Returned to Gandersheim, I resumed again, immediately, the pleasant active life of the previous summer. Edward Grund soon arrived also, and devoted himself with his usual zeal both to his own improvement and to the instruction of my children. I myself first began with the composition of the already mentioned ten-voiced vocal mass, but I was soon obliged to give it up for a short time. I received a letter from my old friend Hermstedt, in which he invited me on the part of the directors of the baths of Alexisbad in the Harz, to give a concert in the course of the approaching season. He offered at the same time to make all the necessary arrangements beforehand, so that I should not require to stay there longer than a few days. He also urgently pressed me to write a new clarinet concerto for him, and promised if he received it sufficiently early, to play it for the first time at the Alexisbad concert. As I liked to write for Hermstedt, who at that time was without doubt the first of all living clarinet virtuosi, I consented to his proposal, and set to work immediately. After despatching to him the new concerto F minor (the third for clarinet), I wrote for myself and wife another pot-pourri concerted for violin and pianoforte on two themes from the “Opferfest”—published afterwards as Op. 56, for which I worked out anew a former composition for clarinet with orchestral accompaniment which I had written in 1812 for Hermstedt, for the celebration of Napoleon’s birthday, in Erfurt. I considered it one of my most successful pieces, and wished by this new elaboration of it, to make it more generally known. It may be readily understood that in this transfer from the clarinet and orchestra to the violin and pianoforte, very considerable modifications were requisite, and that I could adhere chiefly only to the form and modulations of the previous composition. By the time this piece of music had been studied by us in the usual manner, with the greatest care, the day fixed upon for our departure for Alexisbad arrived. Of this excursion I have now but very faint reminiscences. I neither know what we played at the concert, nor how the new clarinet concerto pleased, and the less so, that since that time I have not heard it again; for it has remained altogether in Hermstedt’s hands, and has never been published. But I recollect very distinctly a natural phenomenon by which our concert was disturbed and for some time interrupted, as in London by the smashing of the windows. Just as the music was about to begin, a storm, which had threatened since noon, broke out with such violence, that what with the rolling of the thunder and the noise of the rain that poured down in torrents, nothing could have been heard. In the over-crowded concert-room, which was suffocatingly hot, the closely packed auditory were compelled to await the passing over of the storm, and the concert could not be commenced until the air of the room had been renewed by the opening of the doors and windows. Owing to this the concert did not terminate till complete nightfall. The confusion and perplexity which ensued among the departing audience now first reached their climax; for it was found that the otherwise very modest rivulet which runs through the valley of Alexisbad had become so swollen, and had torn up and flooded the roads to such an extent, that the numerous company that had come in from the neighbourhood of the town found it impossible to return home in the darkness of night. All therefore first rushed to the dining-room of the baths, but there no provision had been made for such an influx of guests. As soon as the regular visitors of the baths had retired to their apartments previous to sitting down to dinner, the strangers seized upon their seats at the table, and upon the eatables also, so that when the former returned they were obliged to content themselves with what they could lay hold of. Upon this very naturally a good deal of ill-feeling was excited, and the host had enough to do and a hard time of it to pacify and keep the people in bounds. Now, furthermore, it was found that to pass the night there were neither rooms nor beds sufficient for their accommodation, and a great number of the strangers were nolens volens obliged to lie down indiscriminately beside each other upon a shakedown of straw. Many did it good humouredly, but others with ill-suppressed curses. For the unconcerned spectator it was indeed a highly comical and amusing scene.
During the same summer, I received a similar invitation to go to Pyrmont and give a concert there. I acquiesced, and proceeded thither accompanied by my wife and my pupil Edward Grund, who conducted the orchestra and very much facilitated my solo-playing by practising the accompaniment beforehand, which alone enabled me to play my own compositions. Grund had in truth become a first-rate artist, and began now to make musical tours with much success; which led to his appointment as director of the court-orchestra at Meiningen, which office he now still (1853) fills, respected by his prince and by the members of the orchestra, and zealously exerting his energies to the advantage of art. As upon his leaving Gandersheim, in the autumn of 1821, the musical instruction of my daughters completely ceased, and as they gave evidence of vocal powers that appeared worthy of a further artistic cultivation, I determined to remove to Dresden with my family, in order to give the children the advantage of the instruction of a then celebrated teacher of vocal music of the name of Miksch in that city. To Emilia I had indeed, myself already begun to give instruction in singing, but soon found that I had neither the necessary perseverance and patience, and that it drew my attention too much from my work of composition. Besides this, also, I determined as soon as my family had become somewhat settled in Dresden, to proceed alone upon some short artistic tours in the neighbourhood. I wrote therefore to my former pupil Moritz Hauptmann in Dresden, and requested him to treat with Mr. Miksch on my behalf, and so soon as he should agree, to hire apartments for me; shortly after which I received a reply informing me that all my wishes had been carefully complied with.
