Raff now became anxious to make a permanent home for himself in one of the larger German cities. He appealed once more to Liszt, who gave him a letter of introduction to Mechetti, at that time a prominent publisher of Vienna. It seemed as if ill luck relentlessly pursued Raff, for while he was actually on the way to visit Mechetti, the latter died. In spite of such obstacles to his advancement the composer continued his labors with undaunted spirit. He returned to his old home at Würtemberg and resumed his studies. For a short time he taught and studied at Stuttgart, seeking in the latter city to fill the gaps in his early training. That his ambition was unconquered is well proved by the fact that in Stuttgart he wrote his first large work, an opera in four acts entitled “King Alfred.” In Stuttgart, too, he was in some measure recompensed for his many trials and adversities by making the acquaintance of one who was destined to be his life-long friend and his champion after death. This was Hans von Bülow, then a youth of barely twenty, not yet the famous pupil of Liszt, but a law student who was neglecting his studies for the pursuit of music. Von Bülow, no doubt, perceived that to introduce to the public a new composer of merit would add to his own success as a player, and he accordingly performed from memory a recently finished composition of Raff’s, which he had seen for the first time two days before. The result was a storm of applause for both player and composer. This success cemented the friendship of the two, and, as all who have often heard the pianist well know, Dr. von Bülow very rarely plays a miscellaneous programme on which the name of Raff does not appear. It was in 1850 that the young man met Liszt again, this time in Hamburg, and followed the magnet of attraction to Weimar. Here at last it seemed as if Raff had found the atmosphere for which his spirit hungered. Music, literature and art permeated the air; and the foreign artists who came to lay their tributes of flattery before the throne of the musical idol of the hour had smiles of approval for Raff, who basked in the sunlight and let the essence of the new German ideas in music saturate his soul. He went to work with renewed vigor, and inspired by the presence of competent performers wrote his first chamber music (Quatuor No. 1 in D minor for strings), some of his best piano suites, his setting of Geibel’s “Traum König und Sein Lieb” (“Dream King and his Love”), “Wachet auf” and other well known works. Raff made himself popular and respected in the artistic circles of Weimar by his learning. When Berlioz, who was ignorant of German, was there and a banquet was given in his honor, Raff relieved the situation of some difficulty by making the address to the guest in Latin, an attention which highly delighted the Frenchman.