I was in a great hurry about it, for in a week the Easter vacation

would begin, and the ‘men’ would go down from Leipzig, when it would be

impossible to be elected member of a club until the vacation was over,

and to stay all those weeks at home in Leipzig without having the right

to wear the coveted colours seemed to me unendurable torture. Straight

from the rector’s presence I ran like a wounded animal to the fencing

school, to present myself for admission to the Saxon Club, showing my

card of matriculation. I attained my object, I could wear the colours

of the Saxonia, which was in the fashion at that time, and in great

request because it numbered so many delightful members in its ranks.

The strangest fate was to befall me in this Easter vacation, during

which I was really the only remaining representative of the Saxon Club

in Leipzig. In the beginning this club consisted chiefly of men of good

family as well as the better class elements of the student world; all

of them were members of highly placed and well-to-do families in Saxony

in general, and in particular from the capital, Dresden, and spent

their vacation at their respective homes. There remained in Leipzig

during the vacations only those wandering students who had no homes,

and for whom in reality it was always or never holiday time. Among

those a separate club had arisen of daring and desperate young

reprobates who had found a last refuge, as I said, at Leipzig in the

glorious period I have recorded. I had already made the personal

acquaintance of these swashbucklers, who pleased my fancy greatly, when

they were guarding the Brockhaus grounds. Although the regular duration

of a university course did not exceed three years, most of these men

had never left their universities for six or seven years.

I was particularly fascinated by a man called Gebhardt, who was endowed

with extraordinary physical beauty and strength, and whose slim heroic

figure towered head and shoulders above all his companions. When he

walked down the street arm-in-arm with two of the strongest of his

comrades, he used suddenly to take it into his head, by an easy

movement of his arm, to lift his friends high in the air and flutter

along in this way as though he had a pair of human wings. When a cab

was going along the streets at a sharp trot, he would seize a spoke of

the wheel with one hand and force it to pull up. Nobody ever told him

that he was stupid because they were afraid of his strength, hence his

limitations were scarcely noticed. His redoubtable strength, combined

with a temperate disposition, lent him a majestic dignity which placed

him above the level of an ordinary mortal. He had come to Leipzig from

Mecklenburg in the company of a certain Degelow, who was as powerful

and adroit, though by no means of such gigantic proportions, as his

friend, and whose chief attraction lay in his great vivacity and

animated features, he had led a wild and dissipated life in which play,

drink, passionate love affairs, and constant and prompt duelling had

rung the changes. Ceremonious politeness, an ironic and pedantic

coldness, which testified to bold self-confidence, combined with a very

hot temper, formed the chief characteristics of this personage and

natures akin to his. Degelow’s wildness and passion were lent a curious

diabolical charm by the possession of a malicious humour which he often

turned against himself, whereas towards others he exercised a certain

chivalrous tenderness.

These two extraordinary men were joined by others who possessed all the

qualities essential to a reckless life, together with real and

headstrong valour. One of them, named Stelzer, a regular Berserker out

of the Nibelungenlied, who was nick-named Lope, was in his twentieth

term. While these men openly and consciously belonged to a world doomed

to destruction, and all their actions and escapades could only be

explained by the hypothesis that they all believed that inevitable ruin

was imminent, I made in their company the acquaintance of a certain

Schroter, who particularly attracted me by his cordial disposition,

pleasant Hanoverian accent, and refined wit. He was not one of the

regular young dare-devils, towards whom he adopted a calm observant

attitude, while they were all fond of him and glad to see him. I made a

real friend of this Schroter, although he was much older than I was.

Through him I became acquainted with the works and poems of H. Heine,

and from him I acquired a certain neat and saucy wit, and I was quite

ready to surrender myself to his agreeable influence in the hope of

improving my outward bearing. It was his company in particular that I

sought every day; in the afternoon I generally met him in the Rosenthal

or Kintschy’s Chalet, though always in the presence of those wonderful

Goths who excited at once my alarm and admiration.

They all belonged to university clubs which were on hostile terms with

the one of which I was a member. What this hostility between the

various clubs meant only those can judge who are familiar with the tone

prevalent among them in those days. The mere sight of hostile colours

sufficed to infuriate these men, who otherwise were kind and gentle,

provided they had taken the slightest drop too much. At all events, as

long as the old stagers were sober they would look with good-natured

complacency at a slight young fellow like me in the hostile colours

moving among them so amicably. Those colours I wore in my own peculiar

fashion. I had made use of the brief week during which my club was

still in Leipzig to become the possessor of a splendid ‘Saxon’ cap,

richly embroidered with silver, and worn by a man called Muller, who

was afterwards a prominent constable at Dresden. I had been seized with

such a violent craving for this cap that I managed to buy it from him,

as he wanted money to go home. In spite of this remarkable cap I was,

as I have said, welcome in the den of this band of rowdies: my friend

Schroter saw to that. It was only when the grog, which was the

principal beverage of these wild spirits, began to work that I used to

notice curious glances and overhear doubtful speeches, the significance

of which was for some time hidden from me by the dizziness in which my

own senses were plunged by this baneful drink.

As I was inevitably bound on this account to be mixed up in quarrels

for some time to come, it afforded me a great satisfaction that my

first fight, as a matter of fact, arose from an incident more

creditable to me than those provocations which I had left half

unnoticed. One day Degelow came up to Schroter and me in a wine-bar

that we often frequented, and in quite a friendly manner confessed to

us confidentially his liking for a young and very pretty actress whose

talent Schroter disputed. Degelow rejoined that this was as it might

be, but that, for his part, he regarded the young lady as the most

respectable woman in the theatre. I at once asked him if he considered

my sister’s reputation was not as good. According to students’ notions

it was impossible for Degelow, who doubtless had not the remotest

intention of being insulting, to give me any assurance further than to

say that he certainly did not think my sister had an inferior

reputation, but that, nevertheless, he meant to abide by his assertion

concerning the young lady he had mentioned. Hereupon followed without

delay the usual challenge, opening with the words, ‘You’re an ass,’

which sounded almost ridiculous to my own ears when I said them to this

seasoned swashbuckler.

I remember that Degelow too gasped with astonishment, and lightning

seemed to flash from his eyes; but he controlled himself in the

presence of my friend, and proceeded to observe the usual formalities

of a challenge, and chose broadswords (krumme Sabel) as the weapons for

the fight. The event made a great stir among our companions, but I saw

less reason than before to abstain from my usual intercourse with them.

Only I became more strict about the behaviour of the swashbucklers, and

for several days no evening passed without producing a challenge

between me and some formidable bully, until at last Count Solms, the

only member of my club who had returned to Leipzig as yet, visited me

as though he were an intimate friend and inquired into what had

occurred. He applauded my conduct, but advised me not to wear my

colours until the return of our comrades from the vacation, and to keep

away from the bad company into which I had ventured. Fortunately I had

not long to wait; university life soon began again, and the fencing

ground was filled. The unenviable position, in which, in student

phrase, I was suspended with a half-dozen of the most terrible

swordsmen, earned me a glorious reputation among the ‘freshmen’ and

‘juniors,’ and even among the older ‘champions’ of the Saxonia.

My seconds were duly arranged, the dates for the various duels on hand

settled, and by the care of my seniors the needful time was secured for

me to acquire some sort of skill in fencing. The light heart with which

I awaited the fate which threatened me in at least one of the impending

encounters I myself could not understand at the time; on the other

hand, the way in which that fate preserved me from the consequences of

my rashness seems truly miraculous in my eyes to this day, and, worthy

of further description.

The preparations for a duel included obtaining some experience of these

encounters by being present at several of them. We freshmen attained

this object by what is called ‘carrying duty,’ that is to say, we were

entrusted with the rapiers of the corps (precious weapons of honour

belonging to the association), and had to take them first to the

grinder and thence to the scene of encounter, a proceeding which was

attended with some danger, as it had to be done surreptitiously, since

duelling was forbidden by law; in return we acquired the right of

assisting as spectators at the impending engagements.

When I had earned this honour, the meeting-place chosen for the duel I

was to watch was the billiard-room of an inn in the Burgstrasse; the

table had been moved to one side, and on it the authorised spectators

took their places. Among them I stood up with a beating heart to watch

the dangerous encounters between those doughty champions. I was told on

this occasion of the story of one of my friends (a Jew named Levy, but

known as Lippert), who on this very floor had given so much ground

before his antagonist that the door had to be opened for him, and he

fell back through it down the steps into the street, still believing he

was engaged in the duel. When several bouts had been finished, two men

came on to the ‘pitch,’ Tempel, the president of the Markomanen, and a

certain Wohlfart, an old stager, already in his fourteenth half-year of

study, with whom I also was booked for an encounter later on. When this

was the case, a man was not allowed to watch, in order that the weak

points of the duellist might not be betrayed to his future opponent.

Wohlfart was accordingly asked by my chiefs whether he wanted me

removed; whereupon he replied with calm contempt, ‘Let them leave the

little freshman there, in God’s name!’ Thus I became an eye-witness of

the disablement of a swordsman who nevertheless showed himself so

experienced and skilful on the occasion that I might well have become

alarmed for the issue of my future encounter with him. His gigantic

opponent cut the artery of his right arm, which at once ended the

fight; the surgeon declared that Wohlfart would not be able to hold a

sword again for years, under which circumstances my proposed meeting

with him was at once cancelled. I do not deny that this incident

cheered my soul.

Shortly afterwards the first general reunion of our club was held at

the Green Tap. These gatherings are regular hot-beds for the production

of duels. Here I brought upon myself a new encounter with one Tischer,

but learned at the same time that I had been relieved of two of my most

formidable previous engagements of the kind by the disappearance of my

opponents, both of whom had escaped on account of debt and left no

trace behind them. The only one of whom I could hear anything was the

terrible Stelzer, surnamed Lope. This fellow had taken advantage of the

passing of Polish refugees, who had at that time already been driven

over the frontier and were making their way through Germany to France,

to disguise himself as an ill-starred champion of freedom, and he

subsequently found his way to the Foreign Legion in Algeria. On the way

home from the gathering, Degelow, whom I was to meet in a few weeks,

proposed a ‘truce.’ This was a device which, if it was accepted, as it

was in this case, enabled the future combatants to entertain and talk

to one another, which was otherwise most strictly forbidden. We

wandered back to the town arm-in-arm; with chivalrous tenderness my

interesting and formidable opponent declared that he was delighted at

the prospect of crossing swords with me in a few weeks’ time; that he

regarded it as an honour and a pleasure, as he was fond of me and

respected me for my valorous conduct. Seldom has any personal success

flattered me more. We embraced, and amid protestations which, owing to

a certain dignity about them, acquired a significance I can never

forget, we parted. He informed me that he must first pay a visit to

Jena, where he had an appointment to fight a duel. A week later the

news of his death reached Leipzig; he had been mortally wounded in the

duel at Jena.

I felt as if I were living in a dream, out of which I was aroused by

the announcement of my encounter with Tischer. Though he was a

first-rate and vigorous fighter, he had been chosen by our chiefs for

my first passage of arms because he was fairly short. In spite of being

unable to feel any great confidence in my hastily acquired and little

practised skill in fencing, I looked forward to this my first duel with

a light heart. Although it was against the rules, I never dreamed of

telling the authorities that I was suffering from a slight rash which I

had caught at that time, and which I was informed made wounds so

dangerous that if it were reported it would postpone the meeting, in

spite of the fact that I was modest enough to be prepared for wounds. I

was sent for at ten in the morning, and left home smiling to think what

my mother and sisters would say if in a few hours I were brought back

in the alarming state I anticipated. My chief, Herr v. Schonfeld, was a

pleasant, quiet sort of man, who lived on the marsh. When I reached his

house, he leant out of the window with his pipe in his mouth, and

greeted me with the words: ‘You can go home, my lad, it is all off;

Tischer is in hospital.’ When I got upstairs I found several ‘leading

men’ assembled, from whom I learned that Tischer had got very drunk the

night before, and had in consequence laid himself open to the most

outrageous treatment by the inhabitants of a house of ill-fame. He was

terribly hurt, and had been taken by the police in the first instance

to the hospital. This inevitably meant rustication, and, above all,

expulsion from the academic association to which he belonged.

