A few hours later the completed picture was delivered, and may be seen to-day in the National Gallery. This wonderful work of half a dozen hours was none other than the universally admired “Cavalier’s Pets.”
Sir Arthur Sullivan composed the brilliant epilogue of the “Golden Legend” in less than twenty-four hours. He sat down at nine o’clock one evening to compose the overture to “Iolanthe,” and did not rise from his desk until the last note was written at seven o’clock on the following morning, while the overture to the “Yeoman of the Guard” occupied him no more than twelve hours, both to compose and score.
It is told of Gaetano Donizetti that he wrote the instrumentation of an entire opera within thirty hours. On the very morning on which Gioacchino Antonio Rossini’s “Gazza Ladra” was to be produced not a single note of the overture had been written, and the manager was in despair. He sought out the lazy composer, locked him in one of the rooms of La Scala, and declared he should have neither food nor freedom until the overture was completed. Rossini set to work with a will and to such purpose that the music was written and rehearsed before the evening performance.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was equally as indolent and procrastinating as Rossini. At twelve o’clock on the night before the production of “Don Giovanni” the composer was making merry with a party of convivial friends and had forgotten that the overture was unwritten. As he was going to bed, in the early hours of the morning, his wife reminded him of the fact that it was the day of production and that the overture was not touched. He asked her to make him a bowl of punch and help keep him awake, and sat down to his work as the light of dawn began to stream through the window. He fell asleep, completely exhausted, and slept soundly for a short time. At five o’clock he resumed his work, and two hours later the overture was finished.
It is said that Herr Stehmann learned the entire part of the Wanderer in “Siegfried” in six hours; and on one occasion when Herr Kraus, who was to have taken the leading rôle in Xaver Scharwenka’s “Mataswinka,” was suddenly taken ill, Stehmann, who had never before seen the part, mastered it so completely between the afternoon rehearsal and the evening performance, that in both words and music he was absolutely perfect.
Sidelights from Stageland.[[6]]
By SECOND NIGHTER.
Little Tales of Idiosyncrasies, Adventures, and Misadventures That Playgoers Are Not Supposed to See or Hear.
Collected and written for The Scrap Book.
[6]. Began March SCRAP BOOK. Single copies, 10 cents.