This second volume includes a
considerable number of business letters to his several publishers. In
one of these he confides to Dr. Haertel his plan of collecting and
revising his musical criticisms, and publishing them in two volumes.
But as this letter was, a few months later, followed by a similar one
addressed to the publisher Wigand, who subsequently printed the
essays, it is to be inferred that Breitkopf & Haertel, though assured
of the future of Schumann's compositions, doubted the financial value
of his musical essays--an attitude pardonable at a time when there was
still a ludicrous popular prejudice against literary utterances by a
musician. In 1883, however, after Wigand had issued a third edition of
the "Collected Writings on Music and Musicians" (which have also been
translated into English by Mrs. Ritter), Breitkopf & Haertel atoned for
their error by purchasing the copyright.
Schumann's letters to his publishers show that he used to suggest his
own terms, which were commonly acceded to without protest. For his
famous quintet he asked twenty louis d'or, or about $100; for
"Paradise and the Peri," $500; the piano concerto, $125; Liederalbum,
op.
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