Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
would just sit behind my plate, because it looks
well to have old friends sit round one's table."
* #
R. H. Stoddard, who is now in his 70th year,
and, next to Dr. Holmes, our oldest living poet,
is still in the literary harness, and contributes
book reviews regularly to one of the New York
newspapers. He calculates that he has read
every Important book printed in English for the
past forty years, but he still delights most in
the prose of Hawthorne, whose style he con-
siders a model for English writers and the best
he knows. As to the pursuit of literature as a
profession, Mr. Stoddard's advice is in line with
most of those who have followed it: " A man
should never devote himself to writing,'' he re-
marks, "when he is dependant on that alone for
his bread and butter. A man can do better
work when the butcher and baker are not stand-
ing at the door. I accepted a position in the
custom house simply for the sake of securing a
certain income, and knowing that I had some-
thing to depend on apart from what I wrote.
Write if you want to, but earn your bread some
other way.''
* *
It would not be well, peihaps, that men were
in their habits all alike. Signor Tito Mattel
tells the writer of the articles entitled " How
Composers Work," in The Strand Magazine,
that he composes most of his instrumental music
at the piano. So have many illustrious com-
posers before him, from Beethoven downward.
M. Saint-Saens, however, has assured the same
writer that he considers a piano '' a useless
item " in the art of composition, at all events in
his case, for lie rarely if ever makes use of one
when composing, even to play over completed
works. Some manuscript paper and a pencil
are the only materials he works with, and he has
composed whole operas without a musical in-
strument in the house. This manner of compos-
ing, M. Saint-Saens finds, he says, a great sav-
ing of valuable time, and he does not consider
that ideas come any the more readily when seated
before a piano; in fact rather the reverse.
*
'' Of all human endowments,'' says Mr. James
Payn, '' the memory is the most independent
and least subject to the will of its possessor.
Ivike fire, it is an excellent servant but a very
bad master, and, when it gets the upper hand of
us, plays the strangest tricks. It will leave its
post of duty at a moment's notice, or at no notice
at all ; and, on the other hand, when, as a par-
ticular favor, it is requested to efface itself, it
will exhibit an extreme vitality. The best story
that has hitherto been told of its malicious
humors is in connection with a certain Mr. A.,
a maker of musical instruments, and his wife,
who, a generation or two ago, were getting into
Rossini, who had always le mot pour rire, used good society. They were asked to dinner at
to say: " I n olden time they used to compose Lord B's, who knowing his lady's fatal facility
music for the brain and for the ears ; but it seems for talking about the wrong subject, besought
to me that nowadays people are quite content her while the A. 's were with them not to say
when the thing looks well.'' This, I feel confident, one word about a piano. She carefully avoided
was often his guiding opinion. For instance, the topic though it was the one thing she had
when .Meyerbeer gave "The Huguenots," his in her mind, till the time came for her guests'
lawyer and core'ligionaire Cremieux. gave a lunch- departure, when in answer to Mrs. A. 's inquiry
eon, where he invited some influential friends to whether she had heard her carriage announced,
meet Meyerbeer. Rossini, one of the guests, ate she replied, with polite regret, that it was so.
