It was with much difficulty that I shook myself free of the Dresden Glee Club, and I only succeeded in doing so by introducing to Professor Lowe another ambitious man in the person of Herr Ferdinand Hiller.  My most glorious exploit in connection with this association was the transfer of Weber’s ashes, of which I will speak later on, though it occurred at an earlier date.  I will only refer now to another commissioned composition which, as royal bandmaster, I was officially commanded to produce.  On the 7th of June of this year (1843) the statue of King Frederick Augustus by Rietschl was unveiled in the Dresden Zwinger [Footnote:  This is the name by which the famous Dresden Art Galleries are known.—­Editor.] with all due pomp and ceremony.  In honour of this event I, in collaboration with Mendelssohn, was commanded to compose a festal song, and to conduct the gala performance.  I had written a simple song for male voices of modest design, whereas to Mendelssohn had been assigned the more complicated task of interweaving the National Anthem (the English ‘God Save the King,’ which in Saxony is called Heil Dir im Rautenkranz) into the male chorus he had to compose.  This he had effected by an artistic work in counterpoint, so arranged that from the first eight beats of his original melody the brass instruments simultaneously played the Anglo-Saxon popular air.  My simpler song seems to have sounded very well from a distance, whereas I understood that Mendelssohn’s daring combination quite missed its effect, because no one could understand why the vocalists did not sing the same air as the wind instruments were playing.  Nevertheless Mendelssohn, who was present, left me a written expression of thanks for the pains I had taken in the production of his composition.  I also received a gold snuff-box from the grand gala committee, presumably meant as a reward for my male chorus, but the hunting scene which was engraved on the top was so badly done that I found, to my surprise, that in several places the metal was cut through.

Amid all the distractions of this new and very different mode of life, I diligently strove to concentrate and steel my soul against these influences, bearing in mind my experiences of success in the past.  By May of my thirtieth year I had finished my poem Der Venusberg (’The Mount of Venus’), as I called Tannhauser at that time.  I had not yet by any means gained any real knowledge of mediaeval poetry.  The classical side of the poetry of the Middle Ages had so far only faintly dawned upon me, partly from my youthful recollections, and partly from the brief acquaintance I had made with it through Lehrs’ instruction in Paris.