MUSICAL NOTES.
The remarkable and altogether epoch-making article in The Times of the 16th inst., on the stimulating effect of the bath on unmusical people, has already borne notable fruit. Meetings of the Governing Bodies of all the principal Musical Colleges and Academies were held on the following day, at which it was unanimously determined, as one of the speakers put it, to effect a closer synthesis of harmony and ablution. Sir Hubert Parry, himself celebrated in his youth for his prowess in natation, has offered to present the Royal College of Music with a magnificent swimming bath; Mr. Landon Ronald has drafted a scheme for the erection of a floating bath in the Thames for the convenience of the Guildhall School, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie has offered the students of the R.A.M. an annual prize for the best vocal composition in praise of saponaceous abstergents.
Outside our musical academies the impetus given to musicians and composers has been equally remarkable. Professor Banville de Quantock, whose Oriental proclivities are well known, has at once embarked on a gigantic choral symphony, to words of his own composition, in which the whole process and procedure of the Turkish Bath is treated historically, dramatically and realistically in seventeen movements. The title has not yet been definitely fixed, but it will probably be known as the Symphonie Bathétique, to differentiate it from Tschaikovsky's hackneyed work.
Strauss is reported by Mr. Kalisch to be engaged on a series of Spritzbadlieder of extraordinary beauty and complexity, in which a wonderful effect is produced by the employment in the orchestral accompaniment of a new instrument called the Loofaphone, which produces a curious hissing noise like that emitted by a groom when using the currycomb. Another instrument to which prominence is assigned in the score is called the Saponola and bears a resemblance to the spalacoid sub-family of mandrils, which have the mandibular angles in close proximity to the sockets of the lower cephalopods. The motto of the work is "Das ewig Seifige."
We may further note, as one of the most valuable by-products of The Times article, the announcement that an international Balneo-Musical Congress will be shortly held in the Albert Hall, with a view to discussing the best methods of promoting harmonic hygiene. The arena, we understand, is to be converted into a vast demonstration-tank, in which prominent composers, conductors and singers will appear. Miss Carrie Tubb has kindly promised to preside. Amongst other items in the programme we may mention an exhibition of under-water violin-playing by Mr. Bamberger, and a game of symphonic water-polo between two teams of Rhine maidens, captained by Herr Nikisch and Sir Henry Wood respectively.
