Best of friends,
Have not in your version the overture and the close of the last finale of the Flying Dutchman been rearranged in accordance with a special score written by me last year? The close of the overture especially has been entirely changed in the instrumentation. The score containing this change I sent a year ago to Uhlig, and he wrote to me that he had sent it to Weimar, together with a second score containing the changes in the remainder of the instrumentation. Please ask H. B.; you must have received two scores. Look also in your score at the theatre. If in that the close of the overture has been considerably changed, and if especially at page 43 a new bar has been inserted, then your score must have been arranged after that second one sent to you, and the model copy must still be with you, for in the Dresden score the close of the overture had been only very slightly changed (a little in the violins).
Two things I have to ask you: if the second score is with you, send it at once to Dresden, addressed to Choir director W. Fischer; if it does not exist at Weimar, Uhlig having forgotten to send it to you, and if therefore in your score at the theatre the close of the overture has not been changed much (in the instrumentation), and no new bar inserted at page 43, then let Fischer know at once, so that he may send you the materials for making this important alteration. I shall send him the score which is at the theatre here, and in which I hope the matter has been corrected. To your most important kind letter recently received I shall soon send an answer which, I hope, will please you.
Richard Wagner
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #3835, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 1, No. 92