If, as I venture to flatter myself, my arrangement of the Symphonies satisfies you, I should be tempted to propose to you, for next year, a similar work on the Quartets, those magnificent jewels in Beethoven's crown which the piano-playing public has not yet appropriated in a measure suitable to its musical culture.
But I really fear to exhaust your patience by giving you proofs of mine…consider therefore this project of the Quartets as not having been proposed if it seems to you inopportune, and pray accept, my dear sir, the expression of my very sincere and devoted sentiments.
F. Liszt
(Monte Mario, Madonna del Rosario)
P.S.—As it has been impossible for me to hunt out here a copyist who will fulfil the conditions that may reasonably be exacted (the one whom I employed pretty much last year divides his time between the prison and the public-house!), I am compelled to send you the manuscript such as it is, with many apologies for its badly written appearance. To make a fair copy of it someone with plenty of experience is needed; and I can safely recommend you such an one in Mr. Carl Gotze ("Member or Vice-director of the theater chorus") at Weimar. He is accustomed of old to my writing, and would make the copy of the Symphonies with intelligence and care.
N.B.—A copy of the Orchestral Score of the Symphonies will be a great help to the work of the copyist of my manuscript, for exactness in nuances, division of parts and indication of the instruments.
In any case it will be necessary for me to revise the final proofs. .—.
Let me add, in conclusion, that I shall be glad to receive, with the proofs or even sooner, a copy of my "Etudes d'execution transcendante," and also those "d'apres Paganini" (Breitkopf and Hartel edition), which I have promised to give to an excellent pianist here, Mr. Sgambati, who is most capable of playing them well in public;—and, besides these, a copy of my "Ave Maria" (for chorus with Organ accompaniment) which is shortly to be performed here.
20. To Dr. Franz Brendel
Dear Friend,