ENCORES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 105, 7 May 1894, Page 4

ENCORES.

(Saturday Review,)

Our good old friend the " encore " question, after slumbering in peace ( for three or four years, has been revived by the painful circumstances of Madame Fatey's untimely death ; and it ia just possible that the shadow of that pathetic incident may for a time check the too boisterous exuberance of some audiences. If so a good many of us will be. profoundly thankful. But there is reason in all things ; and to proceed to demand the «' total abolition and utter suppression' of encores because a popular singer has happened to die immediately after granting one is not absolutely wise. In the first place the demand is doomed to certain failure ; and, in the second, it would do more harm than good if successful. Personally we thoroughly dislike the practice of making performers play or sing again, and would gladly see it abandoned ; but to elevate one's own wishes into laws of taste and to cram them down the throats of one's fellow-hearers savours of arrogance, and to do it in the supposed interests of the performers is to Bhow a complete ignorance of the game. For the plain truth is that, while andiences like encores, performers simply revel in them, and a popular singer is much more likely to die from mortification at not being encored tban from tho exertion entailed by going through an ordinary conoert-song. If you take away this source of gratification, you deprive them of the sweetest reward for present exertions and the strongest incentive to future ones.

In truth, the great men have never/ concealed their intense delight in it. The longer and louder it was the better they liked it. Silent appreciation, listeners too deeply moved to applaud, and all that sort of thing, are no good for musicians. "We artißts said Beethoven, " don't want tears, we want applause " ; and he Bcolded Goethe roundly for being too artistic to express his appreciation to a good honest hand-clap. There was not much humbug about Beethoven, and if he was not above openly confessing his love of applause, lesser people surely need take no shame in admitting theirs. Public performers who pretend that they dislike being encored are not superior, but only shamming. Theirs is the pride that apes , humility. Necessarily, for they are only there to please ; that ia their business in life, and they cannot tell if they have succeeded unless the audience shows its pleasure, And the mest complete expression of pleasure is the encore. In one sense, the most modest of performers, and those with the highest ideal, need the most applause, for they are the least ready to believe in their own success. One can imagine a supremely self-satisfied singer taking it for granted that the audience is delighted ; but ono who knows his own shortcomings, which is the mark of the true artist, is inclined to fancy that everyone else is equally conscious of them, and he therefore needs all the more hardening up by honest praise. By all means, some may say, let them have a fair amount of praise, but not the encore. Have those who in this sense to the papers ever faced a public audience ? Have they ever been encored ? Have they ever been guilty of a little playing or singing, a little declamation, cr any other accomplishment for theamusement of others in a friend's drawingroom, or even in the privacy of their domestic circle, and have their listeners ever said, " Oh, do go on ! " or " Please sing that again I" ? If so, we will go bail for it that they derived far more gratificatian from the experience than from a formal *' Thank you 1" or a " Bilent appreciation." And if their efforts have ever been wet by a storm of applause and a many-throated demand for more that would take no refusal, then we challenge them to deny that it was one of tho most exhilarating moments in their lives.

Of course the thing may be, and and often is, overdone, it has an abuse as well as a use, like most other things, and for the former we have nothing to say; but care should be taken not to confound thorn. Tho people who habitually dislike encores have no right to dictate te the rest. They are of two classes — those who case too much and those who care too little for music. The letter have no business to be there at all,, and the former must bear with the weaker brethren, knowing that it was only question of degree, and that there are speoial occasions when they too like to hear a thing repeated, unless indeed they are pedants, with sawdust for souls, end a little bundle of cut-and-dried rules instead of human impulses. 'J he abuse comes in •\yhen a small, but noisy, section imposes its stupid will on the majority, or when an audienco continues importunate after an artist has shown a disinclination to " oblige " again. But this is simply a matter of good mauners and good sense which cannot be imposed by regulations. For tho rest let a man say, by all means, that he hates encores because he wants to get home, and the concert is too long for him already ; but in the name of honesty, let us drop the <?ant about •■ protecting" artists from a selfish custom. As well talk about protecting dogs from the selfish custom of giving them bones.