I cannot clearly recall the incidents that removed from Leipzig the few

remaining fire-eaters to whom I had pledged myself since that fatal

vacation-time; I only know that this aide of my fame as a student

yielded to another. We celebrated the ‘freshmen’s gathering,’ to which

all those who could manage it drove a four-in-hand in a long procession

through the town. After the president of the club had profoundly moved

me with his sudden and yet prolonged solemnity, I conceived the desire

to be among the very last to return home from the outing. Accordingly I

stayed away three days and three nights, and spent the time chiefly in

gambling, a pastime which from the first night of our festivity cast

its devilish snares around me. Some half-dozen of the smartest club

members chanced to be together at early dawn in the Jolly Peasant, and

forthwith formed the nucleus of a gambling club, which was reinforced

during the day by recruits coming back from the town. Members came to

see whether we were still at it, members also went away, but I with the

original six held out for days and nights without faltering.

The desire that first prompted me to take part in the play was the wish

to win enough for my score (two thalers): this I succeeded in doing,

and thereupon I was inspired with the hope of being able to settle all

the debts I had made at that time by my winnings at play. Just as I had

hoped to learn composition most quickly by Logier’s method, but had

found myself hampered in my object for a long period by unexpected

difficulties, so my plan for speedily improving my financial position

was likewise doomed to disappointment. To win was not such an easy

matter, and for some three months I was such a victim to the rage for

gambling that no other passion was able to exercise the slightest

influence over my mind.

Neither the Fechtboden (where the students’ fights were practised), nor

the beer-house, nor the actual scene of the fights, ever saw my face

again. In my lamentable position I racked my brains all day to devise

ways and means of getting the money wherewith to gamble at night. In

vain did my poor mother try everything in her power to induce me not to

come home so late at night, although she had no idea of the real nature

of my debauches: after I had left the house in the afternoon I never

returned till dawn the next day, and I reached my room (which was at

some distance from the others) by climbing over the gate, for my mother

had refused to give me a latch-key.

In despair over my ill-luck, my passion for gambling grew into a

veritable mania, and I no longer felt any inclination for those things

which at one time had lured me to student life. I became absolutely

indifferent to the opinion of my former companions and avoided them

entirely; I now lost myself in the smaller gambling dens of Leipzig,

where only the very scum of the students congregated. Insensible to any

feeling of self-respect, I bore even the contempt of my sister Rosalie;

both she and my mother hardly ever deigning to cast a glance at the

young libertine whom they only saw at rare intervals, looking deadly

pale and worn out: my ever-growing despair made me at last resort to

foolhardiness as the only means of forcing hostile fate to my side. It

suddenly struck me that only by dint of big stakes could I make big

profits. To this end I decided to make use of my mother’s pension, of

which I was trustee of a fairly large sum. That night I lost everything

I had with me except one thaler: the excitement with which I staked

that last coin on a card was an experience hitherto quite strange to my

young life. As I had had nothing to eat, I was obliged repeatedly to

leave the gambling table owing to sickness. With this last thaler I

staked my life, for my return to my home was, of course, out of the

question. Already I saw myself in the grey dawn, a prodigal son,

fleeing from all I held dear, through forest and field towards the

unknown. My mood of despair had gained so strong a hold upon me that,

when my card won, I immediately placed all the money on a fresh stake,

and repeated this experiment until I had won quite a considerable

amount. From that moment my luck grew continuously. I gained such

confidence that I risked the most hazardous stakes: for suddenly it

dawned upon me that this was destined to be my last day with the cards.

My good fortune now became so obvious that the bank thought it wise to

close. Not only had I won back all the money I had lost, but I had won

enough to pay off all my debts as well. My sensations during the whole

of this process were of the most sacred nature: I felt as if God and

His angels were standing by my side and were whispering words of

warning and of consolation into my ears.

Once more I climbed over the gate of my home in the early hours of the

morning, this time to sleep peacefully and soundly and to awake very

late, strengthened and as though born again.

No sense of shame deterred me from telling my mother, to whom I

presented her money, the whole truth about this decisive night. I

voluntarily confessed my sin in having utilised her pension, sparing no

detail. She folded her hands and thanked God for His mercy, and

forthwith regarded me as saved, believing it impossible for me ever to

commit such a crime again.

And, truth to tell, gambling had lost all fascination for me from that

moment. The world, in which I had moved like one demented, suddenly

seemed stripped of all interest or attraction. My rage for gambling had

already made me quite indifferent to the usual student’s vanities, and

when I was freed from this passion also, I suddenly found myself face

to face with an entirely new world.

To this world I belonged henceforth: it was the world of real and

serious musical study, to which I now devoted myself heart and soul.

Even during this wild period of my life, my musical development had not

been entirely at a standstill; on the contrary, it daily became plainer

that music was the only direction towards which my mental tendencies

had a marked bent. Only I had got quite out of the habit of musical

study. Even now it seems incredible that I managed to find time in

those days to finish quite a substantial amount of composition. I have

but the faintest recollection of an Overture in C major (6/8 time), and

of a Sonata in B flat major arranged as a duet; the latter pleased my

sister Ottilie, who played it with me, so much that I arranged it for

orchestra. But another work of this period, an Overture in B flat

major, left an indelible impression on my mind on account of an

incident connected with it. This composition, in fact, was the outcome

of my study of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in about the same degree as

Leubald und Adelaïde was the result of my study of Shakespeare. I had

made a special point of bringing out the mystic meaning in the

orchestra, which I divided into three distinctly different and opposite

elements. I wanted to make the characteristic nature of these elements

clear to the score reader the moment he looked at it by a striking

display of colour, and only the fact that I could not get any green ink

made this picturesque idea impossible. I employed black ink for the

brass instruments alone, the strings were to have red and the wind

green ink. This extraordinary score I gave for perusal to Heinrich

Dorn, who was at that time musical director of the Leipzig theatre. He

was very young, and impressed me as being a very clever musician and a

witty man of the world, whom the Leipzig public made much of.

Nevertheless, I have never been able to understand how he could have

granted my request to produce this overture.

Some time afterwards I was rather inclined to believe with others, who

knew how much he enjoyed a good joke, that he intended to treat himself

to a little fun. At the time, however, he vowed that he thought the

work interesting, and maintained that if it were only brought out as a

hitherto unknown work by Beethoven, the public would receive it with

respect, though without understanding.

It was the Christmas of the fateful year 1830; as usual, there would be

no performance at the theatre on Christmas Eve, but instead a concert

for the poor had been organised, which received but scant support. The

first item on the programme was called by the exciting title ‘New

Overture’—nothing more! I had surreptitiously listened to the rehearsal

with some misgiving. I was very much impressed by the coolness with

which Dorn fenced with the apparent confusion which the members of the

orchestra showed with regard to this mysterious composition. The

principal theme of the Allegro was contained in four bars; after every

fourth bar, however, a fifth bar had been inserted, which had nothing

to do with the melody, and which was announced by a loud bang on the

kettle-drum on the second beat. As this drum-beat stood out alone, the

drummer, who continually thought he was making a mistake, got confused,

and did not give the right sharpness to the accent as prescribed by the

score. Listening from my hidden corner, and frightened at my original

intention, this accidentally different rendering did not displease me.

To my genuine annoyance, however, Dorn called the drummer to the front

and insisted on his playing the accents with the prescribed sharpness.

When, after the rehearsal, I told the musical director of my misgivings

about this important fact, I could not get him to promise a milder

interpretation of the fatal drum-beat; he stuck to it that the thing

would sound very well as it was. In spite of this assurance my

restlessness grew, and I had not the courage to introduce myself to my

friends in advance as the author of the ‘New Overture.’

My sister Ottilie, who had already been forced to survive the secret

readings of Leubald und Adelaïde, was the only person willing to come

with me to hear my work. It was Christmas Eve, and there was to be the

usual Christmas tree, presents, etc., at my brother-in-law’s, Friedrich

Brockhaus, and both of us naturally wanted to be there. My sister, in

particular, who lived there, had a good deal to do with the

arrangements, and could only get away for a short while, and that with

great difficulty; our amiable relation accordingly had the carriage

ready for her so that she might get back more quickly. I made use of

this opportunity to inaugurate, as it were, my entree into the musical

world in a festive manner. The carriage drew up in front of the

theatre. Ottilie went into my brother-in-law’s box, which forced me to

try and find a seat in the pit. I had forgotten to buy a ticket, and

was refused admission by the man at the door. Suddenly the tuning up of

the orchestra grew louder and louder, and I thought I should have to

miss the beginning of my work. In my anxiety I revealed myself to the

man at the door as the composer of the ‘New Overture,’ and in this way

succeeded in passing without a ticket. I pushed my way through to one

of the first rows of the pit, and sat down in terrible anxiety.

The Overture began: after the theme of the ‘black’ brass instruments

had made itself heard with great emphasis, the ‘red’ Allegro theme

started, in which, as I have already mentioned, every fifth bar was

interrupted by the drum-beat from the ‘black’ world. What kind of

effect the ‘green’ theme of the wind instruments, which joined in

afterwards, produced upon the listeners, and what they must have

thought when ‘black,’ ‘red,’ and ‘green’ themes became intermingled,

has always remained a mystery to me, for the fatal drum-beat, brutally

hammered out, entirely deprived me of my senses, especially as this

prolonged and continually recurring effect now began to rouse, not only

the attention, but the merriment of the audience. I heard my neighbours

calculating the return of this effect; knowing the absolute correctness

of their calculation, I suffered ten thousand torments, and became

almost unconscious. At last I awoke from my nightmare when the

Overture, to which I had disdained to give what I considered a trite

ending, came to a standstill most unexpectedly.

No phantoms like those in Hoffmann’s Tales could have succeeded in

producing the extraordinary state in which I came to my senses on

noticing the astonishment of the audience at the end of the

performance. I heard no exclamations of disapproval, no hissing, no

remarks, not even laughter; all I saw was intense astonishment at such

a strange occurrence, which impressed them, as it did me, like a

horrible nightmare. The worst moment, however, came when I had to leave

the pit and take my sister home. To get up and pass through the people

in the pit was horrible indeed. Nothing, however, equalled the pain of

coming face to face with the man at the door; the strange look he gave

me haunted me ever afterwards, and for a considerable time I avoided

the pit of the Leipzig theatre.

My next step was to find my sister, who had gone through the whole sad

experience with infinite pity; in silence we drove home to be present

at a brilliant family festivity, which contrasted with grim irony with

the gloom of my bewilderment.

In spite of it all I tried to believe in myself, and thought I could

find comfort in my overture to the Braut von Messina, which I believed

to be a better work than the fatal one I had just heard. A

reinstatement, however, was out of the question, for the directors of

the Leipzig theatre regarded me for a long time as a very doubtful

person, in spite of Dorn’s friendship. It is true that I still tried my

hand at sketching out compositions to Goethe’s Faust, some of which

have been preserved to this day: but soon my wild student’s life

resumed its sway and drowned the last remnant of serious musical study

in me.

I now began to imagine that because I had become a student I ought to

attend the University lectures. From Traugott Krug, who was well known

to me on account of his having suppressed the student’s revolt, I tried

to learn the first principles of philosophy; a single lesson sufficed

to make me give this up. Two or three times, however, I attended the

lectures on aesthetics given by one of the younger professors, a man

called Weiss. This perseverance was due to the interest which Weiss

immediately aroused in me. When I made his acquaintance at my uncle

Adolph’s house, Weiss had just translated the metaphysics of Aristotle,

and, if I am not mistaken, dedicated them in a controversial spirit to

Hegel.

On this occasion I had listened to the conversation of these two men on

philosophy and philosophers, which made a tremendous impression on me.

I remember that Weiss was an absent-minded man, with a hasty and abrupt

manner of speaking; he had an interesting and pensive expression which

impressed me immensely. I recollect how, on being accused of a want of

clearness in his writing and style, he justified himself by saying that

the deep problems of the human mind could not in any case be solved by

the mob. This maxim, which struck me as being very plausible, I at once

accepted as the principle for all my future writing. I remember that my

eldest brother Albert, to whom I once had to write for my mother, grew

so disgusted with my letter and style that he said he thought I must be

going mad.

