[I] found myself included, through Hellmesberger's influence, in an invitation addressed to the "musical and literary celebrities honouring Pesth with a visit " by Heckenast, the leading publisher of the Hungarian capital, to a supper-party at his mansion in a street with a polysyllabic, and, to any tongue save that of a born Magyar, unpronounceable name. Heckenast, an enlightened and liberal patron of the arts, had at that time but recently "discovered" Robert Volkmann, and taken the luckless composer under his protection. He happened to mention, in the "artists' room" at the Redoute, that we should meet Volkmann at supper, and Hellmesberger at once suggested an agreeable surprise for the latter — with whose gloomy past he was acquainted — in the shape of a post-coenal performance of the G minor quatuor by the Viennese quartet party... the genial suggestion was adopted by acclamation, and as soon as the concert had terminated, Heckenast's guests, some twenty in number, were conducted by their host to his residence, where they found Volkmann and one or two other local notabilities awaiting them.