PS.
Indeed
I am extremely sorry not to have been able to send you before
now the two works which I still intend you to have [Opus 56, Opus
57]. But circumstances beyond my control, namely the lack of a
copyist familiar with my handwriting, and the fact that the only
one to whom I can now entrust works of this kind has been extremely
busy, have prevented me from sending them to you, and even now
at this very moment still make this impossible - I will do my
best, however, and I hope to arrange that you will quite certainly
receive them in four to six weeks - Meanwhile, since in any case
nothing prevents you from starting immediately to engrave the
works you have already received, I must insist most emphatically
that the symphony [Opus 55] and the two sonatas [Opus 53, Opus
54] shall quite definitely appear in two months' time. - Indeed
the delays in the publication of my works have frequently dealt
no slight blows at my standing as a composer. Hence I am firmly
resolved in future to fix dates for the purpose and never to depart
from them.
As
to the payment, the cheapest arrangement for both parties we'll
certainly be if, seeing that they are already in your possession,
you send me in the meantime for these three works the sum of 700
gulden and then when you have received the other two compositions
the remaining sum of 400 gulden -- the easiest way to settle the
transaction is, I suggest, for you to send the money on each occasion
to your agent in Vienna to whom I shall them on receipt of the
payment deliver the certificate of ownership duly filled up --
Should these conditions relating both to the early publication
and to the method of payment not be quite acceptable to you, which
is unlikely, and should you not be able to give me a definite
promise that they will be fulfilled, then although this would
be unpleasant for me, I should have no option but to break off
our negotiations and demand the immediate return of the works
you have already received --
Prince
Lichnowsky himself will let you have the score of the oratorio
[Opus 85] before the end of this month; and if the parts have
already been distributed in advance, the oratorio can be performed
all this sooner -- If you do keep the symphony [Opus 55], perhaps
it would be a good thing to perform it with the oratorio; the
two works fill up an evening quite nicely -- If there is no other
arrangement to upset this, then my resolve and my desire are that
the profits should be given to Madame Bach, to whose relief I
have long been intending to make some contribution [see letter#48,
1801] --
Ludwig
van Beethoven