In spite of my hopes that Weiss’s lectures would do me much good, I was

not capable of continuing to attend them, as my desires in those days

drove me to anything but the study of aesthetics. Nevertheless, my

mother’s anxiety at this time on my behalf made me try to take up music

again. As Muller, the teacher under whom I had studied till that time,

had not been able to inspire me with a permanent love of study, it was

necessary to discover whether another teacher might not be better able

to induce me to do serious work.

Theodor Weinlich, who was choirmaster and musical director at St.

Thomas’s Church, held at that time this important and ancient post

which was afterwards occupied by Schicht, and before him by no less a

person than Sebastian Bach. By education he belonged to the old Italian

school of music, and had studied in Bologna under Pater Martini. He had

made a name for himself in this art by his vocal compositions, in which

his fine manner of treating the parts was much praised. He himself told

me one day that a Leipzig publisher had offered him a very substantial

fee if he would write for his firm another book of vocal exercises

similar to the one which had proved so profitable to his first

publisher. Weinlich told him that he had not got any exercises of the

kind ready at the moment, but offered him instead a new Mass, which the

publisher refused with the words: ‘Let him who got the meat gnaw the

bones.’ The modesty with which Weinlich told me this little story

showed how excellent a man he was. As he was in a very bad and weak

state of health when my mother introduced me to him, he at first

refused to take me as a pupil. But, after having resisted all

persuasions, he at last took pity on my musical education, which, as he

soon discovered from a fugue which I had brought with me, was

exceedingly faulty. He accordingly promised to teach me, on condition

that I should give up all attempts at composing for six months, and

follow his instructions implicitly. To the first part of my promise I

remained faithful, thanks to the vast vortex of dissipation into which

my life as a student had drawn me.

When, however, I had to occupy myself for any length of time with

nothing but four-part harmony exercises in strictly rigorous style, it

was not only the student in me, but also the composer of so many

overtures and sonatas, that was thoroughly disgusted. Weinlich, too,

had his grievances against me, and decided to give me up.

During this period I came to the crisis of my life, which led to the

catastrophe of that terrible evening at the gambling den. But an even

greater blow than this fearful experience awaited me when Weinlich

decided not to have anything more to do with me. Deeply humiliated and

miserable, I besought the gentle old man, whom I loved dearly, to

forgive me, and I promised him from that moment to work with unflagging

energy. One morning at seven o’clock Weinlich sent for me to begin the

rough sketch for a fugue; he devoted the whole morning to me, following

my work bar by bar with the greatest attention, and giving me his

valuable advice. At twelve o’clock he dismissed me with the instruction

to perfect and finish the sketch by filling in the remaining parts at

home.

When I brought him the fugue finished, he handed me his own treatment

of the same theme for comparison. This common task of fugue writing

established between me and my good-natured teacher the tenderest of

ties, for, from that moment, we both enjoyed the lessons. I was

astonished how quickly the time flew. In eight weeks I had not only

gone through a number of the most intricate fugues, but had also waded

through all kinds of difficult evolutions in counterpoint, when one

day, on bringing him an extremely elaborate double fugue, he took my

breath away by telling me that after this there was nothing left for

him to teach me.

As I was not aware of any great effort on my part, I often wondered

whether I had really become a well-equipped musician. Weinlich himself

did not seem to attach much importance to what he had taught me: he

said, ‘Probably you will never write fugues or canons; but what you

have mastered is Independence: you can now stand alone and rely upon

having a fine technique at your fingers’ ends if you should want it.’

The principal result of his influence over me was certainly the growing

love of clearness and fluency to which he had trained me. I had already

had to write the above-mentioned fugue for ordinary voices; my feeling

for the melodious and vocal had in this way been awakened. In order to

keep me strictly under his calming and friendly influence, he had at

the same time given me a sonata to write which, as a proof of my

friendship for him, I had to build up on strictly harmonic and thematic

lines, for which he recommended me a very early and childlike sonata by

Pleyel as a model.

Those who had only recently heard my Overture must, indeed, have

wondered how I ever wrote this sonata, which has been published through

the indiscretion of Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel (to reward me for my

abstemiousness, Weinlich induced them to publish this poor

composition). From that moment he gave me a free hand. To begin with I

was allowed to compose a Fantasia for the pianoforte (in F sharp minor)

which I wrote in a quite informal style by treating the melody in

recitative form; this gave me intense satisfaction because it won me

praise from Weinlich.

Soon afterwards I wrote three overtures which all met with his entire

approval. In the following winter (1831-1832) I succeeded in getting

the first of them, in D minor, performed at one of the Gewandhaus

concerts.

At that time a very simple and homely tone reigned supreme in this

institution. The instrumental works were not conducted by what we call

‘a conductor of the orchestra,’ but were simply played to the audience

by the leader of the orchestra. As soon as the singing began, Pohlenz

took his place at the conductor’s desk; he belonged to the type of fat

and pleasant musical directors, and was a great favourite with the

Leipzig public. He used to come on the platform with a very

important-looking blue baton in his hand.

One of the strangest events which occurred at that time was the yearly

production of the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven; after the first three

movements had been played straight through like a Haydn symphony, as

well as the orchestra could manage it, Pohlenz, instead of having to

conduct a vocal quartette, a cantata, or an Italian aria, took his

place at the desk to undertake this highly complicated instrumental

work, with its particularly enigmatical and incoherent opening, one of

the most difficult tasks that could possibly be found for a musical

conductor. I shall never forget the impression produced upon me at the

first rehearsal by the anxiously and carefully played 3/4 time, and the

way in which the wild shrieks of the trumpet (with which this movement

begins) resulted in the most extraordinary confusion of sound.

He had evidently chosen this tempo in order, in some way, to manage the

recitative of the double basses; but it was utterly hopeless. Pohlenz

was in a bath of perspiration, the recitative did not come off, and I

really began to think that Beethoven must have written nonsense; the

double bass player, Temmler, a faithful veteran of the orchestra,

prevailed upon Pohlenz at last, in rather coarse and energetic

language, to put down the baton, and in this way the recitative really

proceeded properly. All the same, I felt at this time that I had come

to the humble conclusion, in a way I can hardly explain, that this

extraordinary work was still beyond my comprehension. For a long time I

gave up brooding over this composition, and I turned my thoughts with

simple longing towards a clearer and calmer musical form.

My study of counterpoint had taught me to appreciate, above all,

Mozart’s light and flowing treatment of the most difficult technical

problems, and the last movement of his great Symphony in C major in

particular served me as example for my own work. My D minor Overture,

which clearly showed the influence of Beethoven’s Coriolanus Overture,

had been favourably received by the public; my mother began to have

faith in me again, and I started at once on a second overture (in C

major), which really ended with a ‘Fugato’ that did more credit to my

new model than I had ever hoped to accomplish.

This overture, also, was soon afterwards performed at a recital given

by the favourite singer, Mlle. Palazzesi (of the Dresden Italian

Opera). Before this I had already introduced it at a concert given by a

private musical society called ‘Euterpe’, when I had conducted it

myself.

I remember the strange impression I received from a remark that my

mother made on that occasion; as a matter of fact this work, which was

written in a counterpoint style, without any real passion or emotion,

had produced a strange effect upon her. She gave vent to her

astonishment by warmly praising the Egmont Overture, which was played

at the same concert, maintaining that ‘this kind of music was after all

more fascinating than any stupid fugue.’

At this time I also wrote (as my third opus) an overture to Raupach’s

drama, Konig Enzio, in which again Beethoven’s influence made itself

even more strongly felt. My sister Rosalie succeeded in getting it

performed at the theatre before the play; for the sake of prudence they

did not announce it on the programme the first time. Dorn conducted it,

and as the performance went off all right, and the public showed no

dissatisfaction, my overture was played with my full name on the

programme several times during the run of the above-mentioned drama.

After this I tried my hand at a big Symphony (in C major); in this work

I showed what I had learnt by using the influence of my study of

Beethoven and Mozart towards the achievement of a really pleasant and

intelligible work, in which the fugue was again present at the end,

while the themes of the various movements were so constructed that they

could be played consecutively.

Nevertheless, the passionate and bold element of the Sinfonia Eroica

was distinctly discernible, especially in the first movement. The slow

movement, on the contrary, contained reminiscences of my former musical

mysticism. A kind of repeated interrogative exclamation of the minor

third merging into the fifth connected in my mind this work (which I

had finished with the utmost effort at clearness) with my very earliest

period of boyish sentimentality.

When, in the following year, I called on Friedrich Rochlitz, at that

time the ‘Nestor’ of the musical aesthetes in Leipzig, and president of

the Gewandhaus, I prevailed upon him to promise me a performance of my

work. As he had been given my score for perusal before seeing me, he

was quite astonished to find that I was a very young man, for the

character of my music had prepared him to see a much older and more

experienced musician. Before this performance took place many things

happened which I must first mention, as they were of great importance

to my life.

My short and stormy career as a student had drowned in me not only all

longing for further development, but also all interest in intellectual

and spiritual pursuits. Although, as I have pointed out, I had never

alienated myself entirely from music, my revived interest in politics

aroused my first real disgust for my senseless student’s life, which

soon left no deeper traces on my mind than the remembrance of a

terrible nightmare.

The Polish War of Independence against Russian supremacy filled me with

growing enthusiasm. The victories which the Poles obtained for a short

period during May, 1831, aroused my enthusiastic admiration: it seemed

to me as though the world had, by some miracle, been created anew. As a

contrast to this, the news of the battle of Ostrolenka made it appear

as if the end of the world had come. To my astonishment, my boon

companions scoffed at me when I commented upon some of these events;

the terrible lack of all fellow-feeling and comradeship amongst the

students struck me very forcibly. Any kind of enthusiasm had to be

smothered or turned into pedantic bravado, which showed itself in the

form of affectation and indifference. To get drunk with deliberate

cold-bloodedness, without even a glimpse of humour, was reckoned almost

as brave a feat as duelling. Not until much later did I understand the

far nobler spirit which animated the lower classes in Germany in

comparison with the sadly degenerate state of the University students.

In those days I felt terribly indignant at the insulting remarks which

I brought upon myself when I deplored the battle of Ostrolenka.

To my honour be it said, that these and similar impressions helped to

make me give up my low associates. During my studies with Weinlich the

only little dissipation I allowed myself was my daily evening visit to

Kintschy, the confectioner in the Klostergasse, where I passionately

devoured the latest newspapers. Here I found many men who held the same

political views as myself, and I specially loved to listen to the eager

political discussions of some of the old men who frequented the place.

The literary journals, too, began to interest me; I read a great deal,

but was not very particular in my choice. Nevertheless, I now began to

appreciate intelligence and wit, whereas before only the grotesque and

the fantastic had had any attraction for me.

My interest in the issue of the Polish war, however, remained

paramount. I felt the siege and capture of Warsaw as a personal

calamity. My excitement when the remains of the Polish army began to

pass through Leipzig on their way to France was indescribable, and I

shall never forget the impression produced upon me by the first batch

of these unfortunate soldiers on the occasion of their being quartered

at the Green Shield, a public-house in the Meat Market. Much as this

depressed me, I was soon roused to a high pitch of enthusiasm, for in

the lounge of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, where that night Beethoven’s C

minor Symphony was being played, a group of heroic figures, the

principal leaders of the Polish revolution, excited my admiration. I

felt more particularly attracted by Count Vincenz Tyszkiewitcz, a man

of exceptionally powerful physique and noble appearance, who impressed

me by his dignified and aristocratic manner and his quiet

self-reliance—qualities with which I had not met before. When I saw a

man of such kingly bearing in a tight-fitting coat and red velvet cap,

I at once realised my foolishness in ever having worshipped the

ludicrously dressed up little heroes of our students’ world. I was

delighted to meet this gentleman again at the house of my

brother-in-law, Friedrich Brockhaus, where I saw him frequently.

