Life's Minor Collisions

by Frances Lester Warner; Gertrude Chandler Warner

Barbara likes to be screened because then she can dig a tiny hole in the floor for the end-pin of the 'cello, and stick the pin into it once for all, while she plays. The vogue of the waxed hardwood floor is a great trial to 'cellists. It is upsetting to feel your great instrument skidding out from under you suddenly, with a jerk that you can neither foresee nor control. When we go to places where the device of boring a hole in the floor may not be well received, Barbara takes along a neat strip of stair-carpet, anchors it at one end with her chair and at the other with her music-stand, and sits on it firmly, much as the ancient Roman used to camp upon a square of tessellated pavement brought with him from Rome.

Mr. Billings, the clarinet, likes the screened performance because his wife has told him that he has a mannerism of arching his eyebrows when he plays. In playing a wind-instrument, the eyebrows are a great help. He can arch them all he likes, behind the palms.

The rest of us enjoy the sense of cosy safety that comes when we arrange our racks, distribute the parts, and settle down with our backs to the foliage for an evening of music, out of sight. We can play old favorites, far too tattered to appear on a printed programme; new things not sufficiently rehearsed; extracts from compositions that we cannot play beyond a certain point; and, best of all, those beloved collections of what Mr. Robert Haven Schauffler used to call “derangements.” All these things, barred by the platform artist, we play blissfully, behind the potted plants.

Since everybody outside our leafy covert is talking, we are free, not only from criticism, but also from the obligation of acknowledging applause. All the little niceties of platform procedure—bowings, exits, dealing with encores—are out of the question. Since we play continuously, there is no chance for encores.

There has been one exception to this rule. One night at a Saint Patrick's Day banquet, Our Trio was out in full force. Even the piccolo was with us. Our corner was carefully walled in with heavy burlap screens, because this was a business-men's supper, and no ladies were supposed to be present. We had brought along a sheaf of Irish music in honor of the day, and we played it unexpectedly after a series of other things. As we finished one of the appealing Irish airs, the applause broke out all over the hall in a genuine encore. We listened, electrified, laying an ear to the cracks. Barbara, who thinks that we are altogether too easily set up by the plaudits of the crowd, stood up, 'cello at an angle, and made a series of elaborate bows for our benefit behind the screen. The viola sprang to his feet and joined her, and they were bowing and scraping hand in hand like Farrar and Caruso, when the front screen was thrown suddenly wide open by the toastmaster who had been sent to request an encore, and no less than forty gentlemen looked in. Since that time, we have not felt too sheltered, even with burlap screens.

The question of applause, so nearly negligible in the screened performance, is a matter of the greatest moment on the platform. The process of responding to it is complicated by numbers. A solo artist can step in easily, bow, and step out again. But it takes too long for a trio of eight or more to step in, bow, and step out. We have to wait behind the scenes for a real encore.

We are highly gratified at a chance to play our encores, of which we carry a supply. The only hitch is the little matter of deciding just what an encore is. The viola thinks that an encore consists of applause going in waves—starting to die out and reviving again in gusts of hearty clapping. Two such gusts, he says, should comprise an encore. But our pianist thinks that we should wait until the clapping stops entirely, and that, if it then bursts out afresh, it shall be esteemed an encore.

One evening the encore was by every standard unmistakable. Our mother was at the piano that night, and, supposing that we were ready, led the way in. The rest of us, absorbed in giving out the parts of the music, did not see her go. We waited, wondering where she was. Tempests of amused applause meanwhile surged up around our lonely accompanist stranded in the hall. We heard the thundering, and scattered in frantic search. One of us could have played the piano part, but the music for that had disappeared as well as the musician. The double-bass chanced upon the janitor's little boy in the corridor, and asked him if he knew where our accompanist could be.

“Why, yes! Can't you hear 'em clap?” said the boy in surprise. “She's went in.”

I have heard that there are sensitive people who are jarred upon by applause, people who hold the perfect-tribute theory: they think that the audience, out of respect to the artist, ought to remain reverently silent after each number. I cannot answer for the great artist, but I know that our trio does not feel that way about it. We like applause. Silence is a mysterious thing. From behind the stage how are you to tell a reverent hush from a shocked one? The trained ear can instantly classify applause; but silence, however reverent, does not carry well behind the scenes. We like a little something after each number to cheer us on.