"Salzburg, Sept. 4, 1776.

"MOST REVEREND AND ESTEEMED FATHER AND MAESTRO,--

"The veneration, the esteem, and the respect I feel for your
illustrious person, induce me to intrude on you with this letter,
and also to send you a small portion of my music, which I venture
to submit to your masterly judgment. Last year, at Monaco, in
Bavaria, I wrote an opera buffa ("La finta Giardiniera") for the
Carnival. A few days previous to my departure from thence, his
Electoral Highness wished to hear some of my contrapuntal music;
I was therefore obliged to write this motett in haste, to allow
time for the score to be copied for his Highness, and to arrange
the parts so that it might be produced on the following Sunday at
grand mass at the offertory. Most dear and highly esteemed
Maestro, I do entreat you to give me unreservedly your candid
opinion of the motett. We live in this world in order always to
learn industriously, and to enlighten each other by means of
discussion, and to strive vigorously to promote the progress of
science and the fine arts. Oh, how many and many a time have I
desired to be nearer you, that I might converse and discuss with
your Reverence! I live in a country where music has very little
success, though, exclusive of those who have forsaken us, we have
still admirable professors, and more particularly composers of
great solidity, knowledge, and taste. We are rather badly off at
the theatre from the want of actors. We have no MUSICI, nor shall
we find it very easy to get any, because they insist upon being
well paid, and generosity is not a failing of ours. I amuse
myself in the mean time by writing church and chamber music, and