I am also sending you herewith the score of a mass by Reutter which Beethoven wished to see. It is true that H. M. the Emperor is fond of this style, but Beethoven, if he writes a mass, need not adhere to it. Let him follow the bent of his great genius and have a care only that the mass be not too long or too difficult to perform;--that it be a _tutti_ mass and have only short soprano and alto solos in the voices (for which I have two fine singing-boys)--but no tenor, bass or organ solos. If he wishes he may introduce a violin, oboe or clarinet solo. His Majesty likes to have fugues well worked out but not too long; the _Sanctus_ and _Osanna_ as short as possible, in order not to delay the transubstantiation, and--if I may add something on my own account--the _Dona nobis pacem_ connected with the _Agnus Dei_ without marked interruption, and soft. In two masses by Handel (arranged from his anthems), two by Naumann and Abbé Stadler, this makes a particularly beautiful effect. These in brief, as results of my experience, are the things which are to be considered and I should congratulate myself, the court and art if our great Beethoven were soon to take the work in hand. On March 10 Dietrichstein sent Beethoven three texts for graduals and a like number for offertories from which to choose words to be used in the mass to be composed for the emperor. On the count’s letter Beethoven wrote the memorandum: “Treat the gradual as a symphony with song--does it follow the _Gloria_?” Here we have some light on the subject which came up for thought during the account of Beethoven’s negotiations with publishers for the Mass in D. It would seem to appear that Beethoven was much pleased with the interest manifested in his application by Count Dietrichstein, and looked with auspicious eye upon the latter’s plan to put him into the Emperor’s good books. There can scarcely be a doubt but that he gave considerable thought to the proposed mass even while still at work on the Mass in D. He conceived the plan of accompanying the _Kyrie_ with wind-instruments and organ only in a “new mass,” as he designates it, and sketches for a _Dona nobis pacem_ which have been found “for the mass in C-sharp minor” point to a treatment which may be said to be in harmony, so far as can be seen, with Count Dietrichstein’s suggestions. On one occasion he writes to Peters that he had not made up his mind which mass he should have, and on another that he had three masses, two other publishers having asked for such works. He tells Schindler that reports that the Mass in D was not finished were to be denied because they were not true, the unfinished numbers being additions. So also he writes to the Archduke. These additions were to be a gradual, an offertory, and a setting of the hymn _Tantum ergo sacramentum_, and it is a fair presumption, since appropriate texts for the first two were