MUSICAL COURIER
10
January 11, 1923
is full of ridiculous people, scurrying about trying to fit their hopes and dreams to its rigid reality. An intricate task, I assure you.”
They had stopped by the well and the girl had poured a dipper of the sparking spring water.
“And your mission from the Rajah?” she queried smiling, as he replaced the dipper.
“My mission is to bring wisdom to the first Princess of the land,” he replied softly. “I bring wisdom to whoever may want it.”
“In that case won’t you step inside and rest yourself?” invited his hostess. “Mother and I live so far from the village that we like to meet strangers occasionally and hear whatever news there may be of that big, outside world. . . Perhaps a cup of coffee and a bite to eat would make you feel braver for your quest. And we are not averse to a few pearls of your wisdom, providing you care to leave them.
The other smiled, but seemed somewhat loath to enter.
“I promise you I have forgotten my manners,” he replied. “However, with such persuasion the wisest man were a fool not to accept. I thank you.”
Together they entered the dining room, with its antique furniture and quaint air of distinction. Food was placed before him and the girl poured coffee while the stranger conversed with her mother. He spoke of many things, of the great city beyond the hills, of famous people he had known there, of■ their successes and their failures; but concerning himself he said nothing. It was not until he had finished eating and was’about to leave that he volunteered any information about himself.
“I am a musician by profession,” he began. He was talking to the girl, her mother having left the room. “I was last studying under Rubinstein and was about to make my debut in London when, on the night of the performance, I was suddenly taken ill.” Here he paused as though recalling something very far in the past. “My hopes were crushed in the blossoming,” he continued rather bitterly. The girl began to feel a real pity for this strange young man. She was almost sorry that he had spoken, for a shadow of something tragic swept over his sensitive, mobile features.
“Then you—you gave up your profession entirely?” she queried, leaning toward him across the table.
“I gave up my profession,” he replied slowly.
“How hard that must have been 1”
“Nobody knows how hard,” he muttered. “But still I have my consolations.” His mood changed abruptly. “Sometimes when I am thinking about it, I have a vision —visions are wonderful things. I see, golden and far away, an island of the Hesperides—somewhere this side of Paradise—and on the island is such an opera house as never was in any land. And from this opera house music is forever sounding forth. All the great musicians are gathered there and all are singing and playing together—Malibran and Jenny Lind, Scalchi and Ole Bull, Mozart and Chopin. I am standing in the wings waiting my turn to go on. And every two minutes the conductor stops the orchestra while scores of huge bouquets are handed across the footlights to the artists.”
“That is surely a beautiful vision,” laughed the other.
“Yes,” returned the stranger; “and I sometimes wonder if ,visions aren’t as beautiful as the real thing—certainly they are more enduring.”
They were rising from the table when suddenly a subtle change came over the face of the man. He seemed to be gazing through and beyond her into the next room. In his eyes was a weird, far-off look. He controlled himsejf with difficulty.
“I—I beg your pardon,” he finally stammered. “I had not noticed the piano. In fact, I had hardly expected to— Please let me play it 1”
“Why, of course,” replied the other. “I should be delighted to have you.” She followed him into the next room. “That is Chopin on the rack now. If you prefer Beethoven, or-----”
“Chopin 1” he breathed. “Let me play Chopin.” He opened the folio with almost caressing tenderness.
It was the ravishing Fifth Nocturne and the girl stood transfixed, overwhelmed, as he entered fully into its enchanting spell. It grew fuller and fuller, deeper and deeper, filling that little room with a wealth of harmony it had never known. This was no mere student who sat before her, but a master—a genius 1 When he at length had finished and wheeled about on the stool, she stood gazing upon him in silent wonderment. The stranger looked at her a moment, then rose with an easy bow.
“You see, I have forgotten my manners completely," he remarked. “Now it is your turn.”
“Oh, really,” she protested; “I would not attempt anything after—after that.”
“I insist,” he replied quietly and without a smile. In a sort of trance she found herself seated at the instrument. An idea came to her.