My brother-in-law had the greatest pity and sympathy for the Polish

rebels, and was the president of a committee whose task it was to look

after their interests, and for a long time he made many personal

sacrifices for their cause.

The Brockhaus establishment now became tremendously attractive to me.

Around Count Vincenz Tyszkiewitcz, who remained the lodestar of this

small Polish world, gathered a great many other wealthy exiles, amongst

whom I chiefly remember a cavalry captain of the name of Bansemer, a

man of unlimited kindness, but of a rather frivolous nature; he

possessed a marvellous team of four horses which he drove at such

breakneck speed as to cause great annoyance to the people of Leipzig.

Another man of importance with whom I remember dining was General Bem,

whose artillery had made such a gallant stand at Ostrolenka.

Many other exiles passed through this hospitable house, some of whom

impressed us by their melancholy, warlike bearing, others by their

refined behaviour. Vincenz Tyszkiewitcz, however, remained my ideal of

a true man, and I loved him with a profound adoration. He, too, began

to be interested in me; I used to call upon him nearly every day, and

was sometimes present at a sort of martial feast, from which he often

withdrew in order to be able to open his heart to me about the

anxieties which oppressed him. He had, in fact, received absolutely no

news of the whereabouts of his wife and little son since they separated

at Volhynien. Besides this, he was under the shadow of a great sorrow

which drew all sympathetic natures to him. To my sister Louise he had

confided the terrible calamity that had once befallen him. He had been

married before, and while staying with his wife in one of his lonely

castles, in the dead of night he had seen a ghostly apparition at the

window of his bedroom. Hearing his name called several times, he had

taken up a revolver to protect himself from possible danger, and had

shot his own wife, who had had the eccentric idea of teasing him by

pretending to be a ghost. I had the pleasure of sharing his joy on

hearing that his family was safe. His wife joined him in Leipzig with

their beautiful boy, Janusz. I felt sorry not to be able to feel the

same sympathy for this lady as I did for her husband; perhaps one of

the reasons of my antipathy was the obvious and conspicuous way in

which she made herself up, by means of which the poor woman probably

tried to hide how much her beauty had suffered through the terrible

strain of the past events. She soon went back to Galicia to try and

save what she could of their property, and also to provide her husband

with a pass from the Austrian Government, by means of which he could

follow her.

Then came the third of May. Eighteen of the Poles who were still in

Leipzig met together at a festive dinner in a hotel outside the town;

on this day was to be celebrated the first anniversary of the third of

May, so dear to the memory of the Poles. Only the chiefs of the Leipzig

Polish Committee received invitations, and as a special favour I also

was asked. I shall never forget that occasion. The dinner became an

orgy; throughout the evening a brass band from the town played Polish

folksongs, and these were sung by the whole company, led by a

Lithuanian called Zan, in a manner now triumphant and now mournful. The

beautiful ‘Third of May’ song more particularly drew forth a positive

uproar of enthusiasm. Tears and shouts of joy grew into a terrible

tumult; the excited men grouped themselves on the grass swearing

eternal friendship in the most extravagant terms, for which the word

‘Oiczisna’ (Fatherland) provided the principal theme, until at last

night threw her veil over this wild debauch.

That evening afterwards served me as the theme for an orchestral

composition (in the form of an overture) named Polonia; I shall recount

the fate of this work later on. My friend Tyszkiewitcz’s passport now

arrived, and he made up his mind to go back to Galicia via Brunn,

although his friends considered it was very rash of him to do so. I

very much wanted to see something of the world, and Tyszkiewitcz’s

offer to take me with him, induced my mother to consent to my going to

Vienna, a place that I had long wished to visit. I took with me the

scores of my three overtures which had already been performed, and also

that of my great symphony as yet unproduced, and had a grand time with

my Polish patron, who took me in his luxurious travelling-coach as far

as the capital of Moravia. During a short stop at Dresden the exiles of

all classes gave our beloved Count a friendly farewell dinner in Pirna,

at which the champagne flowed freely, while the health was drunk of the

future ‘Dictator of Poland.’

At last we separated at Brunn, from which place I continued my journey

to Vienna by coach. During the afternoon and night, which I was obliged

to spend in Brunn by myself, I went through terrible agonies from fear

of the cholera which, as I unexpectedly heard, had broken out in this

place. There I was all alone in a strange place, my faithful friend

just departed, and on hearing of the epidemic I felt as if a malicious

demon had caught me in his snare in order to annihilate me. I did not

betray my terror to the people in the hotel, but when I was shown into

a very lonely wing of the house and left by myself in this wilderness,

I hid myself in bed with my clothes on, and lived once again through

all the horrors of ghost stories as I had done in my boyhood. The

cholera stood before me like a living thing; I could see and touch it;

it lay in my bed and embraced me. My limbs turned to ice, I felt frozen

to the very marrow. Whether I was awake or asleep I never knew; I only

remember how astonished I was when, on awakening, I felt thoroughly

well and healthy.

At last I arrived in Vienna, where I escaped the epidemic which had

penetrated as far as that town. It was midsummer of the year 1832.

Owing to the introductions I had with me, I found myself very much at

home in this lively city, in which I made a pleasant stay of six weeks.

As my sojourn, however, had no really practical purpose, my mother

looked upon the cost of this holiday, short as it seemed, as an

unnecessary extravagance on my part. I visited the theatres, heard

Strauss, made excursions, and altogether had a very good time. I am

afraid I contracted a few debts as well, which I paid off later on when

I was conductor of the Dresden orchestra. I had received very pleasant

impressions of musical and theatrical life, and for a long time Vienna

lived in my memory as the acme of that extraordinarily productive

spirit peculiar to its people. I enjoyed most of all the performances

at the Theater an der Wien, at which they were acting a grotesque fairy

play called Die Abenteuer Fortunat’s zu Wasser und zu Land, in which a

cab was called on the shores of the Black Sea and which made a

tremendous impression on me. About the music I was more doubtful. A

young friend of mine took me with immense pride to a performance of

Gluck’s Iphigenia in Tauris, which was made doubly attractive by a

first-rate cast including Wild, Staudigl and Binder: I must confess

that on the whole I was bored by this work, but I did not dare say so.

My ideas of Gluck had attained gigantic proportions from my reading of

Hoffmann’s well-known Phantasies; my anticipation of this work

therefore, which I had not studied yet, had led me to expect a

treatment full of overpowering dramatic force. It is possible that

Schroder-Devrient’s acting in Fidelio had taught me to judge everything

by her exalted standard.

With the greatest trouble I worked myself up to some kind of enthusiasm

for the great scene between Orestes and the Furies. I hoped against

hope that I should be able to admire the remainder of the opera. I

began to understand the Viennese taste, however, when I saw how great a

favourite the opera Zampa became with the public, both at the Karnthner

Thor and at the Josephstadt. Both theatres competed vigorously in the

production of this popular work, and although the public had seemed mad

about Iphigenia, nothing equalled their enthusiasm for Zampa. No sooner

had they left the Josephstadt Theatre in the greatest ecstasies about

Zampa than they proceeded to the public-house called the Strausslein.

Here they were immediately greeted by the strains of selections from

Zampa which drove the audience to feverish excitement. I shall never

forget the extraordinary playing of Johann Strauss, who put equal

enthusiasm into everything he played, and very often made the audience

almost frantic with delight.

At the beginning of a new waltz this demon of the Viennese musical

spirit shook like a Pythian priestess on the tripod, and veritable

groans of ecstasy (which, without doubt, were more due to his music

than to the drinks in which the audience had indulged) raised their

worship for the magic violinist to almost bewildering heights of

frenzy.

The hot summer air of Vienna was absolutely impregnated with Zampa and

Strauss. A very poor students’ rehearsal at the Conservatoire, at which

they performed a Mass by Cherubini, seemed to me like an alms paid

begrudgingly to the study of classical music. At the same rehearsal one

of the professors, to whom I was introduced, tried to make the students

play my Overture in D minor (the one already performed in Leipzig). I

do not know what his opinion was, nor that of the students, with regard

to this attempt; I only know they soon gave it up.

On the whole I had wandered into doubtful musical bypaths; and I now

withdrew from this first educational visit to a great European art

centre in order to start on a cheap, but long and monotonous return

journey to Bohemia, by stage-coach. My next move was a visit to the

house of Count Pachta, of whom I had pleasant recollections from my

boyhood days. His estate, Pravonin, was about eight miles from Prague.

Received in the kindest possible way by the old gentleman and his

beautiful daughters, I enjoyed his delightful hospitality until late

into the autumn. A youth of nineteen, as I then was, with a

fast-growing beard (for which my sisters had already prepared the young

ladies by letter), the continual and close intimacy with such kind and

pretty girls could hardly fail to make a strong impression on my

imagination. Jenny, the elder of the two, was slim, with black hair,

blue eyes, and wonderfully noble features; the younger one, Auguste,

was a little smaller, and stouter, with a magnificent complexion, fair

hair, and brown eyes. The natural and sisterly manner with which both

girls treated me and conversed with me did not blind me to the fact

that I was expected to fall in love with one or the other of them. It

amused them to see how embarrassed I got in my efforts to choose

between them, and consequently they teased me tremendously.

Unfortunately, I did not act judiciously with regard to the daughters

of my host: in spite of their homely education, they belonged to a very

aristocratic house, and consequently hesitated between the hope of

marrying men of eminent position in their own sphere, and the necessity

of choosing husbands amongst the higher middle classes, who could

afford to keep them in comfort. The shockingly poor, almost mediaeval,

education of the Austrian so-called cavalier, made me rather despise

the latter; the girls, too, had suffered from the same lack of proper

training. I soon noticed with disgust how little they knew about things

artistic, and how much value they attached to superficial things.

However much I might try to interest them in those higher pursuits

which had become necessary to me, they were incapable of appreciating

them. I advocated a complete change from the bad library novels, which

represented their only reading, from the Italian operatic arias, sung

by Auguste, and, last but not least, from the horsy, insipid cavaliers,

who paid their court to both Jenny and her sister in the most coarse

and offensive manner. My zeal in this latter respect soon gave rise to

great unpleasantness. I became hard and insulting, harangued them about

the French Revolution, and begged them with fatherly admonitions ‘for

the love of heaven’ to be content with well-educated middle-class men,

and give up those impertinent suitors who could only harm their

reputation. The indignation provoked by my friendly advice I often had

to ward off with the harshest retorts. I never apologised, but tried by

dint of real or feigned jealousy to get our friendship back on the old

footing. In this way, undecided, half in love and half angry, one cold

November day I said good-bye to these pretty children. I soon met the

whole family again at Prague, where I made a long sojourn, without,

however, staying at the Count’s residence.

My stay at Prague was to be of great musical importance to me. I knew

the director of the Conservatoire, Dionys Weber, who promised to bring

my symphony before the public; I also spent much of my time with an

actor called Moritz, to whom, as an old friend of our family, I had

been recommended, and there I made the acquaintance of the young

musician Kittl.

Moritz, who noticed that not a day passed but what I went to the

much-feared chief of the Conservatoire upon some pressing musical

business, once despatched me with an improvised parody on Schiller’s

Burgschaft:—

Zu Dionys dem Direktor schlich

Wagner, die Partitur im Gewande;

Ihn schlugen die Schuler im Bande:

‘Was wolltest du mit den Noten sprich?’

Entgegnet ihm finster der Wutherich:

‘Die Stadt vom schlechten Geschmacke befreien!

Das sollst du in den Rezensionen bereuen.’[5]

[5] To Dionys, the Director,

crept Wagner, the score in his pocket;

The students arrested him forthwith:

‘What do’st thou with that music, say?’

Thus asked him the angry tyrant:

‘To free the town from taste too vile!

For this the critics will make thee suffer.’

Truly I had to deal with a kind of ‘Dionysius the Tyrant.’ A man who

did not acknowledge Beethoven’s genius beyond his Second Symphony, a

man who looked upon the Eroica as the acme of bad taste on the master’s

part; who praised Mozart alone, and next to him tolerated only

Lindpaintner: such a man was not easy to approach, and I had to learn

the art of making use of tyrants for one’s own purposes. I

dissimulated; I pretended to be struck by the novelty of his ideas,

never contradicted him, and, to point out the similarity of our

standpoints, I referred him to the end fugue in my Overture and in my

Symphony (both in C major), which I had only succeeded in making what

they were through having studied Mozart. My reward soon followed:

Dionys set to work to study my orchestral creations with almost

youthful energy.

