CHAP. II - The Opera at Frankfort, 1844. Cherubini's “Medea”

Summary

Since the days when Mannheim possessed its court-chapel, formed by Stamitz, to which the Abbe Vogler was second master–and its musical circle so tempting as to make the young Mozart wish to settle there–the musical temptations of the Rhine Land have been floating rather than fixed,–unless Frankfort, with its opera and singing societies, and Offenbach, for the sake of Herr André's extensive publishing establishment, be included in the circle.

It is curious but true, that in a busy and thriving city like Cologne, the Opera has been always below mediocrity–that, in Beethoven's birthplace, the accomplished university - town of Bonn, the state of habitual stagnation has been long such as to puzzle all who fancied that in Germany, Music must be every where.–During a part of this century, it is true, musical life emanated from Herr Simrock's press there: but when I passed some weeks close to Bonn, at Godesberg, in the autumn of 1843, indifference and inactivity seemed to have come down upon it ; and any new music, save some paltry local publication, was hard to find, because in small request there. Neither sun nor customer seemed often to visit the bare counting-room into which, during the three long mid-day hours devoted to dining, smoking and sleeping, the unadvised fanatico might have had some difficulty in forcing an entrance, still more in finding any one capable of giving him an intelligent answer, or of receiving a commission.