We do know, however, that in a small private audience there is a sense of strain if the listeners feel obliged to make a demonstration after each selection. Clapping seems affected in a group of three or four, and the business of thinking up well-selected remarks is a serious matter. Knowing this, we always relieve our drawing-room audiences of embarrassment by making the remarks ourselves. The moment the last lingering whisper has completely died away from the strings, we turn as one man and begin to compliment the music. “We like that ending better than any other part of the whole thing,” we say appreciatively. This lifts a load of anxiety from the minds of our hearers, and serves to break the hush.
The question of playing to guests in our own home is the subject on which our family ensemble most nearly came to mutiny. Our father had a way, contrary to orders, of suggesting a little music when we had visitors. The rest of us objected to this, especially if the guests were people who did not play. Once, when an evening of hospitality to strangers was in store, our mother was giving us all our final instructions. She turned to our father last of all.
“Endicott,” she began impressively, “this evening you mustn't say the word ‘music’ unless somebody else suggests it. If they want us to play, they will ask us.”
Our father, a little grieved to think that any one should worry lest he do so strange a thing, promised to comply.
But that evening, finding the guests more and more congenial in the midst of firelight conversation, he turned to them cordially and said, “I know that this is just the time when you would enjoy a little music, but I have been told that I must not say the word unless you suggest it first.”
The guests, highly diverted, rose to the occasion and begged prettily. They said that they had been starving for some music all along. When visitors who do not really care for music have once been launched on the process of asking for it, the kindest thing to do is to play promptly something brief and sweet and trailing—some Abendlied or Albumblatt, for instance, and have it over. In the presence of guests, such family crises must be tided over with neat persiflage. It was only after the company had gone that the mutiny took place.
But there is one kind of audience that we like the best of all. Sometimes of an early summer evening, when our whole orchestra has gathered to rehearse for a performance that we have in store, the relatives and friends of the players ask to be allowed to come and listen. We arrange the hammock and steamer-chairs in a screened corner outside the house, and there our listeners—perhaps the sister of the bass-viol, the business partner of the piccolo, and a neighbor or two—settle themselves comfortably under the windows. Then we play, interrupted only by an occasional shout from outside, when somebody requests an encore, or asks what that last thing was. Our steamer-chair audience has often begged us to announce the composer and the name of each selection as we go along, and we usually appoint somebody to do this, megaphoning the titles through the window. But before we have gone very far, we forget our audience. They lie there neglected, scattered on the lawn. The dew falls around them, the shadows gather over them, and they give up the attempt to attract our notice. We are rehearsing now, not performing, and our blood is up.
Sometimes we have a strong-minded guest who refuses to be treated in this way. He declines the steamer-chair, with steamer-rug and cushion, preferring to sit against the wall in a cramped corner of the room where we are playing. We assure him that the music sounds better from a distance, but he begs to be allowed to stay. He says that he likes to watch as well as listen. This does not disturb us; we are rather flattered if the truth were known. In fact, we know a little how he feels. There is a dramatic and pictorial value in the humblest orchestra, no matter how densely you populate your music-room. Usually the guest who enjoys this sight is a person who would like to play if he knew how—one who can join in the excitement when things are going well.
Like all amateurs, we do become excited. And when we are excited, we tend to play faster and faster, and louder and louder, unless something holds us up. “Pianissimo!” shouts the double-bass, fortissimo. Thus exhorted, we settle down just as earnestly, but with more attention to the waymarks and the phrasings of the score.
Probably it is at these moments that we do our very best. The bass-viol standing by the fireplace, his genial face unsmiling now, intent, takes the rich low harmony with great sweeps of his practised bow. Barbara, over against the music-cabinet, plays smoothly on, her dark old 'cello planted firmly, the shadow of her hair across its great brown pegs. Mr. Billings, with pointed eyebrows arching steeply, pipes and carols above us like a lark. And through it all the vibrant foot of Mr. Bronson faithfully beats time.