The great Hungarian violinist and pedagogue writes to publisher Bartholf Senff to share with you the for me pleasant news that yesterday I was decorated by the Duke with the Merit Cross of the Saxon House Medal. With Müllers I played once in the Theater and twice at Court. Please report this in the Signale.

Leopold Auer was an internationally respected violinist and the most sought after teacher of his generation. Joachim helped to launch his career in Germany and Tchaikovsky helped to establish his good reputation in Russia, where he taught at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory for almost fifty years. Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Toscha Seidel, Efrem Zimablist, and Kathleen Parlow, to name only a few, all studied with Auer. After coming to the United States in 1926, he taught at Juilliard and Curtis.

Bartholf Senff founded his publishing house in Leipzig in 1850, where he published works by Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Rubinstein, among others. He also founded and edited the popular periodical Signale für die musikalische Welt, to which Auer refers in his letter.