wohnen, could not be sung in an ordinary manner, but must, as it were, be proclaimed with the greatest rapture.  In this I took the lead in a manner so elated that I really think I literally transported them to a world of emotion utterly strange to them for a while; and I did not desist till my voice, which had been heard clearly above all the others, began to be no longer distinguishable even to myself, but was drowned, so to speak, in the warm sea of sound.

It gave me particular pleasure, with Mitterwurzer’s cooperation, to give a most overwhelmingly expressive rendering of the recitative for baritone:  Freunde, nicht diese Tone.  In view of its exceptional difficulties this passage might almost be considered impossible to perform, and yet he executed it in a way which showed what fruit our mutual interchange of ideas had borne.  I also took care that, by means of the complete reconstruction of the hall, I should obtain good acoustic conditions for the orchestra, which I had arranged according to quite a new system of my own.  As may be imagined, it was only with the greatest difficulty that the money for this could be found; however, I did not give up, and owing to a totally new construction of the platform, I was able to concentrate the whole of the orchestra towards the centre, and surround it, in amphitheatre fashion, by the throng of singers who were accommodated on seats very considerably raised.  This was not only of great advantage to the powerful effect of the choir, but it also gave great precision and energy to the finely organised orchestra in the purely symphonic movements.

Even at the general rehearsal the hall was overcrowded.  Reissiger was guilty of the incredible stupidity of working up the public mind against the symphony and drawing attention to Beethoven’s very regrettable error.  Gade, on the other hand, who came to visit us from Leipzig, where he was then conducting the Gewandhaus Concerts, assured me after the general rehearsal, that he would willingly have paid double the price of his ticket in order to hear the recitative by the basses once more; whilst Hiller considered that I had gone too far in my modification of the tempo.  What he meant by this I learned subsequently when I heard him conducting intricate orchestral works; but of this I shall have more to say later on.

There was no denying that the performance was, on the whole, a success; in fact, it exceeded all our expectations, and was particularly well received by the non-musical public.  Among these I remember the philologist Dr. Kochly, who came to me at the end of the evening and confessed that it was the first time he had been able to follow a symphonic work from beginning to end with intelligent interest.  This experience left me with a pleasant feeling of ability and power, and strongly confirmed me in the belief, that if I only desired anything with sufficient earnestness, I was able to achieve it with irresistible and overwhelming