My good-humoured acceptance of election to the musical committee of the Dresden Glee Club also brought me further chance acquaintances.  This club consisted of a limited number of young merchants and officials, who had more taste for any kind of convivial entertainment than for music.  But it was seduously kept together by a remarkable and ambitious man, Professor Lowe, who nursed it with special objects in view, for the attainment of which he felt the need of an authority such as I possessed at that time in Dresden.

Among other aims he was particularly and chiefly concerned in arranging for the transfer of Weber’s remains from London to Dresden.  As this project was one which interested me also, I lent him my support, though he was in reality merely following the voice of personal ambition.  He furthermore desired, as head of the Glee Club—­which, by the way, from the point of view of music was quite worthless—­to invite all the male choral unions of Saxony to a great gala performance in Dresden.  A committee was appointed for the execution of this plan, and as things soon became pretty warm, Lowe turned it into a regular revolutionary tribunal, over which, as the great day of triumph approached, he presided day and night without resting, and by his furious zeal earned from me the nickname of ‘Robespierre.’

In spite of the fact that I had been placed at the head of this enterprise, I luckily managed to evade his terrorism, as I was fully occupied with a great composition promised for the festival.  The task had been assigned to me of writing an important piece for male voices only, which, if possible, should occupy half an hour.  I reflected that the tiresome monotony of male singing, which even the orchestra could only enliven to a slight extent, can only be endured by the introduction of dramatic themes.  I therefore designed a great choral scene, selecting the apostolic Pentecost with the outpouring of the Holy Ghost as its subject.  I completely avoided any real solos, but worked out the whole in such a way that it should be executed by detached choral masses according to requirement.  Out of this composition arose my Liebesmahl der Apostel (’Lovefeast of the Apostles’), which has recently been performed in various places.

As I was obliged at all costs to finish it within a limited time, I do not mind including this in the list of my uninspired compositions.  But I was not displeased with it when it was done, more especially when it was played at the rehearsals given by the Dresden choral societies under my personal supervision.  When, therefore, twelve hundred singers from all parts of Saxony gathered around me in the Frauenkirche, where the performance took place, I was astonished at the comparatively feeble effect produced upon my ear by this colossal human tangle of sounds.  The conclusion at which I arrived was, that these enormous choral undertakings are folly, and I never again felt inclined to repeat the experiment.