Esteemed Friend!
I should like to have a list of the most meritorious, consequently the most excellent, musicians of the Grand Ducal Court Orchestra. To whom shall I apply? . . .
I should like you to ask whichever conductor of the orchestra you consider most capable of deciding this point, an opinion which will be treated with the most absolute confidence. Out of six orchestras, which are unemployed during these months, I intend to form my big orchestra. . . .
With the most cordial greetings,
Yours faithfully,
Richard Wagner.
Source: The Story of Bayreuth as Told in the Bayreuth Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Caroline V. Kerr (Small, Maynard and Company, 1912), No. 61