THOMAS GREENE BETHUNE,

OTHERWISE KNOWN AS

“BLIND TOM,” THE WONDERFUL PIANIST

"Who ran
Through each mode of the lyre, and was master
Of all."
Moore.
"Bright gem instinct with music."
Wordsworth.

HE is unquestionably and conspicuously the most wonderful musician the world has ever known. No one has ever equalled him in quickness and depth of musical insight and feeling, nor in the constancy with which he bears within himself, in all its fulness, that mysterious power which can be called by no truer name than musical inspiration. He is an absolute master in the comprehension and retention of all sound (and in all sound he finds music); a being in whose sympathetic soul lies the ready, the perfect correlative of every note of melody in nature or in art that is caught by his marvellously sensitive ear. We often speak of those who have an "ear for music." Here is a musician who surpasses all others in all the world in the possession of this quality; for his is a perfect ear. You may sit down to the piano-forte, and strike any note or chord or discord, or a great number of them; and he will at once give their proper names, and, taking your place, reproduce them. Complete master of the piano-forte keyboard, he calls to his melodious uses, with most consummate ease, all of its resources that are known to skilful performers, as well as constantly discovers and applies those that are new. Under his magnetic touch, this instrument may become, at his will, a music-box, a hand-organ, a harp or a bagpipe, a "Scotch fiddle," a church-organ, a guitar, or a banjo: it may imitate the "stump speaker" as he delivers his glowing harangue; or, being brought back to its legitimate tones, it may be made to sing two melodies at once, while the performer with his voice delivers a third, all three in different time and keys, all in perfect tune and time, and each one easily distinguishable from the other! It would be vain to call such performances as these mere tricks. They are far, far more; since they show a musical intuition, and an orderly disposition and marshalling of the stores of the mind, quite beyond the powers of the performer of mere musical tricks. But, even were they such, this wonderful musician would not need to depend upon their performance for the greatness of his fame; for there is no work of the great masters too difficult for his easy comprehension and perfect rendering.

THOMAS GREENE BETHUNE.