His influence had put an end to the simple ingenuousness with which the Leipzig public had hitherto judged the productions of its sociable subscription concerts.  Through the influence of my good old friend Pohlenz, who was not yet altogether laid on the shelf, I managed to produce my Columbus Overture at a benefit concert given by the favourite young singer, Livia Gerhart.  But, to my amazement, I found that the taste of the musical public in Leipzig had been given a different bent, which not even my rapturously applauded overture, with its brilliant combination of six trumpets, could influence.  This experience deepened my dislike of everything approaching a classical tone, in which sentiment I found myself in complete accord with honest Pohlenz, who sighed good-naturedly over the downfall of the good old times.

Arrangements for a musical festival at Dessau, under Friedrich Schneider’s conductorship, offered me a welcome chance of quitting Leipzig.  For this journey, which could be performed on foot in seven hours, I had to procure a passport for eight days.  This document was destined to play an important part in my life for many years to come; for on several occasions and in various European countries it was the only paper I possessed to prove my identity.  In fact, owing to my evasion of military duty in Saxony, I never again succeeded in obtaining a regular pass until I was appointed musical conductor in Dresden.  I derived very little artistic pleasure or benefit of any kind from this occasion; on the contrary, it gave a fresh impetus to my hatred of the classical.  I heard Beethoven’s Symphony in C minor conducted by a man whose physiognomy, resembling that of a drunken satyr, filled me with unconquerable disgust.  In spite of an interminable row of contrabassi, with which a conductor usually coquettes at musical festivals, his performance was so expressionless and inane that I turned away in disgust as from an alarming and repulsive problem, and desisted from all attempts to explain the impassable gulf which, as I again perceived, yawned between my own vivid and imaginative conception of this work and the only living presentations of it which I had ever heard.  But for the present my tormented spirits were cheered and calmed by hearing the classical Schneider’s oratorio Absalom rendered as an absolute burlesque.

It was in Dessau that Minna had made her first debut on the stage, and while there I heard her spoken of by frivolous young men in the tone usual in such circles when discussing young and beautiful actresses.  My eagerness in contradicting this chatter and confounding the scandalmongers revealed to me more clearly than ever the strength of the passion which drew me to her.