Sir: P. A. Scholes, in his "Listener's Guide to Music," revives two good
laughs--thus: "A fugue is a piece in which the voices one by one come in
and the people one by one go out." Also he quotes from Sam'l Butler's
Note Books: "I pleased Jones by saying that the hautbois was a clarinet
with a cold in its head, and the bassoon the same with a cold in its
chest." The cor anglais suffers slightly from both symptoms. Some
ambitious composer, by judicious use of the more diseased instruments,
could achieve the most rheumy musical effects, particularly if, a la
Scriabin, he should have the atmosphere of the concert hall heavily
charged with eucalyptus.
E. Pontifex.
* * *
"I will now sing for you," announced a contralto to a woman's club
meeting in the Copley-Plaza, "a composition by one of Boston's noted
composers, Mr. Chadwick. 'He loves me.'" And of course everybody thought
George wrote it for _her_.
* * *
"Grand opera is, above all others, the highbrow form of
entertainment."--Chicago Journal.
Yes. In comparison, a concert of chamber music appears trifling and
almost vulgar.
* * *
At a reception in San Francisco, Mrs. Wandazetta Fuller-Biers sang and
Mrs. Mabel Boone-Sooey read. Cannot they be signed for an entertainment
in the Academy?
* * *
We simply cannot understand why Dorothy Pound, pianist, and Isabelle
Bellows, singer, of the American Conservatory, do not hitch up for a
concert tour.
* * *
Richard Strauss has been defined as a musician who was once a genius.
Now comes another felicitous definition--"Unitarian: a Retired
Christian."
* * *
Dr. Hyslop, the psychical research man, says that the spirit world is
full of cranks. These, we take it, are not on the spirit level.
* * *
The present physical training instructor in the Waterloo, Ia.,
Y. W. C. A. is Miss Armstrong. Paradoxically, the position was formerly
held by Miss Goodenough. These things appear to interest many readers.
* * *