Musical Exaction.—A rich, but penurious personage, who somehow aspired to be thought a man of taste, was resolved, on one occasion, to make exhibition of this quality, by giving to his friends an entertainment of instrumental music. While the musicians were all at work, he seemed satisfied with the performance—but when the principal Violin came to be engaged upon an incidental solo, he enquired, in a towering passion, why the others were remaining idle? “It is a pizzicato for one instrument,” replied the operator. “I can’t help that,” exclaimed the virtuoso, who was determined to have the worth of his money—“Let the trumpets pizzicato along with you!”—This hopeful amateur may serve to recall the not unfamiliar anecdote about old Jacob Astley, of “horse-theatre” celebrity, who observed a violinist in his band to be in a state of temporary cessation from playing, during the continued activity of the others, and asked him what he meant by it. “Why, sir, here’s a rest marked in my part—a rest of several bars.”—“Rest!” shouted Astley (who had always a great horror of being imposed upon), “don’t tell me about rest, sir. I pay you to come here and play, sir, and not to rest!”
A Device for a Dinner.—Doctor Arne once went to Cannons, the seat of the late Duke of Chandos, to assist at the performance of an oratorio in the Chapel of Whitchurch, but such was the throng of company, that no provisions were to be procured at the Duke’s house. On going to the Chandos Arms, in the town of Edgeware, the Doctor made his way into the kitchen, where he found only a leg of mutton on the spit. This, the waiter informed him, was bespoken by a party of gentlemen. The Doctor (rubbing his elbow—his usual habit) exclaimed, “I’ll have that mutton—give me a fiddle-string.” He took the fiddle-string, cut it in pieces, and, privately sprinkling it over the mutton, walked out of the kitchen. Then, waiting very patiently till the waiter had served it up, he heard one of the gentlemen exclaim—“Waiter! this meat is full of maggots: take it away!” This was what the Doctor expected.—“Here, give it me.”—“O, sir,” says the waiter, “you can’t eat it—’tis full of maggots.”—“Nay, never mind,” cries the Doctor, “fiddlers have strong stomachs.” So, bearing it away, and scraping off the catgut, he got a hearty dinner.
A “Practising” Coachman.—Too true it is that Nature has not gifted all mortals with a taste for music. Shakspeare tells us that the man who hath not music in his soul is fit for “broils;” and the Duchess of Ragusa appears to have inclined to his opinion, if we may judge from an occurrence in which she was concerned some years since. Finding herself offended that the coachman of a certain Miss Ozenne, her neighbour, should practise the violin too much in the vicinity of her ducal ears, she summoned the lady, the coachman, and the violin, before the Tribunal de Police, for making a “tapage injurieux et nocturne.” In vain the lady pleaded the right of her domestics to make musicians of themselves, if they could: the Duchess declared it was done solely and purely for her annoyance; the Commissaire du Quartier declared that the noise consisted of “sons aigus, bruyans, et dissonans;” and Miss Ozenne was condemned to be imprisoned one day, and to be fined to the amount of ten shillings.—(New Monthly Magazine.)
A Footman, to match.—“The following curiously illustrative anecdote may be relied on. A few days since, a footman went into Mori’s music-shop to buy a fiddle-string. While he was making his choice, a gentleman entered the shop, and began to examine various compositions for the violin. Among the rest, he found Paganini’s celebrated “Merveille—Duo pour un seul Violon,” and, perceiving the difficulties in which it abounded, asked the shopman if he thought that Mori himself could play it. The young man, a little perplexed, and unwilling to imply that his master’s powers had any limit, replied that he had no doubt he could perform it, provided he practised it for a week; upon which the footman, who stood intent on the conversation, broke in on the discourse, and swore that Mori could do no such thing, for that he himself had been practising the piece for three weeks, and could not play it yet!”—(Harmonicon, May, 1830.)
A Royal “Whereabout.”—Salomon, who gave some lessons on the violin to George the Third, said one day to his august pupil, “Fiddlers may be divided into three classes: to the first belong those who cannot play at all; to the second, those who play badly; and to the third, those who play well. You, Sire, have already reached the second.”
Precocious Performers.—The violin, in the hands of children, has been often rendered the theme of astonishment. In the foregoing pages, many instances have been given of eminent players, whose powerful maturity was prefigured, in the display of genius made in their tender youth. Many blossoms there are, however, which never pay their promise afterwards in fruit; and many an “acute juvenal, voluble and full of grace,” has made early flourishes on the fiddle, that have led to nothing of value in his fuller years. Apropos of this too commonly observable disproportion, a French writer has the following epigram:—
SUR LES PRODIGES À LA MODE. Plus merveilleux que nos ancêtres, Ou peut-être plus singuliers, A dix ans nous avons des maîtres, Qui sont à vingt des écoliers!
Which may be thus freely paraphrased:—
Our’s is an age of wonders;—we behold Precocious prodigies, in passing plenty: We have our masters, now, at ten years old,— But then—they sink to scholars, when they’re twenty!
The Germans have an expressive denomination for these very early and forced exhibitants. They style them wunderkind, or wonder-children.