The Responses and Antiphons of Liszt are harmonizations of plainsong. They are taken from the Breviarium romanum for the following occasions: In nativitate Domini, Feria V in coena Domini, Feria Vl in Parasceve, Sabbato Sancto, and In officio defunctorum, that is Christmas, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and the Office for the dead. They quite clearly formed part of Lifszt's plan to reform church music. Writing in 1860 from Weimar to the Princess Wittgenstein in Rome, Liszt said: "For the work I have in mind, I should need above all to make use of the material already very well prepared at Ratisbon, through the publications of Canon Proske and of Mettenleiter. . . In a year I should be ready to submit this work to His Holiness, which, if he should deign to accord it his approval, would be adopted by the entire Catholic world. When this happens I shall first lay out the plan, itself very simple, for it is above all a question of settling upon what is unalterable in the Catholic liturgy and adapting it to the demands of the notation at present in use, without which there is no means of obtaining an exact and satisfactory performance.''l Liszt also asked the Princess to send him, through Monsignor Gustave Hohenlohe (later Cardinal), a copy of Spontixii's plan to reform Church music presented to Pope Gregory XVI in 1839, and about which Liszt had written an article in the Gazette M?ssicale of 28th March 1839. Liszt had met Hohenlohe, who was Papal Chamberlain, in 1859, and had sent through him a copy of the Gran Mass (Eezteryomi Mise) to Pope Pius IX. Hohenlohe's letter written from the Vatican on 28th September 1859, contained the Pope's reply: "In the midst of so many troubles it is a real consolation to hear these fine and truly Christian sentiments (ces beaux sentiments de vero christiano). Tell M. Liszt that I send him my blessing and that I have given his celebrated Mass to the Chapter of St. Peter. Tell him also that it will be sung in the month of November at St. Peter's, "in Die Dedicationis Basilicae S. S. Apostolorum