In receipt of the various statements dated February 2 and your very
cordial letter dated February 5, I want to thank you for your communica-
tions.

In connection with your Op. 16, please note that during my last Europ-
ean visit in December 1950, I was able to recover some business papers which
were kept at my firm in Leipzig. After looking through these papers✎ , I im-
mediately went to the Copyright Office in Washington ✎ , and I expect to receive
their report in approximately two weeks and hope that I will be able to give
you then some very good news concerning the present protection of the original
version of your Op. 16. At that time, I will also refer to your “Improved Ver-
sion“ of Op. 16.

In order not to waste any additional time in connection with your Op. 47,
I would like to answer immediately your letter dated February 5. In your last
paragraph of this letter you referred to your honesty, and please permit me to
state that this certainly was not necessary; on the other hand, the reason for
having a contract is to put something on paper before somebody changes his
mind, and in this connection I take the liberty of calling to your attention
that when we first discussed the question of a contract I suggested to you that
you should send me the manuscript of the contract which suits you; however, you
answered me by stating that you prefer that we use the E. B. Marks Con-
tract. Inasmuch as I did not have this document printed yet, I thought a few
weeks ago that if Arnold Schoenberg is satisfied with this agreement then nat-
urally all other composers would be happy to sign such a contract; and, there-
fore, I went ahead and wrote to Mr. Greissle and he forwarded to me the E. B.
Marks document on which I have crossed out all the items which he told me he
had crossed out on previous contracts with you. I then went ahead and printed
this agreement, crossed out on two copies all the items which Dr. Greissle
wrote me he had eliminated; and, in addidion to it, I crossed out also some
other items which I believe were unneccessary. Now, after you told me that the
E. B. Marks Contract met with your approval, you write to me, in your letter
dated February 5, that you cannot sign this contract, so you see, it has nothing
to do with honesty when a publisher asks for a contract with a composer; however

he has to protect himself against similar changes of mind as we both just
went through.

I am herewith enclosing two other sets of the contract form and have
crossed out everything which you suggested, except the item which you men-
tioned under paragraph No. 5, as this paragraph certainly must be included
in a contract due to the fact that either I publish this work or I don't;
if we would leave this paragraph out, I would have no protection at all as
a publisher. So, in case you prefer to cross out this paragraph marked
No. 5, I believe we both would be much better off if you would go ahead and
offer this work to someone else.

This above-mentioned paragraph clarifies your Nos. 1, 2, and 5. Refer-
ring now to your point, No. 4: I accept your proposition that you do not
want to “admit the advertising without royalties.“ From the enclosed forms,
you will notice that I crossed out the question of review and other compli-
mentary copies without paying you a royalty.

This leaves us to answer Nos. 3 and 6 of your letter, and I am sorry to
state that you misunderstood these two points, namely, the contract says that
royalty is to be paid on the basis of the regular trade rates within the United
States and Canada, but naturally, this means only that the royalty is based on
the prices of the copies for which these copies are sold in the United States
and in Canada, which naturally means: royalty on copies sold anywhere in the
world and to protect you completely, I suggest that a royalty of 20 cents (10 %
of the U. S. A. retail price = 20 cents) for each copy be paid instead of 10 %;
the reason for this is that copies to Europe are sold by me for less than the
established retail price, so that if I would give you 10 % on copies sold to
Europe, this certainly would be an amount less than 20 cents. I do hope that
you realize that a royalty of 20 cents is a much better protection for you, and
therefore I mentioned again 20 cents on the enclosed contract; however, if you
cannot follow my reasoning, which is for your protection, then I suggest that
you cross out the “cents“ on the contract and replace it with the “10 %“.

Inasmuch as you are unable to go to a notary public, it certainly will be
all right if your pupil, Mr. Richard Hoffmann, will witness your signature.
This brings up the first paragraph of your letter dated February 5, where you
explained to me that Mr. Hoffmann is a pupil of yours who helps you with your
correspondence and that, accordingly, I may direct letters signed by him to
you. If a letter is signed by somebody and I am answering this letter, I cer-
tainly have to write this letter to the person who has signed the previous com-
munication; furthermore, in the few previous letters which I received from
Mr. Hoffmann, I felt that he was not guided in his communications to me by the
motto: “C'est le ton qui fait la musique,“ and I know you would never have
written such types of letters, and therefore I was never in the position of an-
swering any of Mr. Hoffmann's letter by addressing them to you.

When I was in Washington last week, I checked up on the question if the
music of an American composer is completely protected if the engraving has
been done in England. It certainly is; your information refers only to text-
books which have been printed and published outside of the U. S. A.

Attached to my last letter were the various questions which Dr. Hill ,
from the Library of Congress, raised in connection with your Op. 47. As soon
as you return to me the signed contracts which are enclosed, I will return
one to you with my signature and will send to you at the same time two copies
of the “proof“ of your Op. 47. One copy has notifications concerning the remarks
in connection with Dr. Hill's letter, and in both copies are questions of our
engraver to be clarified by you. Then you can clearly indicate on one set of
proofs any additional changes you may want to make and clarify questions which
were not clear to the engraver, and return to me both proofs and the photostat
copy of the manuscript, which I will mail to you at the same time. I will
then proceed with the corrections in accordance with your correct proofs.
When you see these proofs you undoubtedly will be convinced that the engraver
which I selected is not “the least expensive engraver“ – I just published
several volumes of Organ Music by Flor Peeters, the Belgian composer, who made
the statement after receiving his copies that none of his music, published by
several publishers all over the world, has been so beautifully engraved as his
1950 PETERS EDITION publications, and furthermore, that the paper on which the
music is printed and which is manufactured especially for my publications, is
far more beautiful than the paper used by any of his other publishers. I as-
sure you that as soon as I have received from you the correct proofs, I will
have the changes made and will have the copies printed immediately in the U. S. A.;
I would then send you 50 complimentary copies; and, in order to avoid any mis-
understanding, I will even pay the royalty on these 50 free copies – which means
that I am paying you royalty on all thousand copies of the First Printing.

Encouraged by your last cordial letter, I am looking forward to hear from
you that we now both agree on all matters concerning your Op. 47.

With my kindest regards, I remain