[...] My kindest thanks for your ready consent to acquiesce unreservedly in my wishes respecting the publication of The Mastersingers. I believe that you are also doing very right by your business interests, for the old-fashioned methods of publication are ill-adapted to my more recent works. It is just because I am prudent that I look round for new ways of showing my work to the public in the right light. And in this regard there is one point worth noticing—for very obvious reasons I have the genuine musical and journalistic fraternity against me. On the other hand, I have the genuine public for me, and, happily, the most important section, the theatre-going public. It must be our aim to promulgate The Mastersingers through the German theatres as quickly as possible. Consequently, the score first of all. [...]
As Bülow's time is exceptionally taken up at present, he himself advised me to get Tausig to do a big complete pianoforte arrangement for really good pianists. Accordingly, the latter has declared himself ready to complete the work (already begun by him) with all diligence. The portions, as completed, are always to be sent promptly to me, to look over and then place them in your hands. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 621