On the 23rd March 1825, the marriage took place in the palace of Bellevue. On the procession of the new-married pair and their suite from the dining-hall to the white saloon, the orchestra played my march, which had a good effect, and at the part where the “Grossvater-Lied” was introduced was very pretty. The Elector, and the Duke (who was decidedly more musical than his father-in-law) both congratulated me much upon the grand march, which, at their request, was played a second time. The reception of the married couple at the festive representation on the following evening in the theatre, was a very brilliant and noisy one; for I ordered the fifty-three trumpeters and the two pair of kettle-drummers whom I had placed up in the gallery to join in with the acclamations and vivats of the audience! The festive-prologue written by counsellor Niemeyer followed; then my new opera “Der Berg-Geist,” which in truth was received by the thronged and brilliantly lighted house with as much boisterous applause as “Jessonda,” but which neither pleased me so much, nor was so popular on other stages as the latter. The Elector, who was very satisfied with all I had written for the occasion, sent for me the next-day, thanked me, and presented me with a very handsome snuff-box, upon the lid of which, though somewhat unsuitable for a musician, was a very artistic chasing representing a combat of cavalry, set and framed under glass. But—and that was the best part of it—it was filled with Friedrich’s-d’or, and therefore a handsome and princely gift.
A few months afterwards Councillor Küstner sent for my new opera to Leipzic, and in September the first representation of it on that stage took place. [A letter of the 18th September speaks of it in the following manner: “The day before yesterday “Der Berg-Geist” was launched here with the greatest success.... The mise en scene was more brilliant than was ever known before in Leipzic, and some of the scenes were more beautiful than any I had ever yet seen. The scene-painter Gropius is in a fair way to become the first in the world; neither in Italy, Paris nor London have I ever seen anything so charming as the closing-scene of the second act.... The reception the opera met with, was the most flattering I had ever yet experienced.... The performance may be said to have been a very successful one. With the exception of one error in the overture, and one obstinate rock which would not come up out of the earth, nothing went wrong. On the stage, almost all did better than in Cassel, particularly the Berg-Geist (Köckert) and Oscar (Vetter).... The orchestra, although far inferior to ours, was unusually good.”]
In the summer of 1825 an aimable young man, Frederick Curschman of Berlin, came to Cassel to perfect himself under my guidance as a musician. Although he had begun the study of jurisprudence at Göttingen, he thought nevertheless of giving up the law, and had already tried his hand with success at various kinds of literature, particularly in songs, which he sung with a pleasing baritone voice, and thereby introduced himself into our musical circle. As his musical education was still imperfect, I advised him to apply first to Hauptmann, who at my request had undertaken to instruct my violin pupils in the theory of music, and shown great skill in that capacity. Curschmann also immediately joined our society of St. Cecilia, and became a very valuable member of it, as he not only sang the bass soli very well at sight, but frequently took the pianoforte accompaniment, and did the duty of a librarian with great zeal. Together with some of our best dilettanti he formed also an opera circle, in which for the first time were produced several of his compositions which afterwards became such favorites, and parts of his little opera “Die Todten, oder Abdul und Erinnieh,” which was brought out at a later period upon the stage here. He thus in many ways enlivened the culture of art in our town, and soon became the favorite of the musical world.
