My dear Sir,
There's to be a concert — consequently an end to tranquillity! I knew it!
Well, well!
Your arrangements as regards the time and the rehearsals are excellent. The smallness of the place is bad: what do you mean by the "Theatersaal" then?
If there is really to be no chorus, I beg there may be no singing at all. We will wind up with the prelude and closing scene from Tristan und Isolde — instead of the closing scene from the Meistersinger. The parts for this please ask — in my name — from Kapellmeister C. Eckert in Berlin. They belong to me, and were merely lent to him.
Accordingly the following programme: no division, but as introduction: Prelude to Lohengrin. 1. Overture to the Magic Flute. 2. A-major Symphony. 3. Prelude to the Meistersinger. 4. Prelude and Close from Tristan und Isolde. 5. Kaisermarsch.
It doesn't look very grand, but will sound all right. In any case I should like you to reserve me six good seats.
Could you also kindly take the trouble to find me good quarters? As my wife is going to meet me at Mannheim, accompanied by her eldest little daughter, I shall want, besides a sitting-room, two bedrooms with 3 beds.
I congratulate you on the good reception of your Call by the newspapers. The [Augsburg] "Allgemeine," it is true, has uttered not a word as yet — presumably for cogent reasons.
Greet our friends, and accept the very best thanks of
Yours sincerely
Richard Wagner.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner to Emil Heckel, with a Brief History of the Bayreuth Festivals, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Grant Richards, 1899), No. 12