TENNIS is pronounced the oldest of all the existing ball-games. It is impossible to give its origin, but it was played in Europe during the Middle Ages, in the parks or ditches of the feudal castles. It was at first the pastime of kings and nobles, but later it grew popular with all classes. The French took it from the Italians and the English from the French.
WHIST undoubtedly is derived from the old game of trumps, which has a purely English lineage. There is no record of the origin of this game nor of its development into ruff-and-honors, which was the parent of whist. The earliest reference to it is believed to be in a sermon of Latimer’s, about the year 1529. The name probably is derived from the “hist” or “silence” which close attention to play demands of the players.
THE WORLD’S GREAT OPERAS.[[1]]
Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman—No. 3.
An original article written for The Scrap Book.
[1]. This series began in THE SCRAP BOOK for August. Single copies, 10c.
The Flying Dutchman.
Ten weeks after the production of “Rienzi,” the Dresden Theater produced Wagner’s new opera, “The Flying Dutchman,” which had been composed in seven weeks after the completion of “Rienzi.” Much to the surprise of Wagner and his friends, “The Flying Dutchman” met with a cold reception, and served to slam shut in Wagner’s face the door of popularity which “Rienzi” had opened. The work was inadequately staged and sung; but a more effective cause of its failure lay in the fact that it was a new kind of opera, whose method the public did not understand.
Wagner had begun to apply his theory of leading motives, or reminiscent melodies. These motives are phrases of a few notes rendered by the orchestra, each of which symbolizes a character, a psychological mood, or an event of dramatic weight.
While listening to the story which the orchestra is telling, one may without difficulty foretell the entrance of a character, the approach of doom, or the fateful result of an action. From these motives, modulated through strange keys and sung by instruments of differing colors, the scores of Wagner’s late operas, from “Die Meistersinger” on, were in their entirety composed.