The students of the Conservatoire were compelled to practise with the

greatest exactitude my new symphony under his dry and terribly noisy

baton. In the presence of several of my friends, amongst whom was also

the dear old Count Pachta in his capacity of President of the

Conservatoire Committee, we actually held a first performance of the

greatest work that I had written up to that date.

During these musical successes I went on with my love-making in the

attractive house of Count Pachta, under the most curious circumstances.

A confectioner of the name of Hascha was my rival. He was a tall, lanky

young man who, like most Bohemians, had taken up music as a hobby; he

played the accompaniments to Auguste’s songs, and naturally fell in

love with her. Like myself, he hated the frequent visits of the

cavaliers, which seemed to be quite the custom in this city; but while

my displeasure expressed itself in humour, his showed itself in gloomy

melancholy. This mood made him behave boorishly in public: for

instance, one evening, when the chandelier was to be lighted for the

reception of one of these gentlemen, he ran his head purposely against

this ornament and broke it. The festive illumination was thus rendered

impossible; the Countess was furious, and Hascha had to leave the house

never to return.

I well remember that the first time I was conscious of any feelings of

love, these manifested themselves as pangs of jealousy, which had,

however, nothing to do with real love: this happened one evening when I

called at the house. The Countess kept me by her side in an ante-room,

while the girls, beautifully dressed and gay, flirted in the

reception-room with those hateful young noblemen. All I had ever read

in Hoffmann’s Tales of certain demoniacal intrigues, which until that

moment had been obscure to me, now became really tangible facts, and I

left Prague with an obviously unjust and exaggerated opinion of those

things and those people, through whom I had suddenly been dragged into

an unknown world of elementary passions.

On the other hand I had gained by my stay at Pravonin: I had written

poetry as well as musical compositions. My musical work was a setting

of Glockentone, a poem by the friend of my youth, Theodor Apel. I had

already written an aria for soprano which had been performed the winter

before at one of the theatre concerts. But my new work was decidedly

the first vocal piece I had written with real inspiration; generally

speaking, I suppose it owed its’ characteristics to the influence of

Beethoven’s Liederkreis: all the same, the impression that it has left

on my mind is that it was absolutely part of myself, and pervaded by a

delicate sentimentality which was brought into relief by the dreaminess

of the accompaniment. My poetical efforts lay in the direction of a

sketch of a tragi-operatic subject, which I finished in its entirety in

Prague under the title of Die Hochzeit (‘The Wedding’). I wrote it

without anybody’s knowledge, and this was no easy matter, seeing that I

could not write in my chilly little hotel-room, and had therefore to go

to the house of Moritz, where I generally spent my mornings. I remember

how I used quickly to hide my manuscript behind the sofa as soon as I

heard my host’s footsteps.

An extraordinary episode was connected with the plot of this work.

Already years ago I had come across a tragic story, whilst perusing

Busching’s book on chivalry, the like of which I have never since read.

A lady of noble birth had been assaulted one night by a man who

secretly cherished a passionate love for her, and in the struggle to

defend her honour superhuman strength was given her to fling him into

the courtyard below. The mystery of his death remained unexplained

until the day of his solemn obsequies, when the lady herself, who

attended them and was kneeling in solemn prayer, suddenly fell forward

and expired. The mysterious strength of this profound and passionate

story made an indelible impression upon my mind. Fascinated, moreover,

by the peculiar treatment of similar phenomena in Hoffmann’s Tales, I

sketched a novel in which musical mysticism, which I still loved so

deeply, played an important part. The action was supposed to take place

on the estate of a rich patron of the fine arts: a young couple was

going to be married, and had invited the friend of the bride-groom, an

interesting but melancholy and mysterious young man, to their wedding.

Intimately connected with the whole affair was a strange old organist.

The mystic relations which gradually developed between the old

musician, the melancholy young man and the bride, were to grow out of

the unravelment of certain intricate events, in a somewhat similar

manner to that of the mediaeval story above related. Here was the same

idea: the young man mysteriously killed, the equally strange sudden

death of his friend’s bride, and the old organist found dead on his

bench after the playing of an impressive requiem, the last chord of

which was inordinately prolonged as if it never would end.

I never finished this novel: but as I wanted to write the libretto for

an opera, I took up the theme again in its original shape, and built on

this (as far as the principal features went) the following dramatic

plot:—

Two great houses had lived in enmity, and had at last decided to end

the family feud. The aged head of one of these houses invited the son

of his former enemy to the wedding of his daughter with one of his

faithful partisans. The wedding feast is thus used as an opportunity

for reconciling the two families. Whilst the guests are full of the

suspicion and fear of treachery, their young leader falls violently in

love with the bride of his newly found ally. His tragic glance deeply

affects her; the festive escort accompanies her to the bridal chamber,

where she is to await her beloved; leaning against her tower-window she

sees the same passionate eyes fixed on her, and realises that she is

face to face with a tragedy.

When he penetrates into her chamber, and embraces her with frantic

passion, she pushes him backwards towards the balcony, and throws him

over the parapet into the abyss, from whence his mutilated remains are

dragged by his companions. They at once arm themselves against the

presumed treachery, and call for vengeance; tumult and confusion fill

the courtyard: the interrupted wedding feast threatens to end in a

night of slaughter. The venerable head of the house at last succeeds in

averting the catastrophe. Messengers are sent to bear the tidings of

the mysterious calamity to the relatives of the victim: the corpse

itself shall be the medium of reconciliation, for, in the presence of

the different generations of the suspected family, Providence itself

shall decide which of its members has been guilty of treason. During

the preparations for the obsequies the bride shows signs of approaching

madness; she flies from her bridegroom, refuses to be united to him,

and locks herself up in her tower-chamber. Only when, at night, the

gloomy though gorgeous ceremony commences, does she appear at the head

of her women to be present at the burial service, the gruesome

solemnity of which is interrupted by the news of the approach of

hostile forces and then by the armed attack of the kinsmen of the

murdered man. When the avengers of the presumed treachery penetrate

into the chapel and call upon the murderer to declare himself, the

horrified lord of the manor points towards his daughter who, turning

away from her bridegroom, falls lifeless by the coffin of her victim.

This nocturnal drama, through which ran reminiscences of Leubald und

Adelaïde (the work of my far-off boyhood), I wrote in the darkest vein,

but in a more polished and more noble style, disdaining all

light-effects, and especially all operatic embellishments. Tender

passages occurred here and there all the same, and Weinlich, to whom I

had already shown the beginning of my work on my return to Leipzig,

praised me for the clearness and good vocal quality of the introduction

I had composed to the first act; this was an Adagio for a vocal

septette, in which I had tried to express the reconciliation of the

hostile families, together with the emotions of the wedded couple and

the sinister passion of the secret lover. My principal object was, all

the same, to win my sister Rosalie’s approval. My poem, however, did

not find favour in her eyes: she missed all that which I had purposely

avoided, insisted on the ornamentation and development of the simple

situation, and desired more brightness generally. I made up my mind in

an instant: I took the manuscript, and without a suggestion of

ill-temper, destroyed it there and then. This action had nothing

whatever to do with wounded vanity. It was prompted merely by my desire

honestly to prove to my sister how little I thought of my own work and

how much I cared for her opinion. She was held in great and loving

esteem by my mother and by the rest of our family, for she was their

principal breadwinner: the important salary she earned as an actress

constituted nearly the whole income out of which my mother had to

defray the household expenses. For the sake of her profession she

enjoyed many advantages at home. Her part of the house had been

specially arranged so that she should have all the necessary comfort

and peace for her studies; on marketing days, when the others had to

put up with the simplest fare, she had to have the same dainty food as

usual. But more than any of these things did her charming gravity and

her refined way of speaking place her above the younger children. She

was thoughtful and gentle and never joined us in our rather loud

conversation. Of course, I had been the one member of the family who

had caused the greatest anxieties both to my mother and to my motherly

sister, and during my life as a student the strained relations between

us had made a terrible impression on me. When therefore they tried to

believe in me again, and once more showed some interest in my work, I

was full of gratitude and happiness. The thought of getting this sister

to look kindly upon my aspirations, and even to expect great things of

me, had become a special stimulus to my ambition. Under these

circumstances a tender and almost sentimental relationship grew up

between Rosalie and myself, which in its purity and sincerity could vie

with the noblest form of friendship between man and woman. This was

principally due to her exceptional individuality. She had not any real

talent, at least not for acting, which had often been considered stagey

and unnatural. Nevertheless she was much appreciated owing to her

charming appearance as well as to her pure and dignified womanliness,

and I remember many tokens of esteem which she received in those days.

All the same, none of these advances ever seemed to lead to the

prospect of a marriage, and year by year went by without bringing her

hopes of a suitable match—a fact which to me appeared quite

unaccountable. From time to time I thought I noticed that Rosalie

suffered from this state of affairs. I remember one evening when,

believing herself to be alone, I heard her sobbing and moaning; I stole

away unnoticed, but her grief made such an impression upon me that from

that moment I vowed to bring some joy into her life, principally by

making a name for myself. Not without reason had our stepfather Geyer

given my gentle sister the nickname of ‘Geistchen’ (little spirit), for

if her talent as an actress was not great, her imagination and her love

of art and of all high and noble things were perhaps, on that account

alone, all the greater. From her lips I had first heard expressions of

admiration and delight concerning those subjects which became dear to

me later on, and she moved amongst a circle of serious and interesting

people who loved the higher things of life without this attitude ever

degenerating into affectation.

On my return from my long journey I was introduced to Heinrich Laube,

whom my sister had added to her list of intimate friends. It was at the

time when the after-effects of the July revolution were beginning to

make themselves felt amongst the younger men of intellect in Germany,

and of these Laube was one of the most conspicuous. As a young man he

came from Silesia to Leipzig, his principal object being to try and

form connections in this publishing centre which might be of use to him

in Paris, whither he was going, and from which place Borne also made a

sensation amongst us by his letters. On this occasion Laube was present

at a representation of a play by Ludwig Robert, Die Macht der

Verhallnisse (‘The Power of Circumstances’). This induced him to write

a criticism for the Leipzig Tageblatt, which made such a sensation

through its terse and lively style that he was at once offered, in

addition to other literary work, the post of editor of Die elegante

Welt. In our house he was looked upon as a genius; his curt and often

biting manner of speaking, which seemed to exclude all attempt at

poetic expression, made him appear both original and daring: his sense

of justice, his sincerity and fearless bluntness made one respect his

character, hardened as it had been in youth by great adversity. On me

he had a very inspiring effect, and I was very much astonished to find

that he thought so much of me as to write a flattering notice about my

talent in his paper after hearing the first performance of my symphony.

This performance took place in the beginning of the year 1833 at the

Leipzig Schneider-Herberge. It was, by the bye, in this dignified old

hall that the society ‘Euterpe’ held its concerts! The place was dirty,

narrow, and poorly lighted, and it was here that my work was introduced

to the Leipzig public for the first time, and by means of an orchestra

that interpreted it simply disgracefully. I can only think of that

evening as a gruesome nightmare; and my astonishment was therefore all

the greater at seeing the important notice which Laube wrote about the

performance. Full of hope, I therefore looked forward to a performance

of the same work at the Gewandhaus concert, which followed soon after,

and which came off brilliantly in every way. It was well received and

well spoken of in all the papers; of real malice there was not a

trace—on the contrary, several notices wore encouraging, and Laube, who

had quickly become celebrated, confided to me that he was going to

offer me a libretto for an opera, which he had first written for

Meyerbeer. This staggered me somewhat, for I was not in the least

prepared to pose as a poet, and my only idea was to write a real plot

for an opera. As to the precise manner, however, in which such a book

had to be written, I already had a very definite and instinctive

notion, and I was strengthened in the certainty of my own feelings in

the matter when Laube now explained the nature of his plot to me. He

told me that he wanted to arrange nothing less than Kosziusko into a

libretto for grand opera! Once again I had qualms, for I felt at once

that Laube had a mistaken idea about the character of a dramatic

subject. When I inquired into the real action of the play, Laube was

astonished that I should expect more than the story of the Polish hero,

whose life was crowded with incident; in any case, he thought there was

quite sufficient action in it to describe the unhappy fate of a whole

nation. Of course the usual heroine was not missing; she was a Polish

girl who had a love affair with a Russian; and in this way some

sentimental situations were also to be found in the plot. Without a

moment’s delay I assured my sister Rosalie that I would not set this

story to music: she agreed with me, and begged me only to postpone my

answer to Laube. My journey to Wurzburg was of great help to me in this

respect, for it was easier to write my decision to Laube than to

announce it to him personally. He accepted the slight rebuff with good

grace, but he never forgave me, either then or afterwards, for writing

my own words!

