from 3,000 to
3,500 thalers (450 to 525 pounds), was a mere nothing compared with the
migration of a Parisian operatic company in May, 1700. The ninety-three
members of which it was composed set out in carriages and drove by
Strasburg to Ulm, there they embarked and sailed to Cracow, whence the
journey was continued on rafts. [FOOTNOTE: M. Furstenau, Zur Geschichte
der Music und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden.] So much for artistic
tours at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Frederick Augustus (II
of Saxony and III of Poland, 1733-1763) dissolved the Polish band, and
organised a similar body which was destined solely for Poland, and was
to be resident there. It consisted in 1753 of an organist, two singers,
twenty instrumentalists (almost all Germans), and a band-servant, their
salary amounting to 5,383 thalers, 10 groschen (a little more than 805
pounds). Notwithstanding this new arrangement, the great Dresden band
sometimes accompanied the King to Poland, and when it did not, some of
its members at least had to be in attendance for the performance of the
solos at the chamber concerts and in the operas. Also such singers, male
and female, as were required for the operas proposed for representation
had to take to the road. Hasse and his wife Faustina came several times
to Poland. That the constellation of the Dresden musical establishment,
in its vocal as well as instrumental department, was one of the most
brilliant imaginable is sufficiently proved by a glance at the names
which we meet with in 1719: Lotti, Heinichen, Veracini, Volumier,
Senesino, Tesi, Santa Stella Lotti, Durastanti, &c. Rousseau, writing in
1754, calls the Dresden orchestra the first in Europe. And Burney says
in 1772 that the instrumental performers had been some time previously
of the first class. No wonder, then, if the visits of such artists
improved the instrumental music of Poland.

From Sowinski's Les Musiciens Polonais we learn that on great occasions
the King's band was reinforced by those of Prince Czartoryski and Count
Wielhorski, thus forming a body of 100 executants. This shows that
outside the King's band good musicians were to be found in Poland.
Indeed, to keep in their service private bands of native and foreign
singers and players was an ancient custom among the Polish magnates; it
obtained for a long time, and had not yet died out at the beginning of
this century. From this circumstance, however, we must not too rashly
conc