From this time, the young Kammermusicus was in full activity. His duties consisted in playing at the Court – concerts and in the Theatre, for which latter, a French operatic and dramatic company had been engaged shortly before. I therefore became earlier acquainted with the French dramatical music than with the German; and this was not without influence upon the tendency of my taste, and upon my compositions of that time. At last, during the two fairs, a German operatic company from Magdeburgh was also engaged, and the grandeur of Mozart’s operatic music burst upon me. Mozart now became for my life time my ideal and model. Even now I well remember the transport and dreamy enchantment with which I heard for the first time, the “Zauberflöte” and “Don Juan”; and that I had no rest until I had got the scores lent to me, and had brooded over them half the night long. << less