First of all I want to thank you for your cordial letter of
January 10, from which I note that you would have no objections to
signing a contract which is based on the contract formula which
Edward B. Marks Corporation (Mr. Greissle) uses and, therefore, I am
asking Mr. Greissle to be so kind as to forward to me a copy of the
regular Marks contract form to which I will add our specific points.

So that you will know the exact date of my departure for Europe,
please note that I will leave the New York airport on January 25, and
that I will return to the United States not later that April 1;
however, I might even return 10 days before that date. Before going
to Europe, and before sending you the contract for your signature, I
should like to hear your personal comments with reference to the
following.

I have been taking over, “with one of the advisors“, the problem
upon which we have been corresponding for the past several months, and
I have obtained a somewhat different insight in the matter. First, I
feel I should explain something which was not entirely clear to me at
the beginning. The whole basis of the renewal system in the copyright
law of the United States assumes that the author or composer will renew
his own copyright – not only he may but he must. Having made the renewal,
he may assign his rights to either the original publisher or to some
other publisher. The courts systematically refuse to admit that the
composer can assign his rights for the full 56 years to the original pub-
lisher in the original contract. He can only assign the rights which he
has, and those rights are for the original period of 28 years. When these
28 years have elapsed, the composer or author has the right under the law
to renew his copyright in his work and, having renewed it, he may assign
these rights to any firm or persons he wishes. The original publisher,
however, is specifically refused the right of renewing a copyright and,
therefore, C. F. Peters could not, even if there had been no war, renew
the copyright on your Op. 16. I am telling you this merely so that you
will understand that the firm which I now own is actually in no way re-
sponsible for the claim which you have made that the copyright was not
renewed for you.

Disregarding everything which is mentioned above, I should like to
obtain from you a brief handwritten or signed statement by you to the
effect that you consider the revised version of your Op. 16 an outgrowth
of your own development and, consequently, an improvement over the
original version. My wife and I heard the original version as performed
last season by the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of
Mr. Mitropoulos, and it seemed to us that the orchestration was ideally
fitted to the musical effect you intended to archieve. Since I have not
heard this new version, I am not in a position to say whether it is
musically better or whether it is simply a compromise worked out so that
you might obtain further protection on the composition. In the latter
case, I feel that I should point out that, as we both know, there is
always the danger that any compromise with artistic values is dangerous;
that, in all probability, no real advantage will be obtained in a commercial
sense, since conductors and audiences will instinctively prefer the original
version and will continue to perform it. There is nothing that anyone can
do to stop them from doing so. The existence of a second version less
perfect than the original will thus only tend to reflect against the artis-
tic sincerity of both the publisher and the composer.

Naturally, if you can assure me that the revised version of your
Op. 16 is indeed an improvement over the original, this situation will
not exist, and I shall be very happy to continue with the arrangements
made thus far in our correspondence. If you cannot, however, give me this
statement, it seems to me that we should reconsider the whole matter before
continuing further with it.

With kindest personal regards, and hoping you have recovered from
your recent illness, I remain, with great esteem,