MUSICIANS AND COMPOSERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 82

MUSICIANS AND COMPOSERS.

m — — The playing of Ysaye is a great mystery; it is the mystery of the flesh, in which beauty is almost sinful. Other violinists are grave, chaste, or passionate ; but his is the voice of the unappeasable agony of the senses. What Swinburne once wrote-, he plays; his whole art is the art of I Swinburne, as Kreisler's, by comparison, !is the art of Browning. Kreisler is greater, j but Yeaye fascinates. You see the music : in the great black figure, that sways like a python ; in the eyes that blink, and seem 1 about to shed luxurious tears; the face like an actor's "mask, enigmatic, quivering with emotion, listening o the sounds as they float up, a mask moulded jnto the shape of sound. The lips suck up music voluptuously ; so the faun played on his pipe I in the forests, when the wine of Bacchus j had maddened him to a soft ecstasy. The j tones are drops of magic dew ; they are like 1 wind and water, never like fire ; they are I pleasure, not joy; the soul is not in them, j but a luxury which becomes divine because I it was an ecstasy, even if a carnal ecstasy. — Arthur Sysmons, in the Saturday Review. —M. Theodore Chaliapine, the famous , Russian operatic star, who is now com1 mencing a foreign tour, is the only private J cit.z-cn in Russia to whom the palaces of j the Czar and the Grand Dukes are alwa.v'3 I open ; and he makes the proud boast that I at any time when he wishes to entertain the members of Russian nobility with a song he simply walks into their mansions and does so. "Since the beginning of the Japj anese war the Ozar and his family never I have occupied their Imperial boxes in the I opera house in St Petersburg," sa-id M. ; Chaliapine. "Even the Grand Dukes seldom have attended the opera, publ.c recitals or ; theatres. The Czftr is fond of light music, j and every week I go to his palace to sing to him and the Czarina. The Czar likes vory much Schumann's sonf<s with Heine's I poems. But he has especially asked me to 1 6ing love romances and gipsy songs. He I knows lictle about music. Grand Duke Constantin is the only one of the Czar's family who is interested in music and poetry, having published several love poems and stories." > — "Sometimes people try to secure my services for a drawjng-room performance , for nothing, by asking me to their hoiise as a guest and subsequently eskin* me to 1 play," says Mr Mark Hambourg in the I January number of Caasell's Magazine. I "I am strongly opposed to this method of cheaply entertaining one's friends. It is grossly unfair to the artiste, whose work is his livelihood, and remember, he has spent years of his life and probably a large fortune in bringing hie work to a high state of perfection. I remember one time, at Stuttgart, where I had *iven a recital, I was asked by a lady, whom I knew slightly, to come to a dinner party one Sunday even ng. The day before she very kindly asked me out for a drive in ! her carriage in t .c afternoon, and a very , enjoyable drive it was. When we were 1 returning she asked me if I would play the next night at her party. 'I will be charmed to do so,' I replied, and added, much to her d'sgust and d sappointment, I fear, 'My manager, you know, will inform you of my terms. I hato discussing business details..' I did not go to the party, as a matter of fact, nor diV she communicate with my manager." A MUSICIAN'S MEMORIES. When noticing "Leaves froai the Journals of Sir George Smart," by Jrl. Bertram Cox j and C. L. E. Cox, published by the Messrs. ' Longman", the Chronicle pu\s: — i Sir Goorse Smart, was organist of the Chapel Royal, St. James* Palace, for a period which touched (he re gns of four Sovereigns — George 111. George IV, William IV, and Victoria — and no d.od forty years ago, afc the advanced aq;e of 91. He was in the way of seeing much that was interesting, of knowing piople who were worth know'ng, anrl he kept journals, to which we are now givp'i access. The portions made public in this volume take us hack to the da^s w'.en tho heavy heel of Napoleon was upon the world, and onward ro about the ini'idlp of the nineteenth cenfury. We s^om, in-dcer), in Sir George Smart's pages to be livinpr in another world, as may be judged from this little personal entry, put down by him in 1796— "It was my cus f om at this time to dino at a crok-shop, usually at the cost of about a shilling, and I believe I wore powdered hair, as my account-books show hairdre-sers' charges of the kind." Another of his not-s tells us of a woman who stole h's silver p'a'c, and for that was sentenced to be hanged. Sir George, by moans of the influence which he had th"n acquired a-s a musician, was able to tret the sentence reduced to 0m 1 of transportation. In this, we read, and the words read strangelj — "There was great difFcultv owinpr to her age, as she. hoing an old woman, if she were hanged th? expenses of her transportation would bo sived." i — Weber and Papanini. — I When Weber vis'ted London in 1825 he was the gur"?t of .Sir Goors^ Smart, an<J indeed he difd in h's house at Great Portland Place. Sir Goc rt?c <10-cribes the finding of \V*-bei* dead in boJ oarlv in the morning, and he a. uls — "I had dined wirh him in h.s ! c irnom thf ni'^ht before nis death, whi'-h <]Ul not auwnT lo be ne-ir. He drank tvo or three of port wine, and this reminds me of an observation he made. Upon my asking lii 11 if the heck, wh'ch I went to « mic exp-nse to procure, was not good, 'Tolerable,' he said, 'but do not troullo io-r<- If to givo a German hock, for he can pro' ably obtain better in his 'own countiy. Have \ou any port? Th'tt we cannot easily jre*- f, r oo-I.' " Sir Gcnroe Smart ha'i Pajanini with him at Dul'l.n in Ihe ea Iv autumn of 1830 ar'l the v olin'st play. <1 b^for^ the then LorrlL eutcnanl. the Ma-q"is if Apffle=.-v. whn gave him a gold snuff-box. "Paoranini," says Sir George, "wcnild not receive money, there f ore he had the present." "When returning to Dublin I s»id to Pasjanini, 'We mu^t p-ive iheo servonts a tip. particularly a« it is Inte at night.' *"Vo,' lie said. 'I was not pa cc 11 — why should I pay them?' But no ther was I. At las 1 he c"n c pntcd to ou>- g'ving them a sov-rei^n, though the amoun 1 - v.vs morsiio'is, he rho'isjM. He 1 request dto he c et r7own at his ledeintrs fir^t. tlioutfh my recid^nre was the neare«t, and <=a : <-l h« wou'd r^v h s =hare when he caw me in tho morn'nt?. I pave the two p--t' ovs a-<l the servant 7s (kl each, but Prjra'iini is tlea^i, and probably never in e^d>'d to nay me when a'.he." > We learn fiora a footnote to this passage

