Chapter 10

It was winter. The company came to Ansbach, where they were to play in the former Margrave Theatre. “Freischütz” was to be given, and Daniel had held a number of special rehearsals.

But a violent snow storm broke out on the day of the performance; scarcely two dozen people attended.

How differently the violins sounded in this auditorium! The voices were, as it seemed, automatically well balanced; there was in them an element of calm and assurance. The orchestra? Daniel had so charmed it that it obeyed him as if it were a single instrument. At the close of the last act, an old, grey-haired man stepped up to Daniel, smiled, took him by the hand, and thanked him. It was Spindler.

Daniel went home with him; they talked about the past, the future, men and music. They could not stop talking; nor could the snow stop falling. This did not disturb them. They met again on the following day; but at the end of the week Spindler was taken ill, and had to go to bed.

As Daniel entered the residence of his old friend one morning, he learned that he had died suddenly the night before. It had been a peaceful death.

On the third day, Daniel followed the funeral procession to the cemetery. When he left the cemetery—there were but few people at the funeral—he went out into the snow-covered fields, and spent the remainder of the day walking around.

That same night he sat down in his wretched quarters, and began his composition of Goethe’s “Harzreise im Winter.” It was one of the profoundest and rarest of works ever created by a musician, but it was destined, like the most of Daniel’s compositions, not to be preserved to posterity. This was due to a tragic circumstance.