Theodore Thomas : a musical autobiography . his surroundings. Those were busy days. An opera season wasbegun without a library, so to speak. When workslike Robert the Devil and The Huguenots, weregiven, we had the orchestral parts, but they were new,and had never been played from. To understand thesituation, it is necessary for me to explain that theorchestral parts in those days were very faulty. TheItalian music was mostly manuscript, and seldomcorrected, and routine was necessary to know thenotes and traditions. I remember one season thatthe last act of Lucia di Lammermoor (an operamuch giv
Theodore Thomas : a musical autobiography . his surroundings. Those were busy days. An opera season wasbegun without a library, so to speak. When workslike Robert the Devil and The Huguenots, weregiven, we had the orchestral parts, but they were new,and had never been played from. To understand thesituation, it is necessary for me to explain that theorchestral parts in those days were very faulty. TheItalian music was mostly manuscript, and seldomcorrected, and routine was necessary to know thenotes and traditions. I remember one season thatthe last act of Lucia di Lammermoor (an operamuch given in those days), was missing in the part ofthe first stand, at which Mosenthal and I sat, and wehad to revamp it, as the saying is. In the Frenchmusic the print was too small, to begin with, besidesbeing printed from worn-out plates. The generaloutfit was so slovenly that the parts needed carefulrevising before they could be used. As an illustra-tion, The Huguenots was announced by the man-agement, and we had the parts, but the score had. JENNY LIND(from a painting) LIFE WORK 47 not arrived from Paris, or had been lost. The usualcuts had to be marked to save time in the rehearsals,and we would find, for instance, a page from theclarinet part in that of the cello; a flute part in thetrumpet, or a trombone part among the violins, no score to go by, clerical help could not behired to make these corrections, and it became awork, not of love, but of nights, to straighten thesematters and put the parts in fit order for use on theplayers desks. Anschlitz was at home in this kind ofwork, and I quickly became his assistant and right-hand man in everything on the stage and in It is hardly necessary to say that I thus 1 The New York correspondent of Dwights Journal ofMusic, writing under date of December 10, i860, thus refersto Mr. Thomas as conductor of the Ullmann Opera: CarlAnschiitz appears to be involved in the fall of the Ullmanndynasty and his place as c
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