My mass for ten voices had been meanwhile completed, and I longed very much to hear it. As on my journey to Dresden I contemplated giving a concert in Leipzic, and on that account should be obliged to make a longer stay there, I bethought myself of getting it sung during the time I was there by the grand choral-society of that town, with the Director of which I was acquainted. I wrote to him therefore to inquire if he felt disposed to have the work practised beforehand, and as he replied in the affirmative, I sent the score to him to have the voice-parts immediately written out.
The parting from Gandersheim was this time a very sad one, as the children also, to whose society their grandfather and grandmother had become so much accustomed, were to part from them, and I was obliged to promise to return the next summer, even though for a short visit only.
On arriving in Leipzic, one of my first visits was to the Director of the choral-society, to ascertain something about my mass. But what I learned was not very satisfactory. The rehearsals it is true had been commenced; but the work had been found so enormously difficult, and was so imperfectly understood, that the director refused decidedly to let me hear it. At my urgent request, however, a trial was made, which went very badly, and as I did not nearly hear the effect which I had pictured to myself during the inspiration of the work, I concluded that I had produced a complete failure. After hearing it a few more times, I resolved to make some alterations in it, in order to facilitate its execution, and shortly after, the mass was published by Peters as Op. 54. A long time afterwards, when I had almost forgotten it, some parts of it were sung to me by the Berlin choral-academy under Zelter’s direction. These had been so well studied, were intonated so clearly, and had so imposing an effect from the combination of so many voices, that I now became fully convinced that the work could be performed, and conceived the desire to have it studied by my choral-society in Cassel. This proved successful, as I did not lose my patience and the singers were indefatigable, and the entire mass, without any omissions, was performed in November 1827 on Saint Cecilia’s day. The experience I had acquired during these rehearsals taught me, however, to avoid a too great abundance of modulations and difficult chords in succession.
Arrived in Dresden, we were conducted by Hauptmann to the lodgings he had hired for us, which were pleasantly situated in a quiet part of the town. Both my eldest girls immediately began their singing-lessons with Mr. Miksch and I then went in search of my former acquaintances among the artists and amateurs of music, and, foremost of all, of the orchestra director Carl Maria von Weber. He received me in a very cordial manner, and by degrees introduced me into all the musical circles, where I not only heard much good music, but had the opportunity of playing my own chamber-music. As the musicians who accompanied me evinced great interest in my quartet-play, this induced me, with their assistance to give quartet parties every week at my house, to which I invited the most ardent lovers of music in the town. At these I brought forward, as I could not succeed in doing in Paris, all the quartets and quintets in succession which I had written up to that time, and as I soon got to the end of them, and they met with great approbation from all hearers, I was encouraged to write some new ones. In a short time, I finished two (the two first of Op. 58), and I took such interest in this work, as well as in the whole artistic life of Dresden, that I at once gave up my contemplated musical tour, and deferred it to the latter end of the winter.
Meanwhile Carl Maria von Weber had succeeded in obtaining the permission to have his opera of “Der Freischütz” studied in Dresden, after it had met with such brilliant success in Vienna and Berlin; and the private rehearsals were already begun. As up to that time I had not entertained a very high opinion of Weber’s talent for composition, it may be readily imagined I was not a little desirous of becoming acquainted with that opera, in order to ascertain thoroughly by what it had achieved such an enthusiastic admiration in the two capitals of Germany. My interest in it was increased the more from my having worked also a few years before, when at Frankfort on the Maine, upon the same materials, from Appel’s book of apparitions, for an opera; and only abandoned the composition upon accidentally hearing that Weber was already engaged upon it. The nearer acquaintance with the opera, certainly did not solve for me the riddle of its enormous success; and I could alone account for it by Weber’s peculiar gift and capacity for writing for the understanding of the mass. As I very well knew that this gift had been denied me by nature, it is difficult for me to explain how an unconquerable impulse should have led me nevertheless, to attempt dramatic composition anew. But so it was! Scarcely had I arrived home, than I took from my trunk, a half-forgotten work which I had begun in Paris. On a tedious rainy day which in that muddy city renders it impossible to go out of doors, I asked my landlady to lend me a book to read. She brought me an old, well-read romance: “La Veuve de Malabar.” I found its interesting matter would well permit of being adapted to an opera, and I purchased it of her for a few sous, in order to make trial of it. While in Paris, and during the journey home I turned over in my mind the most favourable form for the composition of the opera, and began immediately after my return to Gandersheim to make the cast of a scene. In those hours when I did not feel disposed to work on the composition of the mass, I progressed with it, and by the time I removed with my family to Dresden, I had nearly completed it. I now reconsidered and worked over anew this sketch with renewed zeal, decided in the most precise manner everything that should take place in each scene, and then looked out for a poet who would feel disposed to write the opera according to this plan. Such a person I found in Mr. Edward Gehe, who readily entered into my ideas. In this manner originated the text of the opera “Jessonda.” I was just on the point of beginning its composition, when an event took place that took off my attention from it again for some time.
