MYSTERY OF A MELODY

Evening Star, Issue 22685, 26 June 1937, Page 12

MYSTERY OF A MELODY

UNCANNY EXPERIENCES Pianos look prosaic enough, to most of us, but they have given Mr Herxnon Darewski several strange experiences (says a writer in * John o’ London’s Weekly ’). In South_ Africa he and a friend were travelling by road to Pretoria when, near Laing’s Nek, where a battle was fought in the first Boer War, they were overtaken by a violent thunderstorm. Hurriedly they made for the only available shelter, a deserted farmhouse, where they made themselves as comfortable as possible. In one room was an ancient piano at which Mr Darewski seated himself and began to play. Soon, he says, I found coming into my mind an exquisite melody that I immediately allowed myself to drift into intending to write it down as soon as I had completed it. “ By jove, Darewski,” said Simpson, “that’s a good tune.” “ Well, 'lend me a pencil,” I returned, “ I don’t think it’s so bad myself.” Then and there I wrote it down. For the moment he forgot all about it. Then, later, he went to a concert in Cape Town, where, we are -cold, he heard this .same melody in a song, sung by a young Dutchman. After the concert he went round to see the singer. “ Who wrote that song?” I asked him. “ I would like to buy a copy.” “ I’m afraid you can’t do that,” he said. “ I found this in an old shop in manuscript. It appears that it came from the effects of a Boer fanner who died years ago, I believe he_ was killed at the first battle at Laing’s Nek, in 1881. It was his own composition.” He never found out anything more about it—but still has the piece of music as he wrote it down. _ Another old farmhouse, this time on the Continent, gave him another uncanny experience.. Here he found a beautiful old French piano. I played on it. Its tone was still as full of melody as ever, and 1 remember one night, tired out after tne heat of the day, I fell asleep. It came to me as a dream a melody that subsequently was a tremendous success in London. I seemed to hear it being played on that piano by white and delicate hands, and the dream was so vivid and the melody so defined that I had no difficulty in writing it when I awoke. On his return to London Mr Darewski mentioned this incident to a musical friend, from whom he learnt that this piano had belonged to ‘ one of the greatest of all French composers who had actually lived in that very farmhouse, and he described this master’s hand that I had seen.” Unfortunately, he does not give the composer’s name. But however the tunes came, the words of some of Mr Darewski’s songs had more everyday origins. One called ‘ If You Gould Care For Me, for which Arthur Wimpens wrote the lyric, was the result of hearing a conversation on top of a bus between a soldier and a girl. Ho was saying: “If you could care for_ me, _ and it immediately struck Wimpens that here was a good title. Mr Darewski was once chatting with De Groot, the violinist, in his dressing room when in bounded an excited Frenchman. He congratulated De Groot, saying, “As a fellow-artist, I say you are wonderful? Your skill—ah! it is superb.” He then pointed_to De Groot’s violin, which was being carefully returned to its case: “ Ah, yes, you love your instrument, just as I love mine, is it not so?” Feeling sure that he was a brother artist, and overwhelmed by his compliments, De Groot endeavoured to square matters by assuring him how much he enjoyed his performances, concluding with the question: “By the way, what is yours—your instrument, I mean?” In the same affectionate tones that eqj t) ‘spjuAvuoAuaif. sa.fe one’s 'beloved Strad, he answered, one might employ when speaking of trapezef”