in disguise; for while it did not deprive the boy of the pecuniary benefits of the position to which he had just been appointed, it gave him two or three years of comparative leisure, uninterrupted save by his share of the organist’s duties, for his studies, which there is every reason to suppose he continued under the guidance of his firm friend Neefe. These three years were a period of theatrical inactivity in Bonn. For the carnival season of 1785, the Elector engaged Böhm and his company, then playing alternately at Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle and Düsseldorf. This troupe during its short season may have furnished the young organist with valuable matter for reflection, for in the list of newly studied pieces, from October 1783 to the same month 1785--thus including the engagement in Bonn--are Gluck’s “Alceste” and “Orpheus,” four operas of Salieri (the “Armida” among them), Sarti’s “Fra due Litiganti” and “L’Incognito” in German translation, Holzbauer’s “Günther von Schwarzburg” and five of Paisiello’s operas. These were, says the report in the “Theater-Kalender” (1786), “in addition to the old and familiar French operettas, ‘Zémire et Azor,’ ‘Sylvain,’ ‘Lucile,’ ‘Der Prächtige,’ ‘Der Hausfreund,’ etc., etc.” The three serious Vienna operas, “Alceste,” “Orpheus” and “Armida,” in such broad contrast to the general character of the stock pieces of the Rhenish companies, point directly to Maximilian and the Bonn season. The elector of Hesse-Cassel, being then in funds by the sale of his subjects to George III for the American Revolutionary War just closed, supported a large French theatrical company, complete in the three branches of spoken and musical drama and ballet. Max Franz, upon his return from Vienna in November, 1785, spent a few days in Cassel, and, upon the death of the Elector and the dismissal of the actors, a part of this company was engaged to play in Bonn during January and February, 1786. The performances were thrice a week, Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, and, with but two or three exceptions, consisted of a comedy, followed by a light opera or operetta. The list contains eight of Grétry’s compositions, three by Desaides, two by Philidor, and one each by Sacchini, Champein, Pergolesi, Gossec, Frizieri, Monsigny and Schwarzendorf (called Martini)--all of light and pleasing character, and enjoying then a wide popularity not only in France but throughout the Continent. Meantime Grossmann had left Frankfort and with Klos, previously a manager in Hamburg, had formed a new company for the Cologne, Bonn and Düsseldorf stages. This troupe gave the Carnival performances in 1787, confining them, so far as appears, to the old round of familiar pieces.