Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
Maud—And, pa, what did Professor
Crochet say of my piano playing?
Pa—He was quite extravagant in his
praise. He said you possessed an original-
ity in execution that was truly remarkable.
He said he had heard some of your pieces
performed by the greatest masters, and
not one of them played them as you did.
* *
*
I
HEARD a new fish story last week, and
it relates to several well-known mem-
bers of the trade, earnest disciples of Izaak
Walton.
The story goes that last summer
or early fall, while the}- were fishing; at a
certain resort, one of the party lost his gold
watch from the boat in which he was sit-
ting. Last week he made his first visit of
the season to the same resort, and during
his first day's sport caught an eight-pound
trout. His astonishment can be imagined
when he found his watch lodged in the
throat of the trout. The watch was run-
ning and the time correct.
It being a
"stem-winder," the supposition is.that in
masticating his food the fish wound up the
watch daily. I wish to say that the man
who lost the watch- was not John Daven-
port. Ask Col. Dan Treacy if it was; he
knows.
This is truly the age of "cheapness" in
printed matter. Books are now turned out
by the million in this city, and sold at a
price that just about pays for the binding,
and sheet music—well, the country is
flooded with multifarious editions that are
as "cheap" as they are unreliable. Exam-
ine them, and what do you find: Poor
paper, which soon wears out; poor print,
which tires the eyesight; misprints, which
hinder right understanding of the composi-
tion, and yet a modest increase in expendi-
ture would enable purchasers to secure
good, reliable editions, that are neatly and
accurately printed.
The 99-cent or bar-
gain store methods often lure people, how-
ever. Investing in so-called cheap music
is false economy. It never paid any one
but the "cheap" publishers, and never will.
Cheap music in the parlor or music room
is a key to the character of its owner—it
invariably tends to lessen his standing as
a musician. Another thought of value to
him who wishes to have a good repertoire
is that none of the latest music is pub-
lished in the cheap editions.
A business man who has to telephone
early every morning to a branch firm, said
the other day that he heard the early morn-
ing gossip of the 'phone girls in the cen-
tral office by holding his ear to the handle
while waiting for the connection. One re-
marked to another, "Do you know, after I
parted from Will last evening I was just so
dead tired that I could nofhave propped my
eyes open. He's got a- regular laudanum
voice, and could put a buzz saw to sleep."
It was at the band concert in the Park
last Sunday afternoon.
Walter Rogers,
the leader, had played "Ben Bolt" as a cor-
net solo by special request. Right behind
me stood two or three lovers of music, two
of whom were septuagenarians, and the
other confessed to be five years older. They
fell into a conversation about "Ben Bolt,"
and the oldest member of the party related
how "he had sung that song over sixty
years ago," while another member of the
party said, "In my childhood days, fully
fifty-five years ago, I remember distinctly
my aunt singing this song, and later in life
sung it myself." He added, " I t is amus-
ing to see a man named English clai niug
this song as his, while Dibden, the English
song-writer,was the composer; at all events,
he wrote a song named 'Ben Bolt,' with
the same words and music as claimed by
English." I listened and marvelled much
at this piece of information.
Thomas
Dunn English says that the song was pub-
lished during the closing days of the year
'43, and that the words were written by
Nelson Kneass.
Thus another claimant
can be recorded for this much-talked-about
and overrated song.
Mr. Bret Harte has just passed his fifty-
fourth year. He was born at Albany, New
York, went to California in 1854, and was
successively a miner, school teacher, ex-
press messenger, printer, and finally editor
of a newspaper. In 1864 he was appointed
secretary of the United States Branch
Mint, at San Francisco, holding the office
until 1870. In 1868 he became the editor
of the "Overland Monthly," and in the
following year published "The Heathen
Chinee," which made him popular. From
1880 to 1885 he was United States Consul
at Glasgow, and has since resided in Lon-
don. He has published thirty volumes,
and generally writes two volumes a year.
There's but one thing left for Bret in
the category, that is to become the editor
of a trade paper.
* *
*
Carlyle w r as one of the most painstaking
of writers, almost every other word he
wrote being erased and another put in its
place. One day he visited the printer to
urge him to push on with the work.
"Why, sir," said the printer, "you are
really so hard upon us with your correc-
tions. They take up so much time, you
see.''
Carlyle replied that he was accustomed to
that sort of thing; that he had had works
printed in Scotland, and—
"Yes,
indeed, sir," interrupted the
printer, "we are aware of that. We have a
man here from Edinburgh, and when he
took up a bit of your copy he dropped it
like a red-hot cinder, and cried out, 'Oh,
preserve us! have you got that man to
print for? Goodness only knows when we
shall be done with all his corrections.' "
The poor tax of ten per cent, on Parisian
theatres shows that the total profits of those
places of amusement reached the large sum
of over twenty-eight million francs—about
$5,628,750—during the past year. And to
think it never occurred to the Administra-
tion to try this means of raising revenue in
this country instead of the lucerne Tax.
What a big hole it would make in the
pocketbooks of Messrs. Abbey, Schceffcl
and Grau, if they had to pay ten per cent,
of their receipts during last season at the
Metropolitan Opera House for the poor or
the struggling finances, of the Government.
* *
Your twentieth century girl is so practi-
cal!
A hand organ had been playirg
"Sweet Marie" under the window of one
of them. You know the verse about the
gentleman not loving Marie because her
face is fair and teeth white, or whatever it
is, but because her soul is so sweet, or some-
thing.
The twentieth century girl says that such
talk is idle. That the body is an exact cor-
respondence of the individual mentality
which governs it. Hence, since Marie's
soul is so satisfactory her personal appear-
ance also must suit. So there is no use in
talking of the subject at all. "Such dis-
tinctions are indicative of a superficial
method of thought," says the girl.
The same young lady objects to "sitting
beside him in his eyes, " in "Oh, Promise
Me. " Our girls are getting finicky.
* *
*
Play-writing seems to be a paying profes-
sion. Some time ago it came oiit publicly
that W. S. Gilbert had made no less than
$300,000 out of his partnership with Sir
Arthur Sullivan and D'Oyly Carte (each of
whom had made a like amount out of comic
opera), and to this sum must be added the
large suras of money he receives in fees for
his several plays that are given by profes-
sional companies and amateurs all the year
round. A. W. Pinero is said to have made
no less that $200,000 by the series of farces
he produced at the Court Theatre only; and
Henry Arthur Jones has been known to say
that he has already made money enough out
of the theatre to keep him in affluence for
the rest of his life.
* *
*
Paderewski had a singular experience in
Clifton, England, quite recently.
No
sooner had the popular pianist arrived at
his hotel than he found a courteously-
worded letter asking him to allow an in-
valid lady to call upon him and hear him
play one piece, promising in return for
"this great treat" a douceur of half a
guinea, which was tendered with much
apology.
The letter was so worded as to
be a courteous and delicate appeal to the
pianist's generosity.
The letter had the