fit only for an asylum.

To all my acquaintances my procedure seemed stupid and reckless.
Even the former patron of my peculiar Leipzig overture thought it
impracticable and eccentric, seeing that I had again turned my
back on light opera. He expressed this opinion very freely in the
Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, in a report of a concert I had given
towards the end of the previous winter, and openly ridiculed the
Magdeburg Columbus Overture and the Rule Britannia Overture
previously mentioned. I myself had not taken any pleasure in the
performance of either of these overtures, as my predilection for
cornets, strongly marked in both these overtures, again played me
a sorry trick, as I had evidently expected too much of our Riga
musicians, and had to endure all kinds of disappointment on the
occasion of the performance. As a complete contrast to my
extravagant setting of Rienzi, this same director, H. Dorn, had
set to work to write an opera in which he had most carefully
borne in mind the conditions obtaining at the Riga theatre. Der
Schoffe van Paris, an historical operetta of the period of the
siege of Paris by Joan of Arc, was practised and performed by us
to the complete satisfaction of the composer. However, the
success of this work gave me no reason for abandoning my project
to complete my Rienzi, and I was secretly pleased to find that I
could regard this success without a trace of envy. Though
animated by no feeling of rivalry, I gradually gave up
associating with the Riga artists, confining myself chiefly to
the performance of the duties I had undertaken, and worked away
at the two first acts of my big opera without troubling myself at
all whether I should ever get so far as to see it produced.