always kept, was
permitted to play the kettledrum in the symphony. It was not until
later that I perceived how ridiculous and extravagant these concerts
were. My teacher generally played two concertos on the piano by Wolff
or Emanuel Bach,[3] a member of the town band struggled with
Stamitz,[4] while the receiver of excise duties worked away hard at the
flute, and took in such an immense supply of breath that he blew out
both lights on his music-stand, and always had to have them relighted
again. Singing wasn't thought about; my uncle, a great friend and
patron of music, always disparaged the local talent in this line. He
still dwelt with exuberant delight upon the days gone by, when the four
choristers of the four churches of the town agreed together to give
_Lottchen am Hofe_.[5] Above all, he was wont to extol the toleration
which united the singers in the production of this work of art, for not
only the Catholic and the Evangelical but also the Reformed community
was split into two bodies--those speaking German and those speaking
French. The French chorister was not daunted by the _Lottchen_, but, as
my uncle maintained, sang his part, spectacles on nose, in the finest
falsetto that ever proceeded forth from a human breast. Now there was
amongst us (I mean in the town) a spinster named Meibel, aged about
fifty-five, who subsisted upon the scanty pension which she received as
a retired court singer of the metropolis, and my uncle was rightly of
opinion that Miss Meibel might still do something for her money in the
concert hall. She assumed airs of importance, required a good deal of
coaxing, but at last consented, so that we came to have _bravuras_ in
our concerts. She was a singular creature this Miss Meibel. I still
retain a lively recollection of her lean little figure. Dressed in a
many-coloured gown, she was wont to step forward with her roll of music
in her hand, looking very grave and solemn, and to acknowledge the
audience with a slight inclination of the upper part of her body. Her
head-dress was a most remarkable head-dress. In front was fastened a
nosegay of Italian flowers of porcelain, which kept up a strange
trembling and tottering as she sang. At the end, after the audience had
greeted her with no stinted measure of applause, she proudly handed the
music-roll to my uncle, and permitted him to dip his thumb and finger
into a little porcelain snuff-box, fashioned in the shape of a pug dog,
out of which sh