“I will play you a melody,” she said; “and when I have finished tell me the composer.” She turned and struck a full, open chord in the bass, then began playing her own composition. With a touch and precision almost as firm and masterly as that of the man, she entered upon the joyous, sparkling measures of the opening theme. She played as she had never played before. Conscious of the other’s critical attention she seemed inspired to her best efforts. There followed the gradually modulated tempo, the (Continued on page 47) .
THE FINALE
By Burr Chapman Cook
Copyrighted, 1923, by The Musical Courier Company.
to put them to seed now. We’ll have a bare spot there all Spring.”
The girl said nothing. They ate in silence for a few moments. The old grandfather’s clock in the hall ticked quietly, talking to itself in sublime indifference to its surroundings. A thrush was singing under the window, and from the distant valley came the faint bark of a dog. Finally the mother glanced up and the irritable frown was on her face.
“Did the grocer’s boy leave those potatoes?”
“No, mother; he said he would have to wait until morning as he had to go out to Dr. Tyler’s and the Asylum on this trip and the roads are bad.”
“I did want those potatoes,” fretfully. “I really did want those potatoes.”
♦ * *
The following afternoon the girl was in the garden picking flowers. The day was still and sleepy, here and there small patches of foam-spun clouds lying at rest. Off in the distance the great hump-backs of the Blue Ridge were pencilled along the horizon, as though their tops slitted into rifts in the sky. She had filled her basket and was about to return to the house when her attention was arrested by the lone figure of a man. He was walking leisurely along the road and his nearer approach revealed a youth with light, wavy hair and smooth, well-defined features. He carried his hat in his hand, and, slung about his shoulders was a dark cape lined with satin. As the girl was turning away his gaze met hers. With a smile he approached the wall.
“Pardon me, but I have traveled far and I make bold to speak—if you will allow me?”
The other, half amused at the quaint manner of speech and impelled by the undeniable contagion of his boyish smile, responded;
“You may.”
“I am a royal emissary,” continued the youth, while a half serious, half whimsical smile played over his fea-
VICTOR
GOLIBART
TENOR
His voice is trained to the last degree of art and his singing is akin to perfection.
Richmond (Va.) Times Dispatch.
CONCERT MANAGEMENT 130 West 42nd Street, New York
tures. “I bring pearls from the Rajah of all the Indies to the first Princess of the land. As ‘all the Indies’ are some distance from here and as I have tasted no fruit and no wine since my departure, I find myself parched for drink.”
The girl considered him for a moment in mock perplexity.
“You seem to be some distance from home,” she rejoined at length. “But, if your search for the ‘first Princess’ will be aided by the quenching of your thirst, we have a very excellent well in the rear of the house.”
“Thank you so much,” laughed the youth as he vaulted lightly over the low wall and approached her.
“The well is just beyond the garden,” said the girl. He relieved her of the basket of flowers and, as he did so, she noted the refined, almost delicate features and the boyish expression of his face. “Do you come from the village?” she asked, as they walked under the grape-arbor leading to the rear of the yard.
“No, I am a stranger in these parts,” he replied. “A wanderer. I chose to come out into the hills again because
I had almost forgotten what the great, blue hills of my own home looked like.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand in the direction of the distant mountains. “I have decided that they are like these.”
The other smiled sympathetically but repeated her question.
“Are you from Richmond?”
The young man laughed.
“Much farther away than Richmond; from a large, swarming city that lies over there beyond the hills. It
T
*HE girl had finished setting the table. It was a simple enough operation as there were but the two places—one for her mother, and one for herself. She had arranged the cups and saucers with great care and given a final, smoothing touch to the small center-piece. A shade^of melancholy crept into the dark eyes and a quiver passed over the firm lips as she crossed to the colonial window that opened upon the terrace, and stood looking out across the garden.
Along its cool, secluded paths were rows of lilac bushes bursting into blossom. The sun was setting—lavender and gold—against rolling hills that rose, tier upon tier, until they lost themselves under the shadow of the Blue Ridge. The wind was heavy with the scent of flowers.
“My thirty-first birthday tomorrow.”
