Two Grenadiers was impossible, for the simple reason that the
accompaniment at the end of the song, which I had modelled upon
the Marseillaise, could only be sung in the streets of Paris to
the accompaniment of cannons and gunshots. Habeneck was the only
person who fulfilled his promise to conduct my Columbus Overture
at one of the rehearsals for the benefit of Anders and myself.
As, however, there was no question of producing this work even at
one of the celebrated Conservatoire concerts, I saw clearly that
the old gentleman was only moved by kindness and a desire to
encourage me. It could not lead to anything further, and I myself
was convinced that this extremely superficial work of my young
days could only give the orchestra a wrong impression of my
talents. However, these rehearsals, to my surprise, made such an
unexpected impression on me in other ways that they exercised a
decisive influence in the crisis of my artistic development. This
was due to the fact that I listened repeatedly to Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony, which, by dint of untiring practice, received
such a marvellous interpretation at the hands of this celebrated
orchestra, that the picture I had had of it in my mind in the
enthusiastic days of my youth now stood before me almost tangibly
in brilliant colours, undimmed, as though it had never been
effaced by the Leipzig orchestra who had slaughtered it under
Pohlenz's baton. Where formerly I had only seen mystic
constellations and weird shapes without meaning, I now found,
flowing from innumerable sources, a stream of the most touching
and heavenly melodies which delighted my heart.

The whole of that period of the deterioration of my musical
tastes which dated, practically speaking, from those selfsame
confusing ideas about Beethoven, and which had grown so much