One morning, in the beginning of December, Carl Maria von Weber, called upon me, and informed me that he had just received an invitation to Cassel, with the offer of the appointment of conductor of the orchestra at the newly-built court theatre there, but had decided upon declining it, as he was fully satisfied with his present position. Should he, however, find me disposed to apply for that post, he would in his reply to the letter, direct attention to me, and say that I was at present living in Dresden. As shortly before I had heard from a member of the Cassel orchestra who passed through Gandersheim much of the magnificence of the court theatre there and of the love of art of the elector William II. who had just entered upon the government, I could not doubt but that I should find there an important and pleasant sphere of action. I therefore accepted Weber’s offer with many thanks, and before the lapse of a week, as a result of his reply, I received a letter from Mr. Feige, director-general of the Cassel court theatre, in which he offered me on the part of the elector the appointment of master of the court orchestra, and I was requested to send in my terms of acceptance by return of post. After I had consulted with Weber and my wife, I demanded: 1) the appointment for life, by rescript, at a salary of 2000 Thalers; 2) a leave of absence of from 6 to 8 weeks, every year; and 3) the assurance that the artistic direction of the opera should be made over to me exclusively. The whole of these stipulations were agreed to, but in return it was required of me that I should enter upon my post at the latest on the commencement of the new year. Overjoyed as we were at this new appointment, particularly Dorette, as she was thereby certain that she would be no more separated from her children for a long time, yet we were not altogether satisfied at having to leave our present residence so soon, where Emilia and Ida were making such progress, particularly in singing. We had besides taken our Dresden lodgings up to Easter, and a removal in the middle of winter was altogether very unpleasant. I therefore proposed that I should leave, to assume my place at Cassel, but that my wife and the children should remain in Dresden till the spring. Painful as was to her the separation from me for so long a time, she was compelled to admit the obvious convenience of my proposition. As the new year was now approaching, I therefore made the necessary preparations for my departure, and urged Gehe to work upon the matter for the second and third act of Jessonda, with all possible diligence, while I took the first act, which was ready, with me to Cassel.
Meanwhile another new and startling offer was made to me. Count Salisch, my old patron in Gotha, wrote word to me that the duchess had been informed I was now living in private at Dresden, and she was therefore desirous to know whether I might not be disposed to resume my old engagement, which, since the recent death of Andreas Romberg, was again vacant? Count Salisch added furthermore that they would be enabled to grant me a considerable increase of my former salary. Had I not already accepted the offer from Cassel, I might possibly have given this one the preference, in order to afford my wife the pleasure of a reunion with her mother and family by a return to her native town. But the choice was thus not permitted to me, and I might consider this rather in the light of a fortunate circumstance, as my sphere of action in Gotha would have been a very circumscribed one, in comparison with that in Cassel. In a few years also I should have again been left without a home, for the duke, and his successor also, prince Frederick, the last heir, died soon after each-other, and the state was divided among the other Saxon duchies. The orchestra was then pensioned off, and as I could not have endured to live in complete idleness, I should have soon removed again to some other place.
The parting from my wife and children, although for a short time only, was nevertheless a very sad one. Dorette, who wept bitterly, could alone be somewhat comforted by my promise to write every week and inform her of everything that I was doing. In Gotha, when on passing through I paid a visit to my mother-in-law, I was urgently pressed by her and the other relatives of my wife, as also by the members of the orchestra, to settle there once more. The duchess, also, to whom it was requisite I should pay a visit, as she had always evinced so much interest and kindness towards me, resorted to every means to make me give up Cassel, and offered to induce her brother the elector of Hesse to release me from my engagement. But as, since I had left Gotha, and looked about me in the world, the sphere of action in that place seemed to me too humble and restricted, I withstood every solicitation and made a speedy departure.