Maffei's translation of Heine's "Ratcliff"--a gloomy romance
which seems to have caught the fancy of many composers. There followed
five years of as checkered a life as ever musician led. Over and over
again he was engaged as conductor of an itinerant or stationary
operetta and opera company, only to have the enterprise fail and leave
him stranded. For six weeks in Naples his daily ration was a plate of
macaroni. But he worked at his opera steadily, although, as he once
remarked, his dreams of fame were frequently swallowed up in the growls
of his stomach, which caused him more trouble than many a millionaire
suffers from too little appetite or too much gout. Finally, convinced
that he could do better as a teacher of the pianoforte, he ran away
from an engagement which paid him two dollars a day, and, sending off
the manuscript of "Ratcliff" in a portmanteau, settled down in
Cerignola. There he became director of a school for orchestral players,
though he had first to learn to play the instruments; he also taught
pianoforte and thoroughbass, and eked out a troublous existence until
his success in competition for the prize offered by Sonzogno, the
Milanese publisher, made him famous in a day and started him on the
road to wealth.

It was but natural that, after "Cavalleria rusticana" had virulently
affected the whole world with what the enemies of Signor Mascagni
called "Mascagnitis," his next opera should be looked forward to with
feverish anxiety. There was but a year to wait, for "L'Amico Fritz" was
brought forward in Rome on the last day of October, 1891. Within ten
weeks its title found a place on the programme of one of Mr. Walter
Damrosch's Sunday night concerts in New York; but the music was a
disappointment. Five numbers were sung by Mme. Tavary and Signor
Campanini, and Mr. Damrosch, not having the orchestral parts, played
the accompaniments upon a pianoforte. As usual, Mr. Gustav Hinrichs was
to the fore with a performance in Philadelphia (on June 8, 1892), the
principal singers being Mme. Koert-Kronold, Clara Poole, M. Guille, and
Signor Del Puente. On January 31, 1893, the Philadelphia singers, aided
by the New York Symphony Society, gave a performance of the opera,
under the auspices of the Young Men's Hebrew Association, for the
benefit of its charities, at the Carnegie Music Hall, New York. Mr.
Walter Damrosch was to have conducted, but was detained in Washington
by the funeral of Mr. Blaine, and Mr. Hin