His peculiar familiarity of manner, his inexhaustible store of amusing small talk, and his airy way of doing business, gave him a remarkable hold on the tradespeople of Riga, who wished for nothing better than such entertainment as he was able to give them.  They provided him liberally with all the necessary means and treated him in every respect with entire confidence.  Under his auspices my own engagement had been very easily secured.  Surly old pedants he would have none of, favouring young men on the score of their youth alone.  As far as I myself was concerned, it was enough for him to know that I belonged to a family which he knew and liked, and hearing, moreover, of my fervent devotion to modern Italian and French music in particular, he decided that I was the very man for him.  He had the whole shoal of Bellini’s, Donizetti’s, Adam’s, and Auber’s operatic scores copied out, and I was to give the good people of Riga the benefit of them with all possible speed.

The first time I visited Holtei I met an old Leipzig acquaintance, Heinrich Dorn, my former mentor, who now held the permanent municipal appointment of choir-master at the church and music-teacher in the schools.  He was pleased to find his curious pupil transformed into a practical opera conductor of independent position, and no less surprised to see the eccentric worshipper of Beethoven changed into an ardent champion of Bellini and Adam.  He took me home to his summer residence, which was built, according to Riga phraseology, ‘in the fields,’ that is literally, on the sand.  While I was giving him some account of the experiences through which I had passed, I grew conscious of the strangely deserted look of the place.  Feeling frightened and homeless, my initial uneasiness gradually developed into a passionate longing to escape from all the whirl of theatrical life which had wooed me to such inhospitable regions.  This uneasy mood was fast dispelling the flippancy which at Magdeburg had led to my being dragged down to the level of the most worthless stage society, and had also conduced to spoil my musical taste.  It also contained the germs of a new tendency which developed during the period of my activity at Riga, brought me more and more out of touch with the theatre, thereby causing Director Holtei all the annoyance which inevitably attends disappointment.

For some time, however, I found no difficulty in making the best of a bad bargain.  We were obliged to open the theatre before the company was complete.  To make this possible, we gave a performance of a short comic opera by C. Blum, called Marie, Max und Michel.  For this work I composed an additional air for a song which Holtei had written for the bass singer, Gunther; it consisted of a sentimental introduction and a gay military rondo, and was very much appreciated.  Later on, I introduced another additional song into the Schweizerfamilie, to be sung by another bass singer, Scheibler; it was of a devotional character, and pleased