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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
ARTHUR BERESFORD.
Arthur Beresford, whose counterfeit
presentment appears herewith, is a basso,
the extraordinary compass and volume of
whose voice, as well as phrasing and enun-
ciation, has commanded favorable notices
from leading critics of this country where
he has appeared in recitals, concerts and
oratorios.
Mr. Beresford's voice, style and artistic
merits have been endorsed by such emi-
nent musicians as Dr. Hans Richter, Georg
Henschel, the late Sir Joseph Barnby and
others. His exceptional range permits an
extended repertoire,which includes "Mes-
siah," "Creation," "St. Paul," "Samson,"
''Stabat Mater" (Rossini's and Dvorak's),
"Elijah," "Redemption," "Samson and
Delilah," " Mors et Vita," "Requiem"
(Verdi's and Dvorak's), etc. Mr. Beresford
will be under Mr. Wolfsohn's management
the coming season.
o
The following passages occur in some
recently published letters by Bizet, the
composer of "Carmen:" "I am an eclectic.
I lived three years in Italy, and I have
been influenced, not by the shameful mu-
sical proceedings of that country, but by
the temperament of some of its composers.
My sensual nature is gripped by that fluent,
lazy, amorous, lascivious, passionate mu-
sic. By conviction I am a German, heart
and soul. * * I put Beethoven above the
greatest, the most renowned. * * Only one
man was known to make music that seems
so—and he is Chopin, a strange and charm-
ing personality, inimitable, not to be imi-
tated. * * Mendelssohn, among other
faults, treats sometimes his symphonic
andantes as songs without words. * * I
have always noticed that the compo-
sitions the least well rounded are always the
dearest at the moment of hatching."
0
Saint-Saens' opera "Proserpine" will be
produced the coming season at La Scala,
Milan. This work was written ten years
ago, and it may after all be chosen for
production instead of "Ascanio" in Lon-
don next season. Mme. Ht^glon of the
Paris Grand Opera has been engaged to
sing the leading role.
FORGETTING ONES LINES.
'' Talking about forgetting one's lines,
said Henry Clay Barnabee, the widely
known and popular member of "the Boston-
ians " recently. " I had one experience
last summer which will remain a living
picture in my mind long after I've forgot-
ten everything I ever knew. Mrs. Barna-
bee and I were stopping down in the coun-
try. Next door to us there was a big
orchard, which was under the constant
surveillance of three wicked-looking bull-
dogs.
"From my window I had a splendid
view of a big pear tree that had been
stripped of its fruit the day before we ar-
rived. One pear remained. It was with-
out exception the finest, juiciest-looking
pear I ever beheld at long range. I fell in
love with that pear. So did Mrs. Barna-
bee. It was the old Adam and Eve story
over again with a pear understudying the
part of the apple. That pear made me feel
like a boy again. I wouldn't have taken it
as a gift at any price, but I'd have gone a
mile out of my way to steal it. I consulted
with the cook of our establishment with re-
gard to the habits of the bull-dogs.
" 'Oh, the dogs won't hurt you so long as
you call them by their names,'she exclaim-
ed. 'With strangers they're apt to stand on
ceremony, but so long as you call them
'Daisy,' 'Flossie'and 'Tootsie' they'll treat
you well."
"The cook led me to a window and gave
me a long-distance introduction. Flossie
I was to know by her milk-white left ear:
Daisy was wall-eyed, and Tootsie was to
be recognized by her formidable-looking
countenance. I spent the rest of the day
in the window, throwing bones to them
and helping them to get accustomed to my
voice and features. As soon as it got dark,
Mrs. Barnabee helped to lower me over the
fence.
"I reached the tree without experien-
cing any canine demonstrations. Every-
thing seemed lovely, particularly that
pear. I scrambled up the trunk and reach-
ed out my hand to grasp the forbiddden
fruit, when, with a three-ply roar of the
most awful significance to me, the three
dogs made a dash for the foot of the tree.
I could see Mrs. Barnabee in the window
wringing her hands. But I hadn't time to
pay attention to her. The dogs were
howling like all possessed, and one of them
was leaping up in the air to within an inch
and a half of my foot. The instant the
dogs appeared their names went out of my
head. I made a speaking trumpet of my
hands and shouted to Mrs. Barnabee.
" ' What's their—names ?'
" ' I can't remember,' she shouted back.
' I'll go and get the cook.'
" In ten minutes time Mrs. Barnabee
came back and told me that it was the
cook's night out. No one else in the house
was on speaking terms with the dogs, so
my wife asked if she should call a police-
man.
"'Certainly not,' I shouted. ' I don't
want to get pinched as well as bitten. I'll
try my soubrette vocabulary on the dogs.'
"So I set to work and called those in-
fernal animals by every pet name that I
ever heard of. I began with the chorus of
our company, and went right through the
feminine roster. But it wasn't a bit of
good. Then I tried fancy names, but it
wasn't any better. By this time it was
pitch dark. The only light on the question
was the candle which Mrs. Barnabee had
set in the window to cheer me up. Every
now and then she would call out some
suggestion and express a fear that I should
be catching cold if I sat out there much
longer. I sat on that infernal bough until
12 o'clock, when the cook returned and
propitiated the dogs with a late supper.
And the pear? Oh, well, never mind about
the pear. I believe it got lost in the
shuffle."
©
"MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND."
True merit in a song is a passport which
no sentry will question, and long before
peace had been declared, James R. Ran-
dall's "Maryland, My Maryland," that
fiery bit of rhymed eloquence, had crossed
the enemy's lines, and exacted its meed of
praise from the literary circles of the North.
Oliver Wendell Holmes says of it : " I t
was the best poem produced on either side
during the war." And the poet himself
writes: " Soon after its appearance abun-
dant evidence was borne to me that what-
ever the fate of the Confederacy might be,
my song would survive it."
It crossed the ocean, and when it came
out in England Mr. Randall received an
autograph letter from a member of Lord
Byron's family, filled with expressions of
admiration of it, and containing a request
for a manuscript copy, and an invitation to
the author to visit his correspondent in
London. About this time Mr. John R.
Thompson, for so many years connected
with the Southern Literary Messenger, hap-
pened to be abroad, and upon his return he
said to Mr. Randall:
" I envy you above all men."
"Why?" asked the poet.
"Because," said Mr. Thompson, "when
I was in London I met in a drawing room
one of the most beautiful and charming of
women, who asked if I would not like to
hear a song of my Southern country; and
upon replying in the affirmative went to the
piano and sang ' Maryland, My Maryland !'
After she had finished, she turned to me
and said:
" ' When you see the friend who wrote
that, tell him that you heard it sung by a
Russian girl who lives at Archangel, north
of Siberia, and learned to sing it there.' "
G
WHY WALTZ MUSIC IS SAD.
That waltz music is the saddest of all
music has been commented upon. Nothing
brings back the memory of days that are
no more, and of one's lost youth, so much
as the swinging minor cadence and repeti-
tion of an old familiar trois temps. "Oh,
how far! Oh, how far!" it seems to say to
the commonplace, middle-aged people who
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