Under Rinck at Darmstadt, and at Vienna
and Rome, he enjoyed every advantage; and, on leaving the Eternal
City, was invited to a farewell _fete_ by Thorwaldsen, where all the
eminent artists of the day were present, and joined in singing his
compositions. On returning home, after two years' absence, he adopted
music as his vocation, and published his first elementary work--the
_Singschule_, which was introduced in Prussia and Germany as the
_methode_ in schools; and soon after, the king of Prussia sent him the
gold medal awarded to men eminent in the arts and sciences. Paris,
however, soon offered more attractions to Mainzer than his native
place, and thither he repaired and pitched his tent for ten years.
During this period, he established his reputation as a composer of
dramatic, sacred, and domestic music, and as an acute and elegant
writer and critic. His opera of _La Jacquerie_ had a run of seventeen
nights consecutively at the theatre. He was soon welcomed into the
literary and artistic circles of Paris; and one evening, at an elegant
_reunion_, being invited to play, he _improvised_ a piece, which was
taken for a composition of Palestrina's. Many were moved to tears, one
pair of pre-eminently bright eyes especially; and the consequence was,
that the composer and the bright eyes were soon after united in
marriage!
But amid these captivating _salons_ and congenial occupations, what
had become of the apostle of popular music? He was not asleep; only
digesting and preparing a system which should, by its simplicity and
clearness, bring scientific music within the reach of the humblest as
well as the highest classes of society.
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