On the evening of one of these really anxious days, when the very air was heavy and full of thunder, we gave our third great orchestral concert, at which the King and his court were present, as on the two previous occasions.  For the opening of this one I had chosen Mendelssohn’s Symphony in A minor, which I had played on the occasion of his funeral.  The mood of this piece, which even in the would-be joyful phrases is always tenderly melancholy, corresponded strangely with the anxiety and depression of the whole audience, which was more particularly accentuated in the demeanour of the royal family.  I did not conceal from Lipinsky, the leader of the orchestra, my regret at the mistake I had made in the arrangement of that day’s programme, as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, also in a minor key, was to follow this minor symphony.  With a merry twinkle in his eyes the eccentric Pole comforted me by exclaiming:  ’Oh, let us play only the first two movements of the Symphony in C minor, then no one will know whether we have played Mendelssohn in the major or the minor key.’  Fortunately before these two movements began, to our great surprise, a loud shout was raised by some patriotic spirit in the middle of the audience, who called out ‘Long live the King!’ and the cry was promptly repeated with unusual enthusiasm and energy on all sides.  Lipinsky was perfectly right:  the symphony, with the passionate and stormy excitement of the first theme, swelled out like a hurricane of rejoicing, and had seldom produced such an effect on the audience as on that night.  This was the last of the newly inaugurated concerts that I ever conducted in Dresden.

Shortly after this the inevitable political changes took place.  The King dismissed his ministry and elected a new one, consisting partly of Liberals and partly even of really enthusiastic Democrats, who at once proclaimed the well-known regulations, which are the same all over the world, for founding a thoroughly democratic constitution.  I was really touched by this result, and by the heartfelt joy which was evident among the whole population, and I would have given much to have been able to gain access to the King, and convince myself of his hearty confidence in the people’s love for him, which seemed to me so desirable a consummation.  In the evening the town was gaily illuminated, and the King drove through the streets in an open carriage.  In the greatest excitement I went out among the dense crowds and followed his movements, often running where I thought it likely that a particularly hearty shout might rejoice and reconcile the monarch’s heart.  My wife was quite frightened when she saw me come back late at night, tired out and very hoarse from shouting.

The events which took place in Vienna and Berlin, with their apparently momentous results, only moved me as interesting newspaper reports, and the meeting of a Frankfort parliament in the place of the dissolved Bundestag sounded strangely pleasant in my ears.  Yet all these significant occurrences could not tear me for a single day from my regular hours of work.  With immense, almost overweening satisfaction, I finished, in the last days of this eventful and historic month of March, the score of Lohengrin with the orchestration of the music up to the vanishing of the Knight of the Holy Grail into the remote and mystic distance.