I received further provocation for my growing dislike of these jog-trot methods from a closer acquaintance with the spirit in which even eminent conductors undertook the reproduction of our masterpieces.  During this first year Mendelssohn was invited to conduct his St. Paul for one of the Palm Sunday concerts in the Dresden chapel, which was famous at that time.  The knowledge I thus acquired of this work, under such favourable circumstances, pleased me so much, that I made a fresh attempt to approach the composer with sincere and friendly motives; but a remarkable conversation which I had with him on the evening of this performance quickly and strangely repelled my impulse.  After the oratorio Reissiger was to produce Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony.  I had noticed in the preceding rehearsal that Keissiger had fallen into the error of all the ordinary conductors of this work by taking the tempo di minuetto of the third movement at a meaningless waltz time, whereby not only does the whole piece lose its imposing character, but the trio is rendered absolutely ridiculous by the impossibility of the violoncello part being interpreted at such a speed.  I had called Reissiger’s attention to this defect, and he acquiesced in my opinion, promising to take the part in question at true minuetto tempo.  I related this to Mendelssohn, when he was resting after his own performance in the box beside me, listening to the symphony.  He, too, acknowledged that I was right, and thought that it ought to be played as I said.  And now the third movement began.  Reissiger, who, it is true, did not possess the needful power suddenly to impress so momentous a change of time upon his orchestra with success, followed the usual custom and took the tempo di minuetto in the same old waltz time.  Just as I was about to express my anger, Mendelssohn gave me a friendly nod, as though he thought that this was what I wanted, and that I had understood the music in this way.  I was so amazed by this complete absence of feeling on the part of the famous musician, that I was struck dumb, and thenceforth my own particular opinion of Mendelssohn gradually matured, an opinion which was afterwards confirmed by R. Schumann.  The latter, in expressing the sincere pleasure he had felt on listening to the time at which I had taken the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, told me that he had been compelled to hear it year after year taken by Mendelssohn at a perfectly distracting speed.

Amid my yearning anxiety to exert some influence upon the spirit in which our noblest masterpieces were executed, I had to struggle against the profound dissatisfaction I felt with my employment on the ordinary theatre repertoire.  It was not until Palm Sunday of the year 1844, just after my dispiriting expedition to Hamburg, that my desire to conduct the Pastoral Symphony was satisfied.  But many faults still remained unremedied, and for the removal of these I had to adopt indirect methods which gave me much trouble.