Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
May 5th, 1881.
107
THE MUSICAL CRITIC AND TRADE REVIEW.
" I say, pard," said Goskin, "don't you want a little rest?"
" I feel tired," the old man said. " Perhaps you'll let me rest here for
the matter of a day or so."
He walked behind the bar, where some old blankets were lying, and
stretched himself upon them.
" I feel pretty sick. I guess I won't last long. I've got a brother down
the ravine—his name's Driscoll. He don't know I'm here. Can you get
him before morning? I'd like to see his face once more before I die."
Goskin started up at the mention of the name. He knew Driscoll well.
" He your brother? I'll have him here in half an hour."
As he dashed out in the storm the musician pressed his hand to his side
and groaned. Goskin heard the word " Hurry!" and sped down the ravine
;
$100 Eeward
:
to Driscoll's cabin.
It was quite light in the room when the two men returned. Driscoll was
I To a compitant Pianer Player. ;
as pale as death.
" My God! I hope he's alive! I wronged him when we lived in England,
This he stuck up on the music rack, and, though the inscription glared
at the frequenters of the room until midnight, it failed to draw any musi- twenty years ago."
They saw the old man had drawn the blankets over his face. The two
cian from the shell.
So the merry-making went on; the hilarity grew apace. Men danced and stood a moment, awed by the thought that he might be dead. Goskin lifted
sang to the music of the squeaky fiddle and worn-out guitar, as the jolly crowd the blanket and pulled it down astonished. There was no one there!
"Gone!" cried Driscoll, wildly.
within tried to drown the howling of the storm without. Suddenly they
"Gone!" echoed Goskin, pulling out his cash-drawer. Ten thousand
became aware of the presence of a white-haired man crouching near the fire-
place. His garments, such as were left, were wet with melting snow, and dollars in the sack, and the Lord knows how much loose change in tha
he had a half-starved, half-crazed expression. He held his thin, trembling drawer!"
next day the boys got out, followed a horse's tracks through the
hands toward the fire, and the light of the blazing wood made them almost snow, The
and lost them in the trail leading toward Pioche.
transparent.
There was a man missing from the camp- It was the three-card monte
He looked about him once in a while, as if in search of something, and
who used to deny point-blank that he could play the scale. One day
his presence cast such a chill over the place that gradually the sound of man,
they
found
wig of white hair, and called to mind when the " stranger"
revelry was hushed, and it seemed that this waif of the storm had brought had pushed a those
back when he looked toward the ceiling for inspira-
in with it all the gloom and coldness of the warring elements. Goskin, tion, on the night locks
of December 24, 1858.—[Sam Davis.
mixing up a cup of hot-egg-nog, advanced and remarked, cheerily:
"Here, stranger, brace up! This is the real stuff."
WHO AKE THEY?—A London contemporary informs us, that Strauss's,
The man drained the cup, smacked his lips, and seemed more at home.
" Been prospecting, eh? Out in the mountains—caught in the storm? father and son, are to organize the Historical Concert at Milan, during the
Musical and Industrial Exhibition next May. Who are Strauss's, father
Lively night, this!"
and son? Old Johann has been dead many years, and the present genera-
"Pretty bad," said the man.
tion, Johann and Edouard, has no successors old enough to take part in
musical entertainments. The mistake will be probably rectified in time.
"Must feel pretty dry?"
The man looked at his streaming clothes and laughed, as if Goskin's
OPPOSITION.—When Boito's " Mefistofele " began to arouse the curiosity
of the general public and the interest of musicians, it was to be expected
remark was a sarcasm.
that Germany would not remain inactive. Many theatres bought the work
" How long out?'-'
and put it in immediate rehearsal. The opera was received in many places
" Four days."
with gre at favor, but in Cologne hisses were audible amid the applause at
"Hungry?"
The man rose up, and, walking over to the lunch counter, fell to work the end of each act and on the final descent of the curtain. If Boito does
upon roast bear, devouring it like any wild animal would have done. As not come to the front with a new opera very soon, we are afraid his reputa-
meat and drink and warmth began to permeate the stranger, he seemed to tion will not last very long.
expand and brighten up. His features lost their pallor, and he grew more
A correspondent of the Eichmond Dispatch, writing from Staunton, Va.,
and more content with the idea that he was not in the grave. As he under- relates the following: "The most wonderful feat of memory I recollect of
went these changes the people about him got merry and happier, and threw was displayed by Blind Tom on the stage while giving a concert here
off the temporary feeling of depression which he had laid upon them.
recently. Twenty-one years ago—in 1860—Prof. E. L. Ide, a music teacher
Presently his eye fell upon the piano.
at the Wesleyan Female Seminary here, attended one of Tom's concerts at
"Where's the player?" he asked.
Frederick, Md., and, to test the genius of the boy, played a German waltz
" Never had any," said Goskin, blushing at the confession.
then but little known, and made some little changes of his own in playing
" I used to play when I was young."
it. Tom played it off at once correctly. The other night Prof. Ide went
Goskin almost fainted at the admission.
on the stage and asked Tom what was the name of the hall in which he
" Stranger, do tackle it, and give us a tune. Nary man in this camp played in Frederick in 1860. Tom without hesitation gave the name of the
ever had the nerve to wrestle with that music-box." His pulse beat faster, hall. He was then asked who played for him, and he said Prof. Ide. He
for he feared that the man would refuse.
was then asked to repeat the piece that had been played for him there, and,
" I'll do the best I can," he said.
sitting down at the piano, he accurately gave it as he had heard it from Prof.
