It Touches Me Deeply That You Join The Gran Basilica And My
"Missa Solemnis" In This Diploma.
You may be sure, dear friend,
that I did not compose my work as one might put on a church
vestment instead of a paletot, but that it has sprung from the
truly fervent faith of my heart, such as I have felt it since my
childhood.
"Genitum, non factum" - and therefore I can truly say
that my Mass has been more prayed than composed. By Easter the
work will be published by the Royal State Printing Office at the
cost of the Government, thanks to the kind instructions of His
Excellency Minister von Bach, and I am looking forward to the
pleasure of presenting one of the first copies to the Circulus
harmonicus. The Mass has been given a second time at Prague since
I left, and, as Capellmeister Skraup writes, "with increasing
interest"; a couple more performances, in Vienna, etc., are
pending.
Pray excuse me, dear friend, for not having sent you my thanks
sooner. Your letter found me in bed, to which I am still confined
by a somewhat protracted illness, which will delay my return to
Weymar some weeks. Next week I am to begin to get out into the
air again, and I hope to be able to get away in about ten days.
At the beginning of December I shall be at Weymar, and shall then
soon come to you at Jena. -
I shall have a great deal to tell you verbally about Wagner.
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