The famed German composer apologizes to his publisher for not having yet produced a set of revisions: I have been so bothered with things and burdened with work that I could not devote myself to the projected arrangement… If the first deadline passes, publish the first collection in God's name without a revision. The letter is very likely to Adolph Fürstner, who would publish the Salome score later that same year. Strauss had signed a contract with him in 1900.

One assumes that Strauss' burden of work included the final preparations for his opera Salome, which premiered just two months after he wrote this letter.