a place to live with his own family. Crusell received an education at Sveaborg and excelled in music and languages. In 1791 Wallenstjerna transferred to Stockholm and Crusell went with him. Although Crusell spent most of the rest of his life in Sweden, he always considered himself a Finn. In his final years in a letter to Runeberg he called himself a "finsk landsman" (a fellow Finn; note that "Finn" at the time did not refer to the language). He maintained his travel diaries in Swedish. Career as a clarinetist In Stockholm, Crusell continued his studies and established himself as a clarinet soloist. In 1792, at age sixteen, he received an appointment as the director of the regimental band, and in 1793 became principal clarinet with the Hovkapellet (Royal Court Orchestra), which was directed by his composition teacher, the German composer Abbé Vogler. In 1798 he received financial assistance which enabled him to live in Berlin for a few months and study with the well-known German clarinetist Franz Tausch (1762–1817). Tausch had founded the German school of clarinet playing which emphasized beauty of tone over technique. Crusell's progress was swift, and he performed at concerts in Berlin and Hamburg before returning to Sweden. The review of the Hamburg concert in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung was positive. Crusell lived in Sweden for the rest of his life, going back to Finland only once. After a trip to St. Petersburg, on his return trip to Sweden, he performed in Helsinki on 7 July 1801, with the pianist Fredrik Lithander as his accompanist, and in Turku on 30 July, in a concert organized by the orchestra of the Turku Society of Music. In Stockholm Crusell had become acquainted with the French ambassador to Sweden. This friendship encouraged and enabled him to undertake a trip to Paris in 1803. There he performed and also studied clarinet with Jean-Xavier Lefèvre at the newly formed Conservatoire. On 2 June, with the encouragement of Lefèvre, he purchased a new mouthpiece made by and on 14 September a six-key C clarinet made by Jean Jacques Baumann. Before about 1800 Crusell had been playing with the reed turned up, but later turned it down, the modern practice and a position more compatible with cantabile playing. Exactly when he did this is not well established, but he may have favored the reed-above position because of a lack of evenness in