nothing. Mme. Cremieux, with the lynx eye of '' Your piano, I am sorry to say, my dear, is at
any hostess who has people around her table the door.' "
invited for a meal, suddenly pounced upon her
abstemious guest with that question which every
How did Beethoven look ? When we put this
lady imagines must go straight to the heart of question, each of us sees at once before him the
her guests : " I am sure, M. Rossini, you don't striking face, which, perpetuated in numberless
like that dish; one cannot easily please such a reproductions, is known the world over. It
fine connoisseur as you are." " Pardon, Madame, seems, however, that in reality these features
that is not at all the reason, but I never eat be- resemble those of Beethoven only in a very slight
tween my breakfast and my dinner. Of course degree. In a book long since unread and for-
you will ask me why, then, did I come to a lunch- gotten—"The Memoirs of L,udwig t Rellstab "—
eon party ? I will tell you. The other day I was the author describes a visit to Beethoven, and
invited to hear a performance of my ' William incidentally speaks of the outward appearance
Tell ' overture. At the moment where the alle- of the master: " So I sat down beside the melan-
gro begins I saw two men in the band putting choly sufferer. His hair, which was almost en-
their trumpets up, but I could not for the life of tirely gray, stood up in bushy disorder on his
me hear one note ; so I asked the manager why head, neither smooth nor curling nor bristling,
they did not play. ' Oh, that is very simple,' but a mixture of all. His features, at the first
he said, ' I could not get two trumpeters, but I glance, seemed insignificant; the face was much
thought I'd get some men to hold up the trum- smaller than I had pictured it to myself in ac-
pets. It always looks well to see trumpets in an cordance with those likenesses investing him
orchestra ; but, of course, as they can't play, with the untamed fierceness of genius. No sug-
you can't hear them.' Now, I can't eat any gestion of that uncouthness, that wild intoler-
more than they could play; but as Meyerbeer, ance of restraint which they have lent to his
who is so superstitious, would have taken it for physiognomy to bring it into agreement with
a bad omen if I had sent an excuse, I thought I his works. The nose was slender and sharp,
THE
CELEBRATED
STEGER
the mouth benevolent, the eyes small, light gray,
but eloquent: sadness, suffering, kindness I
read in his face; still, I repeat, not a trace of
severity, not one of that magnificent daring
which marked the flights of his spirit, was ap-
parent, save as a fleeting expression.
*
Mozart being once on a visit at Marseilles,
went to the opera incognito to hear the perform-
ance of his "Villanella Rapita." He had rea-
son to be tolerably well satisfied, till in the
midst of the principal arias, the orchestra,
through some error in the copying of the score,
sounded a D natural where the composer had
written D sharp. This substitution did not in-
jure the harmony, but gave a common-place
character to the phrase, and obscured the senti-
ment of the composer. Mozart no sooner heard
it than he started up vehemently, and from the
middle of the pit, cried out in a voice of thun-
der, "Will you play D sharp, you wretches? "
The sensation produced in the theatre may be
imagined. The actors were astounded; the
lady who was singing stopped short, the or-
chestra followed her example, and the audience,
with loud exclamations, demanded the expul-
sion of the offender. He was accordingly seized
and required to name himself. He did so, and
at the name of Mozart the clamor suddenly sub-
sided into a silence of respectful awe, and which
was soon succeeded by reiterated shouts of ap-
plause from all sides. It was insisted that the
opera should be recommenced. Mozart was in-
stalled in the orchestra, and directed the whole
performance. This time the D sharp was played
in its proper place, and the musicians themselves
were surprised at the superior effect produced.
After the opera, Mozart was conducted in tri-
umph to his hotel.
*
Mr. Julian Hawthorne having, like Mr. Stev-
enson, a taste for tropical life, has recently pur-
chased a large farm in the mountains of Jamaica,
where he proposes to raise fruit and early veget-
ables for the northern markets. He has also
rented a most beautiful residence, Mona, on a
coffee estate near Kingston. A broad flight of
black and white marble steps lead to the front
door, tall cocoanut-palms shade it, and it has
on one side a quaint old Italian garden full of
flowers, orange-trees, and orleanders. A num-
ber of large out-buildings stand at the back, and
in one of them is a swimming-bath thirty feet
long. Another has been transformed into a
study. Mr. Hawthorne himself papered it, and
painted a most elaborate frieze of daisies in a
conventional pattern with a running inscription
from the Persian around the top. The ceiling
he painted in light yellow, and the heavy raf-
ters in chocolate. The place is supposed to be
haunted, but, to Mr. Hawthorne's disgust, the
ghost refuses to appear. '' He knows I would
interview him, and use him as material."
* * *
Blumenthal, the great theatre manager of
Berlin, was once talking with Tolstoi about Ib-
sen, and said : " I have put a good many of his
plays on the stage, but I can't say that I quite
understand them. Do you understand them ? "
'' Ibsen doesn 't understand them himself,'' Tol-
stoi' replied ; " h e just writes them and then sits
down and waits. After a while his expounders
and explainers come and tell him what he
meant."
T H E REVIEWER.
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and
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