16 To M. Pacini, Music Publisher in Paris
[Autograph in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet at Valentigney.]
My Dear Monsieur Pacini,
In two or three days at latest from now you will receive the manuscript for which you asked me for the book of the Hundred and One. [A collective work with contributions by celebrities of the day.] Mr. Hugot has kindly undertaken to bring it to you.
As the title implies, it is an Etude (di Bravura) after Paganini. [Bravura Studies on Paganini’s Capricci, arranged for the pianoforte, brought out by Haslinger, Vienna, in 1839. A second, newly arranged edition, dedicated to Clara Schumann, “Grandes Etudes de Paganini,” was brought out by Breitkopf and Hartel in 1851.] You will oblige me by recommending the engraver to engrave it very spaciously. In addition, you had better, I think, reprint directly afterwards this Etude facilitee, which I have also sent you. This second arrangement is by M. Schumann, a young composer of very great merit. It is more within the reach of the general public, and also more exact than my paraphrase.
Many apologies for having kept you waiting so long for such a small thing, and kind remembrances to Emilien.
Yours affectionately,
F. Liszt
Please send the corrected proofs of this study to Haslinger, musical editor to the Court, at Graben, Vienna.
I must have at least two corrected proofs. Prego! Prego!! [I beg!] leave only such mistakes as are absolutely necessary in order that an edition may be supposed to be correct.
Padua, September 30th, 1838
17. To Breitkopf and Hartel.
[This is the first of the Liszt letters extant in the archives of the firm.]
I am really grieved, gentlemen, at the trouble you have been good enough to take about these unlucky Symphonies, and I hardly know how to express my acknowledgments. As I have already had the honor of telling you, Mr. Mori had been previously engaged to publish these Symphonies, and, as the steps you have taken have not been crowned with success, I will keep to this first publisher, with whom I have every reason to be satisfied up to now.
You can then publish this work in two or three months from now. [Pianoforte scores of the C minor and Pastoral Symphonies of Beethoven.] Only it is essential that I should correct the last proof, so that the edition may be absolutely correct. I also wish to add the fingering to several passages, to make them easier for amateurs. Be so good, therefore, as to send me, through the Embassy (or by any other opportunity which is not too expensive), two proofs to Rome, where I shall be in about twelve days, and where I expect to remain till the middle of March.
I hope, gentlemen, that you will not have cause to regret the obliging advances that you have made to me in this matter, and for which I am sincerely grateful to you. If you will be so good as to add to the proofs of the Beethoven Symphonies such of the songs of Beethoven (or Weber) as you would like me to transcribe for piano solo, I will then give you a positive answer as to that little work, which I shall be delighted to do for you, but to which I cannot assent beforehand, not knowing of which songs you are the proprietors. If “Leyer und Schwert” was published by you, I will do that with pleasure. I think that these songs, or at any rate four or five of them, would be rather satisfactory for the piano.
Accept, gentlemen, the expression of my high esteem.
F. Liszt
Florence, January 3rd, 1839