Leipzig, March 18th, 1839.

You wish to know how the overture to “Ruy Blas” went off. Famously. Six or eight weeks since an application was made to me in favour of a representation to be given for the Theatrical Pension Fund (an excellent benevolent institution here, for the benefit of which “Ruy Blas” was to be given). I was requested to compose an overture for it, and the music of the romance in the piece, for it was thought the receipts would be better if my name appeared in the bills. I read the piece, which is detestable, and more utterly beneath contempt than you could believe, and said, that I had no leisure to write the overture, but I composed the romance for them. The performance was to take place last Monday week; on the previous Tuesday the people came to thank me politely for the romance, and said it was such a pity I had not also written an overture, but they were perfectly aware that time was indispensable for such a work, and the ensuing year, if I would permit them, they would give me longer previous notice. This put me on my mettle. I reflected on the matter the same evening, and began my score. On Wednesday there was a concert rehearsal, which occupied the whole forenoon. Thursday the concert itself, yet the overture was in the hands of the copyist early on Friday; played three times on Monday in the concert room, tried over once in the theatre, and given in the evening as an introduction to the odious play. Few of my works have caused me more amusing excitement. It is to be repeated, by desire, at the next concert, but I mean to call it, not the overture to “Ruy Blas,” but to the Theatrical Pension Fund.