Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy maintained a cordial friendship with Heinrich Joseph Baermann, who was undoubtedly regarded as the best clarinet player of his day. Thanks to this friendship two pieces were composed: for clarinet, basset-horn and piano, and clarinet, basset-horn and orchestra in f minor opus 113 and d minor opus 114. In 1832, when Heinrich Baermann and his son Carl spent some time in Berlin during a concert tour, Mendelssohn invited them to his house and asked them to prepare his favourite meal, yeat dumplings and cream strudel, both Austrian specialities. Quick-witted, the two Baermanns asked Mendelssohn to compose a duet for clarinet and basset-horn with the accompaniment of piano or orchestra as a "payment". Later, Carl Baermann remembered the event as follows: "So Mendelssohn picked the day when the story, as he put it, should take place, and when I arrived at his home at the agreed time (9 a.m.), he put a chef's hat on my head, fastened the apron and stuck a wooden spoon behind the string. He did the same to himself, only he took a quill instead of a spoon and stuck it behind his ear. Then, to the staff's delight, he lead me down to the kitchen, where I had already made the necessary preparations the day before. He himself returned to his own room where, as he said, he was going to stir, knead, salt, pepper and sugar the tones, make a tasty sauce and cook it over a hot fire. "Probatum est, we are awaiting the attack", he said leaving us. The crucial moment when everything had to be finished was at 5 p.m. When the clock struck 5, my heart was pounding with anxiety whether the yeast dumplings had risen and I felt great joy to see that they had and the cream strudel was boiling melodiously in its pan. At the agreed time I brought my meal to the table in covered bowls as Mendelssohn brought his duet in a covered bowl. On that very evening we played the duet in his music salon, and after w3e had made some technical and musical changes, father and I were even more delighted with this lovely composition than Mendelssohn was with the dumplings and the strudel, even though he always said that my dumpling composition was much more brilliant than his musical composition. Immediately we agreed to repeat the entire event which took place a few days later with equal success. Thus, I now possess two valuable and very dear souvenirs of the great master, and the first souvenir piece carries the humorous title: The battle at Prague! A great duet for yeast dumplings or cream strudel, clarinet and basset-horn, composed and humbly dedicated to M. Baermann and son by a devoted Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy".