In receipt of your letter dated 12 July, I want to thank you first of all for your confidence and your interest in Peters Edition as expressed in your letter.

The situation of Universal Edition is completely familiar to me, and I do not see at the present time any way of transferring all your works from Universal Edition to Peters Edition. However, I expect to be in Vienna in Spring 1951 and, after my return to New York, I will be able to report to you the details and results of my visit.

With reference to your Postscript, I understand that your Fantasy for Violin and Piano (1949) is the work which received its first performance in New York City during the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society in New York City last December. May I assure you that I should be very proud indeed to include your Fantasy for Violin and Piano in the Peters Edition Catalogue. Permit me to state that I have always believed in you and the importance of your musical theories and ideas – and, with the great interest my father showed towards you as an individual and as a composer, I should be honored if you would permit me to continue in his footsteps also from this viewpoint.

Inasmuch as I have recently built up my sales organization throughout the world in such a way that I will automatically send one copy each (a total of 400 copies) of my new copyright publications to music magazines for review, to concert artists so that they may include it in their concert programs, to music departments of universities and to conservatories for including it in their required teaching or reference material, I am making you the following proposal: instead of asking you to deduct these 400 free copies from our royalty agreement, I would pay you – upon receipt of the manuscript – 10 % of the retail price of these 400 copies. For example, let us say that I would set a retail price of $ 2.50 for each copy of your Fantasy for Violin and Piano, then 10 % of the total amount of $ 1,000.00 would be $ 100.00 which I would send to you in advance. This would mean that if I make a first printing of 1,000 copies of your Fantasy, I would pay you upon receipt of the manuscript a royalty of 10 % of the retail price of 400 copies (which I would distribute free of charge to the above-mentioned musicians) and, upon receipt of the 1,000 copies from my printer, I would pay you in advance a 10 % royalty of the remaining 600 copies of my first total printing of 1,000 copies. In addition, I agree to pay you a 10 % royalty on all future printings of this work whenever an additional printing comes off the press. In other words, you would receive your future royalties not after the copies of a printing have been sold but immediately after the additional printing comes off the press.

From the above-mentioned proposition and explanation, I sincerely hope you will realize that I want to cooperate with you in every respect and to our mutual satisfaction. In addition to having the pleasures of adding your Fantasy for Violin and Piano to the Peters Edition catalogue, my wife and I shall feel deeply honored to add your original manuscript to our personal collection of manuscripts.

Before closing this letter, may I at least hold your hand in thought, expressing my great joy as a result of your inquiry and sending you everbest wishes for your continued success and well-being.