Not being overburdened with patience, I went straight to the station and off to Frankfort. To add fuel to my fire, the train was asleep too; it “made haste slowly”; it did not go; it dawdled and, particularly that day, made interminable organ pedal-points at each station. But every adagio has an end, and finally I got to Frankfort—a well-built, bright town, very much alive and up to date.
Next day, crossing the square on my way to the theatre, I came up with some young men carrying wind-instruments and asked them—since they evidently belonged to the orchestra—to take my card to Guhr, the chief.
“Ah,” said one, who spoke French, “we are glad to see you. M. Guhr told us you were coming. We have done King Lear twice, and though we cannot offer you your Conservatoire orchestra, perhaps you will not be very displeased with us.”
Guhr appeared, sharp, incisive, with snapping dark eyes and quick gestures; it was easy to see that he would not err on the side of indulgence with his orchestra. He spoke French but not fluently enough for his wishes, so he tumbled over his sentences, which were interlarded with oaths in a thick German accent, with most ludicrous results.
The upshot of his flow of eloquence was that the two Milanollo girls were creating such a furore that no other music would have the slightest chance of success.
He was voluble in excuses and ended:
“What can I do, my dear fellow? These infant prodigies make money; French Vaudevilles make money—I can’t refuse money, can I? But do stay till to-morrow and you shall hear Fidelio with Pischek and Mdlle. Capitaine and you can give me your opinion of them.”
So it was arranged that I should go on to Stuttgart and try my fortunes with Lindpaintner, leaving the Frankfurters to cool down after the fever caused by the charming little sisters, whom I had praised and applauded in Paris but who got sadly in my way in Frankfort.
Fidelio was beautifully sung by Mdlle. Capitaine; she is not a brilliant singer, but of all the women I heard in Germany I like her best in her own style. In a box I espied my old friend, Ferdinand Hiller, and a moment we were back on our student-comrade footing of years before. He is at work on an oratorio The Fall of Jerusalem; I am sorry that I have never been in Frankfort for one of his concerts to hear and judge of his compositions, which I am told are of a very high order.
My first care was to get as much information as I could on the musical resources of Stuttgart, for I found the expenses of carrying so much concerted music about with me something enormous and only wished to take what I might fairly expect to be performed. I finally decided on two symphonies, an overture and some choral pieces, leaving all the rest with that unlucky Guhr, who seemed fated to be bothered with me and my music in some way or other.