In the same year Councillor Rochlitz, the editor of the Leipzic Musical Journal, offered me the text of an Oratorio: “Die letzten Dinge,” to compose for; which I received with great pleasure, as my previous attempt in that style of art, “Das jüngste Gericht,” the oratorio performed at Erfurt, by no means pleased me any longer, and therefore I had not once been disposed to perform a single “number” of it at the meetings of our society. I now began with new studies of counter-point, and of the ecclesiastic style, and set zealously to work on the composition, in which I followed the prescriptions of the author which he had forwarded to me with the text, in respect to its treatment, and which I not only strictly adhered to, but found of assistance to me. The first part of the oratorio was thus soon ready, and as early as the end of November I could give it with the members of our choral society, at a concert in behalf of the sufferers from the fire that had occurred shortly before at Seesen; although it is true, with pianoforte accompaniment only. On that occasion, I observed with great pleasure, that it made a deep impression upon the assistants, as well as upon all the auditory, and this observation was of the more importance to me, as it convinced me that I had found the proper style for this kind of work. I had in particular striven to be very simple, religious, and true in expression, and carefully to avoid all artistic trickery, all bombast and every thing of difficult execution. With increased zest I now proceded to compose the second part, so that the whole work was finished by the following Good Friday (1826) and then first performed complete in the Lutheran church. [A letter of the 26th March speaks of it in the following manner: “Yesterday was a great day of festival for the lovers of music here; for never yet had so solemn a musical performance as my oratorio taken place in Cassel. It was in the evening, and the church was lighted up. My son-in-law Wolff, who had been long in Rome, proposed to illuminate the church as at Rome on Good Friday, with lights disposed overhead in the form of a cross, and carried out his idea. A cross fourteen feet long, covered with silver-foil, and hung with six hundred glass lamps, was suspended overhead in the middle of the church, and diffused so bright a light that one could everywhere clearly read the text-books. The musicians and singers, nearly two hundred in number, were placed in the gallery of the church, arranged in rows one above the other, and for the most part unseen by the auditory, which, amounting to nearly two thousand persons, observed a solemn stillness. My two daughters, Messrs. Wild, Albert and Föppel, together with an amateur, sang the soli, and the performance was faultless. The effect was, I must myself say, extraordinary. Never did I before experience such satisfaction from the performance of one of my greater works! I had always had to lament either an imperfect execution, an unsuccessful effect, or something else. This time it was quite different. The work, also, is simple and easy, and yet not less comprehensive in contents, than the others.”] The visibly deep impression that the oratorio made upon the public may also have been yet further assisted by the solemn grandeur of the illuminated cross—which harmonized greatly with the religious sentiment inspired by the day. The elector only was not pleased with the selection of the Lutheran church and its “catholic illumination,” as he called the cross, and he ordered that the orchestra should give their future Good Friday concerts in the court and garrison church, lit up with chandeliers to be furnished from the electoral household lighting department.
Shortly afterwards I received an invitation from my London friend Ferdinand Ries, who had returned to Germany, and was then living in the neighbourhood of Godesberg on the Rhine, to direct personally my new oratorio at the Rhenish musical festival at Düsseldorf, the arrangements for which had been confided to him. Although the Rhenish musical festival was held at Whitsuntide, and therefore at a time when our theatrical vacation had not yet begun, and I therefore required to obtain an express permission to do so, I nevertheless succeeded in obtaining it immediately, for the Elector felt himself flattered when his director of music was invited to important musical performances, and thereby acquired honour and fame.
While therefore I prepared to set out with my whole family, except Ida who, in the meanwhile, had married Professor Wolff, four of the most ardent lovers of music here, Mr. Curschmann, the referendary Charles Pfeiffer, Mrs. von der Malsburg and her friend Miss von Heister, made up their minds to join us, and like us to travel by post, in order to be able to put up at dinner-time, and at night at the same places. Favoured by the finest weather, we set out on our journey on the 9th May 1826, and as the carriages always kept close together, we exchanged places in them sometimes, always took our meals together, and our pleasant and spirited conversation was not at all interrupted, so that I never recollect having made a more agreeable journey.
On the third day we were met three miles from Düsseldorf by the festival committee and the family of the State-Councillor von Sybel, at whose house I and the members of my family were to stop; and scarcely had we arrived at Düsseldorf, than we were welcomed by the choral-society with a serenade. At the first general rehearsal, which was held on the following morning, I had the satisfaction of finding that my oratorio had been carefully and correctly studied by the different societies, and was sung with an enthusiastic feeling for the work. I could not feel so content with the orchestra, which had been gathered together from different places, and in which dilettanti assisted, and among others, my friend Thomae from Cleves, among the wind instruments. It was therefore a difficult matter to bring all the instruments to the same pitch, and it could only be effected by great patience and frequent repetitions. In the afternoon of the same day, the rehearsal of the performances for the second day was held, which Ries conducted. At it were given a new symphony by Ries (manuscript D major), a Sanctus and a Credo from a mass by Frederick Schneider, the jubilee overture of Carl Maria von Weber, and lastly, a selection of the finest “numbers” from Handel’s “Messiah.” As Miss Reinigen of Crefeld, the solo singer, was taken suddenly ill, my daughter Emilia was obliged to take the soprano part also in the vocal performances. But so diligently did she study it, that already at the very first rehearsal she went through the business right well, and by her aid all derangement of the festival was obviated. But so much the greater was Ries’s difficulty with the wind instruments in his symphony. He nevertheless displayed in the matter great patience, and dealt very leniently with the awkwardness of the dilettanti. On the following day were held two more rehearsals of the performances for the first and second day of Whitsuntide (the 14th and 15th May), which then, after such careful rehearsals passed off without a fault. My oratorio was received with such enthusiasm by those who played and by the auditory, that on the evening of the very first day, the prolongation of the festival was mooted in order to repeat once more “Die letzten Dinge” for the benefit of the Greeks. This was publicly announced on the second day of the performances, and the majority of the strangers present stopped in order to be present at its repetition. Thus my work had the honour conferred upon it of a second performance, of which I might well be proud, as since then so far as I know of, such a thing has never happened to any work given at the Rhenish musical festivals. In the musical journals, also, there appeared several very favourable notices of my oratorio, and I therefore hastened to publish selections from it for the pianoforte. But the edition I issued was soon sold off, and a second was therefore published afterwards by Simrock of Bonn, who also brought out the song parts with it, by which the performances of the work in almost all the towns of Germany, Holland and Switzerland was very much facilitated. I could therefore be very content with the reception of this oratorio, and frequently as it was performed and spoken of, no voice was ever heard raised in condemnation of it.
