Perhaps, to a certain extent, Friedrich Flotow had only himself to blame. It is said of him that he was shy and reticent. Interviewers who came to seek out details of his private life would leave his house with empty notebooks, but did they ask his veiws on the latest opera, or on any subject appertaining to his beloved art, he was eloquent to the point of loquacity.

Born on April 27th, 1812, on the estate Rentendorf, in Mecklenburg, Freiherr Von Friedrich Flotow was the son of a landed nobleman, and as such was the fortunate possessor of the many advantages that wealth, and a doting parent, could provide.

His father intended that Friedrich should enter the diplomatic service, and the boy was educated with that end in view.

Paris attracted him as steel to a magnet, and only when living in its brilliant atmoshere could he produce his best work. He was always a prominent figure in the salons of the rich, and at the private house of a noble French family he produced his first Operatic work, " Stradella."

Undaunted by the varying fortunes of "Stradella", Flotow produced a number of other works, one of which, " Le Naufrage de la Meduse," swept him immediately into the front rank of contemporary composers.

The events that led to the composition Flotow's greatest work, "Martha," form an interesting story. During his second stay in Paris, Flotow was approached by the manager of a famous opera house, and asked to write the first act of a new ballet, "Harriette, ou la Servante de Greenwiche." The ballet was to be written specially for Adele Dumilatre, a great dancer of that day, who had commissioned the manager to give out the work to three different composers so that the ballet could be produced almost immediately. The second act was allotted to Robert Mergmuller, and the third to Edouard Deldevez.

Upon this ballet, which was written and produced in the space of a few days, was based the opera which brought lasting fame to its creator. The title chosen was " Martha," a work of superlative merit which is as popular to-day as in 1844, the year it was first produced.

Those who do not know the history of "Martha" are apt to wonder at its freshness, vivacity and sprightly charmqualities that one does not usually expect from the pen of a German composer, but, apart from the fact that "Martha" is essentially French, written in the first instance for a French dancer and a French audience, one must remember that Flotow loved Paris no less than his native Mecklenburg, and the gay, lively atmosphere of the French capital pervaded all his works.