I that '*the meanness of Pafcanini waj| notorious." I HEALING BY MEANS OF MUSICAD INSTRUMENTS. "The city girl threatened .with tubers -culosiis of ->the lungs, or any bronchial! { trouble, who cannot afford to leave the cityi and take the fresh air cure, can successfully 1 , combat the disease by learning to plajfl the flute, the cornet, or any of the wind! instruments. I know of no more effective means for staying the progress of the great white plague than simple study and diligentf practice on -a wind instrument, especially, the flute." Such is the doctrine set forth! by Miss Marguerite de Forest Anderson,the world's only lady flautist. And she , knows whereof she speaks. A brilliant! I musical career threatened by lunjr trouble, 6he laid aside the violin and turned to the I flute, in order that she might save her own life and still ha\e her musical future. And ( to-day (says P. T. O.) she is tho picture of health, to say nothing of having achieved! ! her ambition to become a flute virtuoso* But very few girls would have the griti and persistency of this charming Miss Anderson. Though young in years she is rich in experience, and much of the* latter, such as the average girl would shrink from. When she started her career as af flautist, her lessons were 2xpensive, and! demands for her services were few and far., between. She met by chance a wealthy} Italian lady, who took her abroad, and! ! introduced her to the musical circles of Rome. There she met Queen Margherita, ' who became interested in the young girl. ■ Miss Anderson had been baptised Daisy, but the Italian Queen -Mother insisted that' I she should take for the stage the Italian "Marguerite." , ' — Success in England.— Miss Anderson afterwards came to Eng« land, and studied under M. Albert Fransella, England's most noted flautist, and a mem bed of the Queen's Hall orchestra. From hia atelier she graduated into concert work.' She wa» elected a member of the musid advisory boa'-d at the Lyceum Club, she played at Windsor, and in concert with' Madame Marchesi and other of the world's great singers. Just at thie time Miss Anderson met a London reporter with a vivid imagination, and the meeting catie very n-ear being her Waterloo. The reporter appeared on the scene when Miss Anderson was very busy and asked her a, number of questions, including one abouti kissing. Did k ssps injure the muscles of , the lips, and thus interfere with the success of the flautist? Mi«s Anderson did not know. The lips of the flautist, of course, 1 must bo very delicate and sensitive to draw music from the instrument. That waa enough. Tho reporter did not rest. Within twenty-four hours the American artist waa heralded from end to -end of the British I Isles as the first unkissed flautist. — 111-Luck in America. — ' After two years of concert work hero. Miss Anderson determined to return to America, her nati\e country. But in New, York ill-luck assailed her as if it had beeD. lying in wait for her all throußh her trip abroad. While' working on the score of her opera she spilled some ink on her finger, and then rubbed her eyes with the same finger. In a few moments she telt a smarting sensation, which gradually grew , worse. She flung on some wraps, and j started to t] c nearest chemist's shop, but i before she reached her dest'nation she was totally blind. For three weeks at her apartments in the Gompion she was under tho care of an oculist, unable to see or communicate with her few American friends. There she lay in total darkness, her engagements for meeting concert managers rro'.-en, her accompanist idle, her savings slipping through her fingers, and ihe uncertainty of an oculist's carefully. .worded phraser torturing her anxious mind. Bat at last the cloud of darkness lifted — an-d with it came offers from managers who had heard of her playing, particularly from vardevillc managers, who are always looking for novelties in mr.s'c.