When he heard what subject I had preferred to his brilliant political

poem, he made no effort to conceal his contempt for my choice. I had

borrowed the plot from a dramatic fairy tale by Gozzi, La Donna

Serpente, and called it Die Feen (‘The Fairies’). The names of my

heroes I chose from different Ossian and similar poems: my prince was

called Arindal; he was loved by a fairy called Ada, who held him under

her spell and kept him in fairyland, away from his realm, until his

faithful friends at last found him and induced him to return, for his

country was going to rack and ruin, and even its capital had fallen

into the enemy’s hands. The loving fairy herself sends the prince back

to his country; for the oracle has decreed that she shall lay upon her

lover the severest of tasks. Only by performing this task triumphantly

can he make it possible for her to leave the immortal world of fairies

in order to share the fate of her earthly lover, as his wife. In a

moment of deepest despair about the state of his country, the fairy

queen appears to him and purposely destroys his faith in her by deeds

of the most cruel and inexplicable nature. Driven mad by a thousand

fears, Arindal begins to imagine that all the time he has been dealing

with a wicked sorceress, and tries to escape the fatal spell by

pronouncing a curse upon Ada. Wild with sorrow, the unhappy fairy sinks

down, and reveals their mutual fate to the lover, now lost to her for

ever, and tells him that, as a punishment for having disobeyed the

decree of Fate, she is doomed to be turned into stone (in Gozzi’s

version she becomes a serpent). Immediately afterwards it appears that

all the catastrophes which the fairy had prophesied were but

deceptions: victory over the enemy as well as the growing prosperity

and welfare of the kingdom now follow in quick succession: Ada is taken

away by the Fates, and Arindal, a raving madman, remains behind alone.

The terrible sufferings of his madness do not, however, satisfy the

Fates: to bring about his utter ruin they appear before the repentant

man and invite him to follow them to the nether world, on the pretext

of enabling him to free Ada from the spell. Through the treacherous

promises of the wicked fairies Arindal’s madness grows into sublime

exaltation; and one of his household magicians, a faithful friend,

having in the meantime equipped him with magic weapons and charms, he

now follows the traitresses. The latter cannot get over their

astonishment when they see how Arindal overcomes one after the other of

the monsters of the infernal regions: only when they arrive at the

vault in which they show him the stone in human shape do they recover

their hope of vanquishing the valiant prince, for, unless he can break

the charm which binds Ada, he must share her fate and be doomed to

remain a stone for ever. Arindal, who until then has been using the

dagger and the shield given him by the friendly magician, now makes use

of an instrument—a lyre—which he has brought with him, and the meaning

of which he had not yet understood. To the sounds of this instrument he

now expresses his plaintive moans, his remorse, and his overpowering

longing for his enchanted queen. The stone is moved by the magic of his

love: the beloved one is released. Fairyland with all its marvels opens

its portals, and the mortal learns that, owing to his former

inconstancy, Ada has lost the right to become his wife on earth, but

that her beloved, through his great and magic power, has earned the

right to live for ever by her side in fairyland.

Although I had written Die Hochzeit in the darkest vein, without

operatic embellishments, I painted this subject with the utmost colour

and variety. In contrast to the lovers out of fairyland I depicted a

more ordinary couple, and I even introduced a third pair that belonged

to the coarser and more comical servant world. I purposely went to no

pains in the matter of the poetic diction and the verse. My idea was

not to encourage my former hopes of making a name as a poet; I was now

really a ‘musician’ and a ‘composer,’ and wished to write a decent

opera libretto simply because I was sure that nobody else could write

one for me; the reason being that such a book is something quite unique

and cannot be written either by a poet or by a mere man of letters.

With the intention of setting this libretto to music, I left Leipzig in

January, 1833, to stay in Wurzburg with my eldest brother Albert, who

at the time held an appointment at the theatre. It now seemed necessary

for me to begin to apply my musical knowledge to a practical purpose,

and to this end my brother had promised to help me in getting some kind

of post at the small Wurzburg theatre. I travelled by post to Bamberg

via Hof, and in Bamberg I stayed a few days in the company of a young

man called Schunke, who from a player on the horn had become an actor.

With the greatest interest I learned the story of Caspar Hauser, who at

that time was very well known, and who (if I am not mistaken) was

pointed out to me. In addition to this, I admired the peculiar costumes

of the market-women, thought with much interest of Hoffmann’s stay at

this place, and of how it had led to the writing of his Tales, and

resumed my journey (to Wurzburg) with a man called Hauderer, and

suffered miserably from the cold all the way.

My brother Albert, who was almost a new acquaintance to me, did his

best to make me feel at home in his not over luxurious establishment.

He was pleased to find me less mad than he had expected me to be from a

certain letter with which I had succeeded in frightening him some time

previously, and he really managed to procure me an exceptional

occupation as choir-master at the theatre, for which I received the

monthly fee of ten guilders. The remainder of the winter was devoted to

the serious study of the duties required of a musical director: in a

very short time I had to tackle two new grand operas, namely,

Marschner’s Vampir and Meyerbeer’s Robert der Teufel, in both of which

the chorus played a considerable part. At first I felt absolutely like

a beginner, and had to start on Camilla von Paer, the score of which

was utterly unknown to me. I still remember that I felt I was doing a

thing which I had no right to undertake: I felt quite an amateur at the

work. Soon, however, Marschner’s score interested me sufficiently to

make the labour seem worth my while. The score of Robert was a great

disappointment to me: from the newspapers I had expected plenty of

originality and novelty; I could find no trace of either in this

transparent work, and an opera with a finale like that of the second

act could not be named in the same breath with any of my favourite

works. The only thing that impressed me was the unearthly keyed trumpet

which, in the last act, represented the voice of the mother’s ghost.

It was remarkable to observe the aesthetic demoralisation into which I

now fell through having daily to deal with such a work. I gradually

lost my dislike for this shallow and exceedingly uninteresting

composition (a dislike I shared with many German musicians) in the

growing interest which I was compelled to take in its interpretation;

and thus it happened that the insipidness and affectation of the

commonplace melodies ceased to concern me save from the standpoint of

their capability of eliciting applause or the reverse. As, moreover, my

future career as musical conductor was at stake, my brother, who was

very anxious on my behalf, looked favourably on this lack of classical

obstinacy on my part, and thus the ground was gradually prepared for

that decline in my classical taste which was destined to last some

considerable time.

All the same, this did not occur before I had given some proof of my

great inexperience in the lighter style of writing. My brother wanted

to introduce a ‘Cavatine’ from the Piraten, by Bellini, into the same

composer’s opera, Straniera; the score was not to be had, and he

entrusted me with the instrumentation of this work. From the piano

score alone I could not possibly detect the heavy and noisy

instrumentation of the ritornelles and intermezzi which, musically,

were so very thin; the composer of a great C major Symphony with an end

fugue could only help himself out of the difficulty by the use of a few

flutes and clarinets playing in thirds. At the rehearsal the ‘Cavatine’

sounded so frightfully thin and shallow that my brother made me serious

reproaches about the waste of copying expenses. But I had my revenge:

to the tenor aria of ‘Aubry’ in Marschner’s Vampir I added an Allegro,

for which I also wrote the words.

My work succeeded splendidly, and earned the praise of both the public

and my brother. In a similar German style I wrote the music to my Feen

in the course of the year 1833. My brother and his wife left Wurzburg

after Easter in order to avail themselves of several invitations at

friends’ houses; I stayed behind with the children—three little girls

of tender years—which placed me in the extraordinary position of a

responsible guardian, a post for which I was not in the least suited at

that time of my life. My time was divided between my work and pleasure,

and in consequence I neglected my charges. Amongst the friends I made

there, Alexander Muller had much influence over me; he was a good

musician and pianist, and I used to listen for hours to his

improvisations on given themes—an accomplishment in which he so greatly

excelled, that I could not fail to be impressed. With him and some

other friends, amongst whom was also Valentin Hamm, I often made

excursions in the neighbourhood, on which occasions the Bavarian beer

and the Frankish wine were wont to fly. Valentin Hamm was a grotesque

individual, who entertained us often with his excellent violin playing;

he had an enormous stretch on the piano, for he could reach an interval

of a twelfth. Der Letzte Hieb, a public beer-garden situated on a

pleasant height, was a daily witness of my fits of wild and often

enthusiastic boisterousness; never once during those mild summer nights

did I return to my charges without having waxed enthusiastic over art

and the world in general. I also remember a wicked trick which has

always remained a blot in my memory. Amongst my friends was a fair and

very enthusiastic Swabian called Frohlich, with whom I had exchanged my

score of the C minor Symphony for his, which he had copied out with his

own hand. This very gentle, but rather irritable young man had taken

such a violent dislike to one Andre, whose malicious face I also

detested, that he declared that this person spoilt his evenings for

him, merely by being in the same room with him. The unfortunate object

of his hatred tried all the same to meet us whenever he could: friction

ensued, but Andre would insist upon aggravating us. One evening

Frohlich lost patience. After some insulting retort, he tried to chase

him from our table by striking him with a stick: the result was a fight

in which Frolich’s friends felt they must take part, though they all

seemed to do so with some reluctance. A mad longing to join the fray

also took possession of me. With the others I helped in knocking our

poor victim about, and I even heard the sound of one terrible blow

which I struck Andre on the head, whilst he fixed his eyes on me in

bewilderment.

I relate this incident to atone for a sin which has weighed very

heavily on my conscience ever since. I can compare this sad experience

only with one out of my earliest boyhood days, namely the drowning of

some puppies in a shallow pool behind my uncle’s house in Eisleben.

Even to this day I cannot think of the slow death of these poor little

creatures without horror. I have never quite forgotten some of my

thoughtless and reckless actions; for the sorrows of others, and in

particular those of animals, have always affected me deeply to the

extent of filling me with a disgust of life.

My first love affair stands out in strong contrast against these

recollections. It was only natural that one of the young chorus ladies

with whom I had to practise daily should know how to attract my

attentions. Therese Ringelmann, the daughter of a grave-digger, thanks

to her beautiful soprano voice, led me to believe that I could make a

great singer of her. After I told her of this ambitious scheme, she

paid much attention to her appearance, and dressed elegantly for the

rehearsals, and a row of white pearls which she wound through her hair

specially fascinated me. During the summer holidays I gave Therese

regular lessons in singing, according to a method which has always

remained a mystery to me ever since. I also called on her very often at

her house, where, fortunately, I never met her unpleasant father, but

always her mother and her sisters. We also met in the public gardens,

but false vanity always kept me from telling my friends of our

relations. I do not know whether the fault lay with her lowly birth,

her lack of education, or my own doubt about the sincerity of my

affections; but in any case when, in addition to the fact that I had my

reasons for being jealous, they also tried to urge me to a formal

engagement, this love affair came quietly to an end.

