so that the arrangement cannot be published till later. Bülow places now at your disposal the (two-handed) Overture and the "Gathering of the Mastersingers," from which you may judge the masterly character of this quite unique pianoforte arrangement. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 619