It was not very long, however, before the temperaments and idiosyncrasies of the two brought them into collision. Mattheson criticised the music of his friend, perhaps not entirely without reason, complained that Handel was not the most perfect of melodists and that he often wrote at too great length. If these opinions may have nettled the younger man they were not wholly lost on him, as time was to show. In the early months of their friendship Handel and Mattheson went to Lübeck to listen to the playing of the renowned Danish organist, Dietrich Buxtehude, whose celebrated Abendmusiken at the Marienkirche were likewise a magnet which drew Bach away from his duties in Arnstadt. The young men were deeply stirred by the music of the venerable master and Handel stored away in his incredibly retentive memory ideas which were to fertilize his imagination in later years. The two youths actually competed for the post of organist and might, like Bach, have won it but for the provision that whoever succeeded a retiring organist in Lübeck had to marry the daughter—or widow—of his predecessor. In this case the daughter seems to have been more than usually undesirable and, like their famous contemporary, the excursionists from Hamburg turned their backs on Lübeck. Presently the friendship was imperiled once more, this time with what might have been disastrous results. In October, 1704, an opera, “Cleopatra” which Mattheson had composed to a text by a certain Friederick Feustkling, was produced with the composer in the part of Mark Antony and Handel at the harpsichord. The piece won a success, but on a later occasion Mattheson (Antony being “dead”) hastened into the orchestra and tried to push Handel from the instrument. A quarrel flared up immediately, which seems to have broken up the performance and have lasted half an hour. In the end the throng repaired to the Gänsemarkt, outside the theatre, the pair drew swords and set upon one another. Almost at once the combat came to an end, Mattheson’s blade splintering against a metal button on Handel’s coat. “The duel might have ended very badly for us both, if by God’s mercy my sword had not broken,” the young firebrand was to write later. The reconciliation was not immediate but when it did come about the two dined together, then betook themselves to the theatre to a rehearsal of Handel’s first opera, “Almira.” The representation, on January 8, 1705, was an instant triumph for its composer. The Hamburgers were completely captivated by the freshness and manifest genius which the score exhibited. Mattheson had sung the tenor part but does not seem to have been overjoyed by his friend’s spectacular success.