A MUSICAL SYMPOSIUM.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 26, 27 June 1891, Page 104

A MUSICAL SYMPOSIUM.

AM weaiy,’ said the seedy man. ‘ I fain would rest,’ and he sank into a chair, tipped his batteied hat over his nose and the gentle snore trembled through the rim as through an audiphore. He was allowed to rest until his resting made everybody restless. Then the waiter woke him up. • Certainly, with pleasure. With whom, did you say ?’ There was no response. * I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Why, oh, why did you disturb me ?’ • You were snoring’ ‘ No. That was but an echo of the conversation.’ • What conversation ?’ * I have before alluded to the fact that I am gifted with mediumistic powers, I believe. I was not asleep. I was in a trance. What did I talk about?’ * You talked so through your nose that it was quite unintelligible.’ ‘lt was Wagner, I suppose. He and Rossini and Donizetti and a whole lot of them weie quarreling over opera.’ ‘ What are you quarreling about ?' asked Balfe. ‘ Don’t you Italian duffers know that Mapleson lost £50,000 trying to put you on in London once ?’ There was a silence. ‘ I hate to talk about myself,’ went on Balfe, ‘ but nobody ever lost money on “The Bohemian Girl.” ’ ‘ They couldn’t,’ said Donizetti. ‘lt does not need any voices’or orchestra. ’ Balfe pulled out his shillelagh, but Gluck interposed. ‘Ah ! that good Mrs Thurber,’ said Gluck. ‘ She was indeed a paragon of artistic taste. She played my “ Orpheus and Eurydice.” ’ ‘ And “ bust up,” ’ said Balfe. ‘ Gentlemen,’said Beethoven, ‘when my opera has been given ’ ‘ It hasn’t paid the gas,’ said Mendelssohn. ‘Ah, you opera composers,’ spoke up Chopin, ‘you make a mistake. JD/ music.’ ‘ Three concerts in a season.’ ‘ Well,’ they pay,’ said Chopin. ‘ The piano man,’ said Balfe. ‘ Take my “ Huguenots,” ’ burst out Meyerbeer. ‘ There’s a work that is played oftener than any other.’ ‘And loses more money.’ ‘Ah,’said Rossini, ‘things are not as they used to be when Gye was in his prime.’ ‘ No,’ said Donizetti; ‘ when he used to play my “ Lucia ” and “ La Favorita” and “ Linda.” ’ ‘ They’d all be dead now if Patti did not sing them,’ muttered Balfe. ‘ I believe,’ remarked Bellini, ‘ I believe there is an opera called “ La Sonnambula ” that is popular.’ ‘ With debutantes,’ said Rossini. ‘ They can’t sing my music.’ ‘ What about Don Giovanni ?’ asked Mozart. ‘ Can never get a cast for it,’ said Balfe. ‘ Besides it’s confoundedly absurd.’ ‘ That’s it,’ said Wagner. ‘ That’s the trouble. All this tootle-ti-tootle is absurd. My music is not absurd.’ ‘ No, it’s unintelligible,’ said Mozart. ‘My dear sir, music should be an expression of unutterable emotions.’

‘lndescribable emotions, you mean, don’t you?’ sneered Balfe. ‘ Now I—l would like to know what has more pathos and grief in it than “ The Heart Bowed Down.” ’ ‘ Sing it,’ said Rossini. Balfe sang it. ‘ What is the matter with the man who sings it in the opera ? Indigestion ?’ asked Mozart. ‘ I’m sorry I couldn’t remember the words,’ said Balfe, ‘ but he’s lost his child, or something.’ ‘ The words may mean that, but the music is dyspeptic.’ ‘ You just sing something yourself,’ said Balfe to Rossini. Rossini sang something from ‘ Semiramide.’ ‘ What’s that about ? I believe “ Semiramide ” is a tragedy, isn’t is ?’ said Wagner. ‘ Now listen to this.’ And Wagner gave a bit of ‘ Die Walkyrie.’ ‘ Is she crazy when she sings that ?’ asked Balfe. ‘No ; that is godlike rage. Of course you must hear the trombones and the horns and the drums.’

‘ You can’t cany an orchestra about with you?’ mildly suggested Donizetti. Then Donizetti gave an example of his work.

‘ Is that the soprano or the tenor ?’ asked Meyerbeer. ‘ No, that’s the baritone.’ ‘ What’s the matter with him ? Is he going to cut somebody’s throat.’ ‘ No ; he’s telling the frima donna he loves her.’ ‘ I hope she understands that clearly before he begins,’ said Balfe.

A man in the corner who had taken little part in this con versation suddenly began to sing ‘ Annie Rooney.’ ‘ What’s that?’ they all asked at once.

‘ That’s the music of the present,’ said the fellow who would not give his name.

‘ Yes,’ said Wagner, ‘ that’s the kind of thing that vitiates public taste and ruins the advance of idealization in music.’ ‘ Yes,’ said Rossini, ‘ we can’t expect anything of an age that produces that kind of thing. What’s the song?’ ‘Annie Rooney.’ ‘ Bah ! No wonder Mapleson loses £50,000 trying to play my operas. Such miserable trash—“ Annie Rooney,” did you say ?’ ‘Yes, “ Annie Rooney.” ’ ‘ Ah !’ sighed Mozart, ‘ and all my beautiful compositions —forgotten—for this—what did you say 1 “ Annie Rooney,’ How does it go ?’ * Such simple, musical nonsense, said Bellini. ‘ The idea ! “ She’s my sweetheart, I’m her beau,” and he began to sing it.

‘That's not it,’ said Meyerbeer. ‘This is how it goes : “She’s my sweetheart, I’m her beau.” What’s the next line ?' ‘ She's my Annie, I’m her Joe.’ ‘ No, no,’ said Beethoven, ‘ that’s all wrong. It does not go that way at all,’ ami he gave his idea of it. ’ Ridiculous !’ said Wagner. ‘ What childishness to sing such rubbish, “ She’s my sweetheart I’m her beau.” ’ ‘ That isn’t a bit like it, Wagner,’eaid Balfe. ‘This is the way that it ought to be sung.’ ‘Suppose,’ said Mendelssohn, turning to the minstrel, * suppose you sing it again for us.’

And the fellow ilk the corner sang it through again, while they all kept time. Then they all began singing, ‘ She’s my sweetheart, I'm her beau ; she’s my Annie, I’m her Joe.’ They were singing it for the sixth time and Chopin was playing it on the piano when I woke up. P. R.