In the course of this year I wrote besides a second quintet (B flat minor, Op. 69, published by Peters) and three quartets (Op. 74, also by Peters). But I now longed to begin a greater work, and particularly an opera, although the “Berg-Geist” acquired no extensive popularity, since, after the representations in Cassel and Leipzic, it was only given at Prague, where it met several times with a brilliant reception. As Curschmann at the same time entertained a similar desire, he had requested his fellow-traveller and friend, Charles Pfeiffer, who at that time had begun to make himself a name as a poet, to work up a novel of Tieck’s, “Pietro von Abano” as an opera text. He may however have felt himself not yet quite sufficiently advanced in his musical culture, and therefore when Pfeiffer had completed the first act of the libretto, he abandoned his project of attempting so soon a grand opera. He now offered me the composition of Pietro, and as the novel, as well as the manner in which it had been worked up, pleased me greatly, I soon came to an arrangement with both gentlemen respecting it, and in February 1827, set to work very assiduously upon it, and completed it in August of the same year. The opera occasioned me anxiety at first, on account of the immediate succession of two scenes—a funeral, and the pranks of a band of merry students—so strikingly dissimilar and incongruous as to render their proximity unpleasant: neither did I at all like the speaking part of the bishop, without any singing. But as this part was taken by Seydelmann, who was then engaged at our theatre from pure interest he took in the work, and was performed in a very dignified manner, I became more satisfied with it, and had the gratification of finding that it made a deep impression upon the performers, the orchestra, and my musical friends who were permitted to assist at the rehearsals. On its first representation, on the 13th October 1827, it was also received by the public with a similar enthusiasm to “Jessonda,” and I had therefore reason to hope that like it also, it would soon obtain popularity beyond Cassel. But when at the request of the directors of some other theatres I forwarded the book to them, I soon found that not only did the catholic towns disapprove of the introduction of the bishop and the ecclesiastical forms on the stage, but the intendants of theatres in protestant towns, also, and among others, Count Brühl in Berlin, who rejected the opera, because they had some scruples about the contents. At that time it is true, many of the later operas and plays, which since then have hardened the public against all objectionable matter, had not become the fashion of the day. But Meyerbeer, who now wanted to hear the opera with all these circumstances of form, expressed himself in regard to it in the following manner in a letter of the 4. March 1828: “I cannot conclude my letter without thanking you for the pleasure that the perusal of the score of your master-piece “Pietro von Abano,” which Mr. Schlesinger lent to me, has afforded me, and I am happy to be able to say, that in particular the first act, the first finale (although only furnished by the poet with two personages), the scene between Antonio and the half-lifeless Cecilia in the second act, and the ingenious manner in which the stringed instruments, half con sordini, half senza sordini, shadow forth the dialogue between the living Antonio and the spirit-like Cecilia; the imposing finale of the second act; and besides these, numerous other features of splendid dramatic intention, excellent declamation, novel, picturesque instrumentation and harmony, have truly charmed me, and excited in me the most ardent desire to be present at a performance of your master-piece.”
In the year 1828, I wrote my second double-quartet, and endeavoured to bring it nearer to my first idea of the double choral style, than the first: in this I succeeded to my own satisfaction. I played it for the first time publicly in one of our winter-concerts of December, with great applause, and it soon found the same appreciation and publicity in other places as the previous one. Shortly afterwards I received an invitation to conduct my oratorio “Die letzten Dinge” at a musical festival that was to take place at Halberstadt on the 4th June 1828, and I set out this time accompanied only by my wife and my youngest daughter Theresa, as shortly before, my daughter Emilia had married a manufacturer of the name of Zahn, and could leave her domestic concerns as little as Ida.
My oratorio was excellently performed by the different choral-societies that had been invited for that purpose, as they were all enthusiastic admirers of it, and gave it the preference over all other works then performed.