Once again hearty thanks for your goodwill and meritorious conducting of Wagner.
F. Liszt
199. To Breitkopf and Hartel
Dear Sirs,
Your communication to me of the 25th October has been very much delayed, owing to my change of residence several times during the past weeks. There is surely no need to assure you that I never thought of causing any unpleasantness at all to any one—more especially judicially [The publisher of "Tannhauser" had tried to make out that Liszt's arrangement of the March was a "piracy.">[ In particular my connection with your very honorable house for more than 30 years has ever been most simple and honest. This is also shown by my two quoted letters of the 17th February and 3rd April, 1853, with reference to the publication by your firm of the "Tannhauser and Lohengrin pieces," whose publication at that time I was quite "the agreement" with Richard Wagner in suggesting.
Certainly I could not, without injuring the Tannhauser March, go all through the original, loading it with shakes, and here and there adding arpeggios. However, if "connoisseurs" will look through my transcription in detail, they will easily discover that neither the variation on the principal theme, nor the modulating of the second, nor in any manner the whole setting of the pianoforte arrangement, could be found fault with as a "piracy."
With much esteem,
Very sincerely yours,
F. Liszt
November 12th, 1876