An infinitely more genuine affair was my love for Friederike Galvani,

the daughter of a mechanic, who was undoubtedly of Italian origin. She

was very musical, and had a lovely voice; my brother had patronised her

and helped her to a debut at his theatre, which test she stood

brilliantly. She was rather small, but had large dark eyes and a sweet

disposition. The first oboist of the orchestra, a good fellow as well

as a clever musician, was thoroughly devoted to her. He was looked upon

as her fiance, but, owing to some incident in his past, he was not

allowed to visit at her parents’ house, and the marriage was not to

take place for a long time yet. When the autumn of my year in Wurzburg

drew near, I received an invitation from friends to be present at a

country wedding at a little distance from Wurzburg; the oboist and his

fiancee had also been invited. It was a jolly, though primitive affair;

we drank and danced, and I even tried my hand at violin playing, but I

must have forgotten it badly, for even with the second violin I could

not manage to satisfy the other musicians. But my success with

Friederike was all the greater; we danced like mad through the many

couples of peasants until at one moment we got so excited that, losing

all self-control, we embraced each other while her real lover was

playing the dance music. For the first time in my life I began to feel

a flattering sensation of self-respect when Friederike’s fiance, on

seeing how we two flirted, accepted the situation with good grace, if

not without some sadness. I had never had the chance of thinking that I

could make a favourable impression on any young girl. I never imagined

myself good-looking, neither had I ever thought it possible that I

could attract the attention of pretty girls.

On the other hand, I had gradually acquired a certain self-reliance in

mixing with men of my own age. Owing to the exceptional vivacity and

innate susceptibility of my nature—qualities which were brought home to

me in my relations with members of my circle—I gradually became

conscious of a certain power of transporting or bewildering my more

indolent companions.

From my poor oboist’s silent self-control on becoming aware of the

ardent advances of his betrothed towards me, I acquired, as I have

said, the first suggestion of the fact that I might count for

something, not only among men, but also among women. The Frankish wine

helped to bring about a state of ever greater confusion, and under the

cover of its influence I at length declared myself, quite openly, to be

Friederike’s lover. Ever so far into the night, in fact, when day was

already breaking, we set off home together to Wurzburg in an open

wagon. This was the crowning triumph of my delightful adventure; for

while all the others, including, in the end, the jealous oboist, slept

off their debauch in the face of the dawning day, I, with my cheek

against Friederike’s, and listening to the warbling of the larks,

watched the coming of the rising sun.

On the following day we had scarcely any idea of what had happened. A

certain sense of shame, which was not unbecoming, held us aloof from

one another: and yet I easily won access to Friederike’s family, and

from that time forward was daily a welcome guest, when for some hours I

would linger in unconcealed intimate intercourse with the same domestic

circle from which the unhappy betrothed remained excluded. No word was

ever mentioned of this last connection; never once did it even dawn

upon Friederike to effect any change in the state of affairs, and it

seemed to strike no one that I ought, so to speak, to take the fiance’s

place. The confiding manner in which I was received by all, and

especially by the girl herself, was exactly similar to one of Nature’s

great processes, as, for instance, when spring steps in and winter

passes silently away. Not one of them ever considered the material

consequences of the change, and this is precisely the most charming and

flattering feature of this first youthful love affair, which was never

to degenerate into an attitude which might give rise to suspicion or

concern. These relations ended only with my departure from Wurzburg,

which was marked by the most touching and most tearful leavetaking.

For some time, although I kept up no correspondence, the memory of this

episode remained firmly imprinted on my mind. Two years later, while

making a rapid journey through the old district, I once more visited

Friederike: the poor child approached me utterly shamefaced. Her oboist

was still her lover, and though his position rendered marriage

impossible, the unfortunate young woman had become a mother. I have

heard nothing more of her since.

Amid all this traffic of love I worked hard at my opera, and, thanks to

the loving sympathy of my sister Rosalie, I was able to find the

necessary good spirits for the task. When at the commencement of the

summer my earnings as a conductor came to an end, this same sister

again made it her business loyally to provide me with ample

pocket-money, so that I might devote myself solely to the completion of

my work, without troubling about anything or being a burden to any one.

At a much later date I came across a letter of mine written to Rosalie

in those days, which were full of a tender, almost adoring love for

that noble creature.

When the winter was at hand my brother returned, and the theatre

reopened. Truth to tell, I did not again become connected with it, but

acquired a position, which was even more prominent, in the concerts of

the Musical Society in which I produced my great overture in C major,

my symphony, and eventually portions of my new opera as well. An

amateur with a splendid voice, Mademoiselle Friedel, sang the great

aria from Ada. In addition to this, a trio was given which, in one of

its passages, had such a moving effect upon my brother, who took part

in it, that, to his astonishment, as he himself admitted, he completely

lost his cue on account of it.

By Christmas my work had come to an end, my score was written out

complete with the most laudable neatness, and now I was to return to

Leipzig for the New Year, in order to get my opera accepted by the

theatre there. On the way home I visited Nuremberg, where I stayed a

week with my sister Clara and with her husband, who were engaged at the

theatre there. I well remember how happy and comfortable I felt during

this pleasant visit to the very same relatives who a few years

previously, when I had stayed with them at Magdeburg, had been upset by

my resolve to adopt music as a calling. Now I had become a real

musician, had written a grand opera, and had already brought out many

things without coming to grief. The sense of all this was a great joy

to me, while it was no less flattering to my relatives, who could not

fail to see that the supposed misfortune had in the end proved to my

advantage. I was in a jolly mood and quite unrestrained—a state of mind

which was very largely the result not only of my brother-in-law’s

cheerful and sociable household, but also of the pleasant tavern life

of the place. In a much more confident and elated spirit I returned to

Leipzig, where I was able to lay the three huge volumes of my score

before my highly delighted mother and sister.

Just then my family was the richer for the return of my brother Julius

from his long wanderings. He had worked a good while in Paris as a

goldsmith, and had now set up for himself in that capacity in Leipzig.

He too, like the rest, was eager to hear something out of my opera,

which, to be sure, was not so easy, as I entirely lacked the gift of

playing anything of the sort in an easy and intelligible way. Only when

I was able to work myself into a state of absolute ecstasy was it

possible for me to render something with any effect. Rosalie knew that

I meant it to draw a sort of declaration of love from her; but I have

never felt certain whether the embrace and the sisterly kiss which were

awarded me after I had sung my great aria from Ada, were bestowed on me

from real emotion or rather out of affectionate regard. On the other

hand, the zeal with which she urged my opera on the director of the

theatre, Ringelhardt, the conductor and the manager was unmistakable,

and she did it so effectually that she obtained their consent for its

performance, and that very speedily. I was particularly interested to

learn that the management immediately showed themselves eager to try to

settle the matter of the costumes for my drama: but I was astonished to

hear that the choice was in favour of oriental attire, whereas I had

intended, by the names I had selected, to suggest a northern character

for the setting. But it was precisely these names which they found

unsuitable, as fairy personages are not seen in the North, but only in

the East; while apart from this, the original by Gozzi, which formed

the basis of the work, undoubtedly bore an oriental character. It was

with the utmost indignation that I opposed the insufferable turban and

caftan style of dress, and vehemently advocated the knightly garb worn

in the early years of the Middle Ages. I then had to come to a thorough

understanding with the conductor, Stegmayer, on the subject of my

score. He was a remarkable, short, fat man, with fair curly hair, and

an exceptionally jovial disposition; he was, however, very hard to

bring to a point. When over our wine we always arrived at an

understanding very quickly, but as soon as we sat at the piano, I had

to listen to the most extraordinary objections concerning the trend of

which I was for some time extremely puzzled. As the matter was much

delayed by this vacillation, I put myself into closer communication

with the stage manager of the opera, Hauser, who at that time was much

appreciated as a singer and patron of art by the people of Leipzig.

With this man, too, I had the strangest experiences: he who had

captivated the audiences of Leipzig, more especially with his

impersonation of the barber and the Englishman in Fra Diavolo, suddenly

revealed himself in his own house as the most fanatical adherent of the

most old-fashioned music. I listened with astonishment to the scarcely

veiled contempt with which he treated even Mozart, and the only thing

he seemed to regret was that we had no operas by Sebastian Bach. After

he had explained to me that dramatic music had not actually been

written yet, and that properly speaking Gluck alone had shown any

ability for it, he proceeded to what seemed an exhaustive examination

of my own opera, concerning which all I had wished to hear from him was

whether it was fit to be performed. Instead of this, however, his

object seemed to be to point out the failure of my purpose in every

number. I sweated blood under the unparalleled torture of going through

my work with this man; and I told my mother and sister of my grave

depression. All these delays had already succeeded in making it

impossible to perform my opera at the date originally fixed, and now it

was postponed until August of the current year (1834).

An incident which I shall never forget inspired me with fresh courage.

Old Bierey, an experienced and excellent musician, and in his day a

successful composer, who, thanks more particularly to his long practice

as a conductor at the Breslau theatre, had acquired a perfectly

practical knowledge of such things, was then living at Leipzig, and was

a good friend of my people. My mother and sister begged him to give his

opinion about the fitness of my opera for the stage, and I duly

submitted the score to him. I cannot say how deeply affected and

impressed I was to see this old gentleman appear one day among my

relatives, and to hear him declare with genuine enthusiasm that he

simply could not understand how so young a man could have composed such

a score. His remarks concerning the greatness which he had recognised

in my talent were really irresistible, and positively amazed me. When

asked whether he considered the work presentable and calculated to

produce an effect, he declared his only regret was that he was no

longer at the head of a theatre, because, had he been, he would have

thought himself extremely lucky to secure such a man as myself

permanently for his enterprise. At this announcement my family was

overcome with joy, and their feelings were all the more justified

seeing that, as they all knew, Bierey was by no means an amiable

romancer, but a practical musician well seasoned by a life full of

experience.

The delay was now borne with better spirits, and for a long time I was

able to wait hopefully for what the future might bring. Among other

things, I now began to enjoy the company of a new friend in the person

of Laube, who at that time, although I had not set his Kosziusko to

music, was at the zenith of his fame. The first portion of his novel,

Young Europe, the form of which was epistolary, had appeared, and had a

most stimulating effect on me, more particularly in conjunction with

all the youthful hopefulness which at that time pulsated in my veins.

Though his teaching was essentially only a repetition of that in

Heinse’s Ardinghello, the forces that then surged in young breasts were

given full and eloquent expression. The guiding spirit of this tendency

was followed in literary criticism, which was aimed mainly at the

supposed or actual incapacity of the semi-classical occupants of our

various literary thrones. Without the slightest mercy the pedants,[6]

among whom Tieck for one was numbered, were treated as sheer

encumbrances and hindrances to the rise of a new literature. That which

led to a remarkable revulsion of my feelings with regard to those

German composers who hitherto had been admired and respected, was

partly the influence of these critical skirmishes, and the luring

sprightliness of their tone; but mainly the impression made by a fresh

visit of Schroder-Devrient to Leipzig, when her rendering of Borneo in

Bellini’s Romeo and Juliet carried every one by storm. The effect of it

was not to be compared with anything that had been witnessed

theretofore. To see the daring, romantic figure of the youthful lover

against a background of such obviously shallow and empty music prompted

one, at all events, to meditate doubtfully upon the cause of the great

lack of effect in solid German music as it had been applied hitherto to

the drama. Without for the moment plunging too deeply into this

meditation, I allowed myself to be borne along with the current of my

youthful feelings, then roused to ardour, and turned involuntarily to

the task of working off all that brooding seriousness which in my

earlier years had driven me to such pathetic mysticism.

[6] _Zöpfe_ in the German text.—TRANSLATOR.

What Pohlenz had not done by his conducting of the Ninth Symphony, what

the Vienna Conservatoire, Dionys Weber, and many other clumsy

performances (which had led me to regard classical music as absolutely

colourless) had not fully accomplished, was achieved by the

inconceivable charm of the most unclassical Italian music, thanks to

the wonderful, thrilling, and entrancing impersonation of Romeo by

Schroder-Devrient. What effect such powerful, and as regards their

causes, incomprehensible, effects had upon my opinion was shown in the

frivolous way in which I was able to contrive a short criticism of

Weber’s Euryanthe for the Elegante Zeitung. This opera had been

performed by the Leipzig company shortly before the appearance of

Schroder-Devrient: cold and colourless performers, among whom the

singer in the title-role, appearing in the wilderness with the full

sleeves which were then the pink of fashion, is still a disagreeable

memory. Very laboriously, and without verve, but simply with the object

of satisfying the demands of classical rules, this company did its

utmost to dispel even the enthusiastic impressions of Weber’s music

which I had formed in my youth. I did not know what answer to make to a

brother critic of Laube’s, when he pointed out to me the laboured

character of this operatic performance, as soon as he was able to

contrast it with the entrancing effect of that Romeo evening. Here I

found myself confronted with a problem, the solving of which I was just

at that time disposed to take as easily as possible, and displayed my

courage by discarding all prejudice, and that daringly, in the short

criticism just mentioned in which I simply scoffed at Euryanthe. Just

as I had had my season of wild oat sowing as a student, so now I boldly

rushed into the same courses in the development of my artistic taste.