The thought seemed to startle her from her reverie, for with a weary, little sigh she left the window and passed into the adjoining room. Her mother would be ten minutes late; it was invariably the rule—as everything else was invariably the rule—the hours, days, and months came and went with the same monotonous regularity. Dances and parties in the village, the few social affairs that had kept fresh the memories of the past, had now ceased. One by one her own set had grown up, married, and drifted away, and with their disappearance the care of her mother and the duties of the house had become the final and only form of diversion. As for her music—her career—that tantalizing will-o’-the-wisp—some days seeming so hopefully near and others, so desperately far—the grim : reality of the sacrifice it entailed was beginning to cross swords with all the instincts of her nature.
After a moment she seated herself at the piano, which stood open and inviting in one corner of the music room, and ran her fingers gently over the keys. She hesitated a moment, struck a full, open chord in the bass, and then entered upon the theme of a melody. A piece of her own composition, all unawares it paralleled the narrative of her life—the joyous spontaneity of youth sparkling through its bright opening measures, the gradually modulating tempo, the slower, almost plaintive resolutions—fired here and there with a burst of passionate crescendo—all leading finally into the sad little refrain that flowed, haltingly, almost unwillingly from the instrument.
She played without looking at the keys, her eyes gazing off into space, her slim fingers caressing the notes, lingering with the soft harmonies. Suddenly the music fluttered, hesitated, and came to a stop in a low minor chord. She fumbled over the keys for a few seconds, trying first one combination and then another, apparently unable to effect a satisfactory conclusion. She rose despondently.
“My finale,” she murmured. “My beautiful, hopeless finale! Somehow I can’t seem to find it.”
Stepping into the hall she waited at the foot of the stairs. Her mother was descending; a little old lady with gray hair and gray eyes, wearing a faded scarf wrapped tightly about her shoulders. Her features were finely moulded and would have been beautiful but for a shade of annoyance that occasionally passed over them. She smiled inquiringly at her daughter as they went arm-in-arm in to supper.
“I ■thought you intended to stop your practicing during the summer, my dear,” she remarked after they were seated and the girl had begun serving.
“So I did, mother. But I thought I would try to compose the finale of my piece before I stopped altogether. It’s been haunting me of late.”
The other glanced up at her daughter over the tea-cup. “You really must not worry so over your music, my dear —your finale. You really must not. I have told you so many times that you can’t expect to sit down and hammer it out. It’s got to be inspirational—a sort of inner conviction. You’ve got to feel it. Ah, well, you never take my advice. You must remember, until I married your father, I went through much your same experience.”
“I know, mother, I’ll try not to worry,” replied the girl, and an infinitely tender expression came into her face as she reached over and petted the wrinkled hand. “But it is aggravating to find that you can’t end a thing, especially when the beginning was so easy.”
The mother smiled across at her with a look in the gray eyes that for a moment obliterated the shade of irritation brooding there.
“You’ve been a good daughter. I don’t know what I would have done without you all these years—I really don’t. I suppose I’m getting old and cranky—Oh, I know, but I am. Yet, after all, it’s because I am ambitious for you. I want you to succeed. I want my daughter to be a great musician. That means work, and study, and sacrifice, and self-denial.”
“You’re not old, nor cranky either, mother,” smiled back the girl, “and half the time I haven’t appreciated the help you have given me. Oh, I know, but I haven’t.” After a moment she added; “Henry has set out a new bed of tulips and the hyacinths are coming up beautifully.”
“That reminds me! I meant to tell Henry about those flower beds,” sighed the other. “It’s altogether too late
In examining a student’s voice ' ■JV i T\ i U Jf T* 1־ T T ! I p T\ ¥
■ r״djgned.7t״ h-mt״״:־ ״fi MADAME VALERI.
There is no voice defect that can escape her notice and that cannot be corrected by her ability, tremolo included, when bad training has not gone so far as to cause looseness in the vocal chords.״
381 WEST END AVE., Entrance on 78th St.
BONCI
Mezzo Soprano
410 Knabe Building New York
CLAIR EUGENIA SMITH