[The reference in this letter is to a String Quintet of mine that had just been produced in Leipzig.]

Yesterday was a great day, but until we saw how the public would like it the motherly hearts of Lili and myself beat horribly. One doesn't really enjoy the work of someone dear to you at a public performance (as I always feel when Heinrich's things are being done) and my real pleasure was at the rehearsal on Saturday, when my old heart beat with joy only. At the concert I was oppressed by a feeling almost of shame for the work of art thus laying bare its soul - specially in the C# minor movement, when I felt as if you were undressing before the horrid Leipzig public! But luckily they know nothing about what that piece might tell them! In other respects, too, I listened differently as one of the public, in some ways more sharply; both I and Heinrich noticed for the first time that there are too many stopping-places in the first movement, and afterwards made the remark to each other in the same breath. ... Strange how clearly a wretched thing like a public makes one see; one is then feeling with the man in the street, more naively, more amateurishly - at the same moment more stupidly and more intelligently. ... Thurmer [the viola] played wonderfully in the C# movement, especially the E# at the end - a point I drove into him well at the very first rehearsal.