Although I had written Die Hochzeit in the darkest vein, without operatic embellishments, I painted this subject with the utmost colour and variety.  In contrast to the lovers out of fairyland I depicted a more ordinary couple, and I even introduced a third pair that belonged to the coarser and more comical servant world.  I purposely went to no pains in the matter of the poetic diction and the verse.  My idea was not to encourage my former hopes of making a name as a poet; I was now really a ‘musician’ and a ‘composer,’ and wished to write a decent opera libretto simply because I was sure that nobody else could write one for me; the reason being that such a book is something quite unique and cannot be written either by a poet or by a mere man of letters.  With the intention of setting this libretto to music, I left Leipzig in January, 1833, to stay in Wurzburg with my eldest brother Albert, who at the time held an appointment at the theatre.  It now seemed necessary for me to begin to apply my musical knowledge to a practical purpose, and to this end my brother had promised to help me in getting some kind of post at the small Wurzburg theatre.  I travelled by post to Bamberg via Hof, and in Bamberg I stayed a few days in the company of a young man called Schunke, who from a player on the horn had become an actor.  With the greatest interest I learned the story of Caspar Hauser, who at that time was very well known, and who (if I am not mistaken) was pointed out to me.  In addition to this, I admired the peculiar costumes of the market-women, thought with much interest of Hoffmann’s stay at this place, and of how it had led to the writing of his Tales, and resumed my journey (to Wurzburg) with a man called Hauderer, and suffered miserably from the cold all the way.

My brother Albert, who was almost a new acquaintance to me, did his best to make me feel at home in his not over luxurious establishment.  He was pleased to find me less mad than he had expected me to be from a certain letter with which I had succeeded in frightening him some time previously, and he really managed to procure me an exceptional occupation as choir-master at the theatre, for which I received the monthly fee of ten guilders.  The remainder of the winter was devoted to the serious study of the duties required of a musical director:  in a very short time I had to tackle two new grand operas, namely, Marschner’s Vampir and Meyerbeer’s Robert der Teufel, in both of which the chorus played a considerable part.  At first I felt absolutely like a beginner, and had to start on Camilla von Paer, the score of which was utterly unknown to me.  I still remember that I felt I was doing a thing which I had no right to undertake:  I felt quite an amateur at the work.  Soon, however, Marschner’s score interested me sufficiently to make the labour seem worth my while.  The score of Robert was a great disappointment to me:  from the newspapers I had expected plenty of originality and novelty; I could find no trace of either in this transparent work, and an opera with a finale like that of the second act could not be named in the same breath with any of my favourite works.  The only thing that impressed me was the unearthly keyed trumpet which, in the last act, represented the voice of the mother’s ghost.