Palace, then a wind band only, under Herr Schallehn. This position he gave up in October, and after following his profession at Leamington and Edinburgh (in Mr. Wood's opera band) he became conductor of the summer concerts at Amsterdam in 1855, and finally, in the autumn of that year, was engaged as conductor of the Crystal Palace band, a post which he entered upon on October 14, 1855. The music at the Crystal Palace was at that time in a very inchoate condition, the band was still a wind band, and the open Centre Transept was the only place for its performances. Under the efforts of the new conductor things soon began to mend. He conducted a 'Saturday Concert' in the 'Bohemian Glass Court' the week after his arrival—through the enlightened liberality of the Directors the band was changed to a full orchestra, a better spot was found for the music, adjoining the Queen's rooms (since burnt) at the northeast end, and at length, through the exertions of the late Mr. Robert Bowley, then General Manager, the Concert Room was enclosed and roofed in, and the present famed Saturday Concerts began, and have progressed, both in the value and variety of the selections and the delicacy and spirit of the performances, ever since. Mr. Manns's duties as conductor, both of the daily music and of the Saturday Concerts, as well as of the numerous fêtes and extra performances, where music has to be arranged for large combined masses of wind and string, are naturally very arduous. Mendelssohn (in a letter from Leipzig dated Feb. 27, 1841) says, 'I have conducted fifteen public performances since Jan. 1; enough to knock up any man.' What would he have said if he had had to do this with all the added difficulties caused by the calls of the London season on his musicians, and with two band-performances to arrange and conduct every day as well? Mr. Manns has therefore hitherto only rarely taken engagements outside the Crystal Palace. In 1859 ne conducted the Promenade Concerts at Drury Lane, and he is announced to conduct the approaching Winter Series at Glasgow (Dec. 1879 and Jan. 1880).
Mr. Manns often appears in the Crystal Palace programmes as a composer, but it is as the director of his orchestra that he has won his laurels. In a remarkable article in The Times of April 28, 1847, it is said that 'the German conductor makes the orchestra express all the modifications of feeling that an imaginative soloist would give voice to on a single instrument.' It is to this power of wielding his band that Mr. Manns has accustomed his audience during the 24 years of his conductorship. In addition to the many qualities necessary to produce this result he is gifted with an industry which finds no pains too great, and with a devotion, which not only makes him strictly loyal to the indications of the composer, but has enabled him to transcend the limits of a mere conductor, and to urge on his audience music which, though at first received with enthusiasm only by a few, has in time amply justified his foresight by becoming a public necessity. It is not too much to say that his persistent performance of the works of Schumann—to name but one composer out of several—in the early part of his career at Sydenham, has made the London public acquainted with them years before they would otherwise have become so. [App. p.710 "Add that at the Handel Festival of 1883 he undertook the duties of conductor at very short notice, in place of Sir Michael Costa, who had just been taken ill. The Festivals of 1885 and 1888 were also conducted by Mr. Manns."]
[ G. ]
MANTIUS, Eduard, a German tenor singer of great reputation in Northern Germany, was born at Schwerin in 1806. He studied law, first in 1825, at the university of Rostock, and afterwards at Leipzig. It was at the latter place that his fine voice attracted general attention and that he began to study singing under Pohlenz. After having sung with great success at a festival at Halle, conducted by Spontini, he went to Berlin, and by his interpretation of the tenor parts in Handel's oratorios (Samson, Judas, etc.), soon became the declared favourite of the Berlin public. How much his talent was appreciated in the house of the Mendelssohn family may be gathered from many passages in the published letters and other books relating to Mendelssohn. It was Mantius who sang the principal tenor part in the Liederspiel 'Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde' ('Son and Stranger'), at the celebration of the silver wedding of the elder Mendelssohns (Devrient, p. 89). In 1830 he made his first appearance on the stage at Berlin as Tamino in the Zauberflöte. In 1857 he gave his farewell performance as Florestan in Fidelio. During 27 years he had appeared in no less than 152 characters. After quitting the stage he devoted himself with much success to teaching, and he died at Ilmenau, in Thuringia, in 1874. Mantius had not only an exceptionally fine voice, which he knew how to use in a truly artistic and musical manner, but was also a remarkably good actor. His representations of the tenor parts in Mozart's and Gluck's operas were justly regarded as models of their kind.
[ P. D. ]
MANTUA. The earliest Academy in Mantua for poetry and music was that of the 'Invaghiti,' founded in 1560 by Cesare Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and Signore di Guastalla. It always remained under royal patronage, and was one of the largest and most flourishing in Italy. In 1494, previous to the founding of this Academy, there was a magnificent theatre in Mantua, in which was represented one of the earliest Italian dramas—the 'Orfeo' of Angelo Poliziano. This pastorale was composed in two days at the instance of Francesco Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. In the seventeenth century, says Muratori, music, and more especially theatrical music, was held in high esteem; the attention of every one was directed to gorgeous musical entertainments, and more especially the courts of Modena and Mantua tried to outshine each other in magnificence. Their respective Dukes, Ferdinando Gonzaga and Francesco d'Este, vied in obtaining the best musicians and most highly prized singers for their court. It was the custom to pay a sum of not less than 300 scudi to the best actors, and there was no stint of expenditure on