There was no stool, but seizing a candlebox, he drew it up and seated Ide, twenty-one years ago, note for note, including the change made by the
himself before the instrument. It only required a few seconds for a hush to Professor at that time.
come over the room.
_
. . , , , .
. ,1 „
The opera season in London opened Tuesday, April 19th. Mr. Gye, at
"That old coon is going to give the thing a rattle.
Covent Garden, promises a brilliant repertoire. Adelina Patti, Mme. Albani,
The sight of a man at the piano was something so unusal that even the and Mme. Sembrich, and Nicolini, as leading tenor, are engaged. Eubin-
faro-dealer, who was about to take in a fifty-dollar bet on the tray, paused, stein's new opera "H Demonio," with the principal characters by Albani and
and did not reach for the money. Men stopped drinking with the glasses M. Lassalle, will be produced, and Eossini's " Otello " will be revived with
at their lips. Conversation appeared to have been struck with a sort of Patti and Nicolini in the cast.
paralysis, and cards were no longer shuffled^
Phillipe von Weber, son of Carl Maria von Weber, the composer, is
The old man brushed back his long, white locks, looked up to the ceil-
ing half closed his eyes, and in a mystic sort of reverie passed his fingers dead.
With a concert at the Theatre Koyal, Stuttgart, Miss Emma Thursby
over the keys. He touched but a single note, yet the sound thrilled the
room It was the key to his improvisation, and as he wove his cords to completed the fifty-two concerts of the German tour for which she was en-
aether the music laid its spell upon every ear and heart. He felt his way gaged by Maurice Strakosch.
It is stated that Herr Neumann, a Leipsic manager, has purchased the
along the keys, like a man treading uncertain paths; but he gained confid-
ence as he progressed, and presently bent to his work like a master. The exclusive right to perform the "Eing of the Nibelungen " in France, Eng-
instrument was not in exact tune, but the ears of his audience, through long land, America and Eussia until the year 1886.
disuse, did not detect anything radically wrong. They heard a succession
Eubinstein has been giving concerts in Spain. He was to go to Portugal
of grand chords, a suggestion of paradise, melodies here and there, and it after the termination of the Spanish tour.
" See him counter with his left!" said an old rough, enraptured.
Mme. Essipoff has been giving concerts with brilliant success in Kiev,
" He calls the turn every time on the upper end of the board, "responded Odessa and other towns in Southern Eussia. She is now in St. Petersburg.
a man with a stack of chips in his hand.
_,,_._,
, .,
...
Mr. Sims Eeeves, the famous English tenor, is taking his leave of the
The player wandered off into the old ballads he had heard at home. Ail English
public in an extremely deliberate fashion. He bade farewell to
the sad and melancholy and touching songs, that came up like dreams of it in ballads
in a series of three concerts, and he was to sing, for the last
childhood, this unknown player drew from the keys. His hands kneaded time, at the Philharmonic
concert on March 24. This month he will com-
their hearts like dough, and squeezed out the tears as from a wet sponge. mence his farewell performance
in oratorios, and will have associated with
As the strains flowed one upon the other, they saw their homes of the long him many of the most distinguished
vocalists of the day, including Mme.
ago reared a
they
were
playing
once
more
where
the
apple
blossoms
0
Albani,
Mme.
Christine
Nilsson,
probably
Adelina Patti, and certainly
sank through the soft air to join the violets on the green turf of the old New Mr Santley. His " farewell performances Mme.
"
are
almost
as those
England States; they saw the glories of the Wisconsin maples and the kaze which the late Ole Bull gave in this country, but _ as at numerous
least he does not
of the Indian summer blending their hues together; they saw the heather of announce each one as "positively his last appearance."
the Scottish hills, the white cliffs of Briton, and heard the sullen roar of the
M. Gounod's new opera " Le Tribut de Zamora," was produced at the
sea as it beat upon their memories vaguely.
Then came all the old Christmas carols, such as they had sung in the Grand Opera House, Paris, on the evening of April 1. It was a great success.
church thirty years before; the subtle music that brings up the glimmer of M Gounod himself conducted the opera, and he was received with much
wax taper, the solemn shrines, the evergreen, holly, mistletoe and aurphced applause, as were also the principal singers. The libretto is founded on
connected with an embassy sent by the Caliph of Cordova to
choirs. Then the remorseless performer planted his stab in every heart with episodes
Oviedo to claim tribute of a number of maidens, exacted after the battle of
" Home, Sweet Home."
The principal parts are: Xaima, one of the maidens, by Mile.
When the player ceased the crowd slunk away from him. I here waa no Zamora
Daran- her lover, Manuel, by M. Sellier; Ben Said, the Caliph's Envoy, by
more revelry left in his audience. Each man wanted to sneak off to his M. Lassalle, and Hermosa, Xaimct's mother, by Mme. Krauss. The honors
cabin and write the old folks a letter. The day was breaking as the last of the evening fell to Mme. Krauss and M. Lassalle.
man left the place, and the player, laying his head down on the piano, fell
asleep.
THE FIRST PIANO IN THE MINING CAMP.
T was Christmas Eve in a California mining town in 1858, and Goskin,
according to his custom, had decorated his gambling-house with sprigs
of mountain cedar, and a shrub whose crimson berries did not seem a bad im-
itation of English holly. The piano was covered with evergreens, and all
that was wanting to completely fill the cup of Goskin's contentment was a
man to play that piano.
"Christmas night and no piano pounder," he said. "This is a nice
country for a Christian to live in."
Getting a piece of paper he scrawled the words:
I