It was May, and beautiful spring weather, and a pleasure trip that I

now undertook with a friend into the promised land of my youthful

romance, Bohemia, was destined to bring the unrestrained

‘Young-European’ mood in me to full maturity. This friend was Theodor

Apel. I had known him a long while, and had always felt particularly

flattered by the fact that I had won his hearty affection; for, as the

son of the gifted master of metre and imitator of Greek forms of

poetry, August Apel, I felt that admiring deference for him which I had

never yet been able to bestow upon the descendant of a famous man.

Being well-to-do and of a good family, his friendship gave me such

opportunities of coming into touch with the easy circumstances of the

upper classes as were not of frequent occurrence in my station of life.

While my mother, for instance, regarded my association with this highly

respectable family with great satisfaction, I for my part was extremely

gratified at the thought of the cordiality with which I was received in

such circles.

Apel’s earnest wish was to become a poet, and I took it for granted

that he had all that was needed for such a calling; above all, what

seemed to me so important, the complete freedom that his considerable

fortune assured him by liberating him from all need of earning his

living or of adopting a profession for a livelihood. Strange to say,

his mother, who on the death of his distinguished father had married a

Leipzig lawyer, was very anxious about the vocation he should choose,

and wished her son to make a fine career in the law, as she was not at

all disposed to favour his poetical gifts. And it was to her attempts

to convert me to her view, in order that by my influence I might avert

the calamity of a second poet in the family, in the person of the son,

that I owed the specially friendly relations that obtained between

herself and me. All her suggestions succeeded in doing, however, was to

stimulate me, even more than my own favourable opinion of his talent

could, to confirm my friend in his desire to be a poet, and thus to

support him in his rebellious attitude towards his family.

He was not displeased at this. As he was also studying music and

composed quite nicely, I succeeded in being on terms of the greatest

intimacy with him. The fact that he had spent the very year in which I

had sunk into the lowest depths of undergraduate madness, studying at

Heidelberg and not at Leipzig, had kept him unsullied by any share in

my strange excesses, and when we now met again at Leipzig, in the

spring of 1834, the only thing that we still had in common was the

aesthetic aspiration of our lives, which we now strove by way of

experiment to divert into the direction of the enjoyment of life.

Gladly would we have flung ourselves into lively adventures if only the

conditions of our environment and of the whole middle-class world in

which we lived had in any way admitted of such things. Despite all the

promptings of our instincts, however, we got no further than planning

this excursion to Bohemia. At all events, it was something that we made

the journey not by the post, but in our own carriage, and our genuine

pleasure continued to lie in the fact that at Teplitz, for instance, we

daily took long drives in a fine carriage. When in the evening we had

supped off trout at the Wilhelmsburg, drunk good Czernosek wine with

Bilin water, and duly excited ourselves over Hoffmann, Beethoven,

Shakespeare, Heinse’s Ardinghello, and other matters, and then, with

our limbs comfortably outstretched in our elegant carriage, drove back

in the summer twilight to the ‘King of Prussia,’ where we occupied the

large balcony-room on the first floor, we felt that we had spent the

day like young gods, and for sheer exuberance could think of nothing

better to do than to indulge in the most frightful quarrels which,

especially when the windows were open, would collect numbers of alarmed

listeners in the square before the inn.

One fine morning I stole away from my friend in order to take my

breakfast alone at the ‘Schlackenburg,’ and also to seize an

opportunity of jotting down the plan of a new operatic composition in

my note-book. With this end in view, I had mastered the subject of

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, which, in accordance with my present

mood, I soon transformed pretty freely into a libretto entitled

Liebesverbot. Young Europe and Ardinghello, and the strange frame of

mind into which I had fallen with regard to classical operatic music,

furnished me with the keynote of my conception, which was directed more

particularly against puritanical hypocrisy, and which thus tended

boldly to exalt ‘unrestrained sensuality.’ I took care to understand

the grave Shakespearean theme only in this sense. I could see only the

gloomy strait-laced viceroy, his heart aflame with the most passionate

love for the beautiful novice, who, while she beseeches him to pardon

her brother condemned to death for illicit love, at the same time

kindles the most dangerous fire in the stubborn Puritan’s breast by

infecting him with the lovely warmth of her human emotion.

The fact that these powerful features are so richly developed in

Shakespeare’s creation only in order that, in the end, they may be

weighed all the more gravely in the scales of justice, was no concern

of mine: all I cared about was to expose the sinfulness of hypocrisy

and the unnaturalness of such cruel moral censure. Thus I completely

dropped Measure for Measure, and made the hypocrite be brought to

justice only by the avenging power of love. I transferred the theme

from the fabulous city of Vienna to the capital of sunny Sicily, in

which a German viceroy, indignant at the inconceivably loose morals of

the people, attempts to introduce a puritanical reform, and comes

miserably to grief over it. Die Stumme von Portici probably contributed

to some extent to this theme, as did also certain memories of Die

Sizilianische Vesper. When I remember that at last even the gentle

Sicilian Bellini constituted a factor in this composition, I cannot, to

be sure, help smiling at the strange medley in which the most

extraordinary misunderstandings here took shape.

This remained for the present a mere draft. Studies from life destined

for my work were first to be carried out on this delightful excursion

to Bohemia. I led my friend in triumph to Prague, in the hope of

securing the same impressions for him which had stirred me so

profoundly when I was there. We met my fair friends in the city itself;

for, owing to the death of old Count Pachta, material changes had taken

place in the family, and the surviving daughters no longer went to

Pravonin. My behaviour was full of arrogance, and by means of it I

doubtless wished to vent a certain capricious lust of revenge for the

feelings of bitterness with which I had taken leave of this circle some

years previously. My friend was well received. The changed family

circumstances forced the charming girls ever more and more imperatively

to come to some decision as to their future, and a wealthy bourgeois,

though not exactly in trade himself, but in possession of ample means,

seemed to the anxious mother, at all events, a good adviser. Without

either showing or feeling any malice in the matter, I expressed my

pleasure at the sight of the strange confusion caused by Theodor’s

introduction into the family by the merriest and wildest jests: for my

only intercourse with the ladies consisted purely of jokes and friendly

chaff. They could not understand how it was that I had altered so

strangely. There was no longer any of that love of wrangling, that rage

for instructing, and that zeal in converting in me which formerly they

had found so irritating. But at the same time not a sensible word could

I be made to utter, and they who were now wanting to talk over many

things seriously could get nothing out of me save the wildest

tomfoolery. As on this occasion, in my character of an uncaged bird, I

boldly allowed myself many a liberty against which they felt themselves

powerless, my exuberant spirits were excited all the more when my

friend, who was led away by my example, tried to imitate me—a thing

they took in very bad part from him.

Only once was there any attempt at seriousness between us: I was

sitting at the piano, and was listening to my companion, who was

telling the ladies that in a conversation at the hotel I had found

occasion to express myself most warmly to some one who appeared to be

surprised on hearing of the domestic and industrious qualities of my

lady friends. I was deeply moved when, as the outcome of my companion’s

remarks, I gathered what unpleasant experiences the poor things had

already been through: for what seemed to me a very natural action on my

part, appeared to fill them with unexpected pleasure. Jenny, for

instance, came up to me and hugged me with great warmth. By general

consent I was now granted the right of behaving with almost studied

rudeness, and I replied even to Jenny’s warm outburst only with my

usual banter.

In our hotel, the ‘Black Horse,’ which was so famous in those days, I

found the playground in which I was able to carry the mischievous

spirit not exhausted at the Pachta’s house to the point of

recklessness. Out of the most accidental material in table and

travelling guests we succeeded in gathering a company around us which

allowed us, until far into the night, to lead it into the most

inconceivable follies. To all this I was incited more particularly by

the personality of a very timid and undersized business man from

Frankfort on the Oder, who longed to seem of a daring disposition; and

his presence stimulated me, if only owing to the remarkable chance it

gave me of coming into contact with some one who was at home in

Frankfort ‘on the Oder.’ Any one who knows how things then stood in

Austria can form some idea of my recklessness when I say that I once

went so far as to cause our symposium in the public room to bellow the

Marseillaise out loud into the night. Therefore, when after this heroic

exploit was over, and while I was undressing, I clambered on the outer

ledges of the windows from one room to the other on the second floor, I

naturally horrified those who did not know of the love of acrobatic

feats which I had cultivated in my earliest boyhood.

Even if I had exposed myself without fear to such dangers, I was soon

sobered down next morning by a summons from the police. When, in

addition to this, I recalled the singing of the Marseillaise, I was

filled with the gravest fears. After having been detained at the

station a long time, owing to a strange misunderstanding, the upshot of

it was that the inspector who was told off to examine me found that

there was not sufficient time left for a serious hearing, and, to my

great relief, I was allowed to go after replying to a few harmless

questions concerning the intended length of my stay. Nevertheless, we

thought it advisable not to yield to the temptation of playing any more

pranks beneath the spread wings of the double eagle.

By means of a circuitous route into which we were led by our insatiable

longing for adventures—adventures which, as a matter of fact, occurred

only in our imagination, and which to all intents and purposes were but

modest diversions on the road—we at length got back to Leipzig. And

with this return home the really cheerful period of my life as a youth

definitely closed. If, up to that time, I had not been free from

serious errors and moments of passion, it was only now that care cast

its first shadow across my path.

My family had anxiously awaited my return in order to inform me that

the post of conductor had been offered to me by the Magdeburg Theatre

Company. This company during the current summer month was performing at

a watering place called Lauchstadt. The manager could not get on with

an incompetent conductor that had been sent to him, and in his

extremity had applied to Leipzig in the hope of getting a substitute

forthwith. Stegmayer, the conductor, who had no inclination to practise

my score Feen during the hot summer weather, as he had promised to do,

promptly recommended me for the post, and in that way really managed to

shake off a very troublesome tormentor. For although, on the one hand,

I really desired to be able to abandon myself freely and without

restraint to the torrent of adventures that constitute the artist’s

life, yet a longing for independence, which could be won only by my

earning my own living, had been greatly strengthened in me by the state

of my affairs. Albeit, I had the feeling that a solid basis for the

gratification of this desire was not to be laid in Lauchstadt; nor did

I find it easy to assist the plot concocted against the production of

my Feen. I therefore determined to make a preliminary visit to the

place just to see how things stood.

This little watering-place had, in the days of Goethe and Schiller,

acquired a very wide reputation, its wooden theatre had been built

according to the design of the former, and the first performance of the

Braut von Messina had been given there. But although I repeated all

this to myself, the place made me feel rather doubtful. I asked for the

house of the director of the theatre. He proved to be out, but a small

dirty boy, his son, was told to take me to the theatre to find ‘Papa.’

Papa, however, met us on the way. He was an elderly man; he wore a

dressing-gown, and on his head a cap. His delight at greeting me was

interrupted by complaints about a serious indisposition, for which his

son was to fetch him a cordial from a shop close by. Before despatching

the boy on this errand he pressed a real silver penny into his hand

with a certain ostentation which was obviously for my benefit. This

person was Heinrich Bethmann, surviving husband of the famous actress

of that name, who, having lived in the heyday of the German stage, had

won the favour of the King of Prussia; and won it so lastingly, that

long after her death it had continued to be extended to her spouse. He

always drew a nice pension from the Prussian court, and permanently

enjoyed its support without ever being able to forfeit its protection

by his irregular and dissipated ways.