By way of a debut I had selected Der Freischutz, so that he might open his career with a well-known opera.  Karl did not entertain the slightest doubt of being able to master such a simple score, but when he had to overcome his reserve in playing the piano before me, as I wanted to go through the whole opera with him, I was amazed at seeing that he had no idea of accompaniment.  He played the arrangement for the pianoforte with the characteristic carelessness of an amateur who attaches no importance to lengthening a bar by incorrect fingering.  He knew nothing whatever about rhythmic precision or tempo, the very essentials of a conductor’s career.  I felt completely nonplussed and was absolutely at a loss what to say.  However, I still hoped the young man’s talent might suddenly break out, and I looked forward to an orchestral rehearsal, for which I provided him with a pair of large spectacles.  I had never noticed before that he was so shortsighted, but when reading he had to keep his face so close to the music that it would have been impossible for him to control both orchestra and singers.  When I saw him, hitherto so confident, standing at the conductor’s desk staring hard at the score, in spite of his spectacles, and making meaningless signs in the air like one in a trance, I at once realised that the time for carrying out my guarantee had arrived.

It was, nevertheless, a somewhat difficult and trying task to make young Ritter understand that I should be compelled to take his place; but there was no help for it, and it was I who had to inaugurate Kramer’s winter season under such ’exceptional artistic auspices.’  The success of Der Freischulz placed me in a peculiar position as regards both the company and the public, but it was quite out of the question to suppose that Karl could continue to act as musical director at the theatre by himself.

Strange to say, this trying experience coincided with an important change in the life of another young friend of mine, Hans von Bulow, whom I had known in Dresden.  I had met his father at Zurich in the previous year just after his second marriage.  He afterwards settled down at Lake Constance, and it was from this place that Hans wrote to me expressing his regret that he was unable to pay his long-desired visit to Zurich, as he had previously promised to do.

As far as I could make out, his mother, who had been divorced from his father, did all in her power to restrain him from embracing the career of an artist, and tried to persuade him to enter the civil or the diplomatic service, as he had studied law.  But his inclinations and talents impelled him to a musical career.  It seemed that his mother, when giving him permission to go to visit his father, had particularly urged him to avoid any meeting with me.  When I afterwards heard that he had been advised by his father also not to come to Zurich, I felt sure that the latter, although he had been on friendly terms