The Music Master; Novelized from the Play

E-text prepared by Al Haines


Anton Von Barwig rapped on the conductor's desk for silence and laid down his baton. The hundred men constituting the Leipsic Philharmonic Orchestra stopped playing as if by magic, and those who looked up from their music saw in their leader's face, for the first time in their three years' experience under his direction, a pained expression of helplessness.
Either I can't hear you this morning, or the first violins are late in attacking and the wood wind drags—drags—drags.
What's the matter? We've played this a hundred times, growled Karlschmidt, the bass clarionet player, to Poons, the Dutch horn soloist, who sat at the desk next to him.
Karlschmidt was a socialist, a student of Karl Marx, and took more interest in communism than in his allotted share of the score of Isolde's Liebestodt . Indeed, nearly all the men were interested in something other than the occupation which afforded them a living. For them the pleasure of music had died in the business of attaining accuracy.
What did he say? asked Poons, losing Von Barwig's next remark in trying to hear what Karlschmidt was mumbling.
He said it's his own fault, whispered the second flute.
He's quite right, assented Karlschmidt.
Hush, hush! came from one or two others. Von Barwig was addressing the men again, and they wanted to hear.
Let's play; cut the speeches out, growled Karlschmidt. For God's sake, what's he saying now?