Part 6 (1/2)
”That piece doesn't end in the same key in which it begins!”
Lanier looked surprised and said:
”No, it doesn't. It is one of my own compositions.”
He thought it remarkable that I could catch the change of key in such a long and intricately modulated piece of music. The little old maids of Boston were somewhat scandalised by my effrontery; but there was even more to come. After another lovely thing which he played for us, I was so impressed by the rare tone of his instrument that I asked:
”Is that a Bohm flute?”
He, being a musician, was delighted with the implied compliment; but the old ladies saw in my question only a shocking slight upon his execution.
Turning to one another they e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed with one voice, and that one filled with scorn and pity:
”She thinks it's the _flute_!”
This difference between professionals and the laity is odd. The more enchanted a professional is with another artist's performance, the more technical interest and curiosity he feels. The amateur only knows how to rhapsodise. This seems to be so in everything. When someone rides in an automobile for the first time he only thinks how exciting it is and how fast he is going. The experienced motorist immediately wants to know what sort of engine the machine has, and how many cylinders.
I have always loved a flute. It is a difficult instrument to play with colour and variety. It is not like the violin, on which one can get thirds, and sixths, and sevenths, by using the arpeggio: it is a single, thin tone and can easily become monotonous if not played skilfully.
Furthermore, there are only certain pieces of music that ever ought to be played on it. Wagner uses the flute wonderfully. He never lets it bore his audience. The Orientals have brought flute playing and flute music to a fine art, and it is one of the oldest of instruments, but, unlike the violin and other instruments, it is more perfectly manufactured to-day than it was in the past. The modern flutes have a far more mellow and sympathetic tone than the old ones.
That whole evening at Miss Cushman's was complete in its fulness of experience, as I recall it, looking back across the years. How many people know that Miss Cushman had studied singing and had a very fine _baritone_ contralto voice? Two of her songs were _The Sands o' Dee_ and _Low I Breathe my Pa.s.sion_. That night, the last time I ever heard her sing, I recalled how often before I had seen her seating herself at the piano to play her own accompaniments, always a difficult thing to do.
Again I can see her, at this late day, turning on the stool to talk to us between songs, emphasising her points with that odd, inevitable gesture of the forefinger that was so characteristic of her, and then wheeling back to the instrument to let that deep voice of hers roll through the room in
”Will she wake and say good night?”...
During that first Boston season of mine, my mother and I used to give breakfasts at the Parker House. We were somewhat noted characters there as we were the first women to stop at it, the Parker House being originally a man's restaurant exclusively; and breakfast was a meal of ceremony. The _chef_ of the Parker House used to surpa.s.s himself at our breakfast entertainments for he knew that such an epicure as Oliver Wendell Holmes might be there at any time. This _chef_, by the way, was the first man to put up soups in cans and, after he left the Parker House kitchens, he made name and money for himself in establis.h.i.+ng the canned goods trade.
[Ill.u.s.tration: =Charlotte Cushman, 1861=
From a photograph by Silsbee, Case & Co.]
Dear Dr. Holmes! What a delightful, warm spontaneous nature was his, and what a fine mind! We were always good friends and I am proud of the fact. Shall I ever forget the dignity and impressiveness of his bearing as, after the fourth course of one of my breakfasts, he glanced up, saw the waiter approaching, arose solemnly as if he were about to make a speech, went behind his chair,--we all thought he was about to give us one of his brilliant addresses--shook out one leg and then the other, all most seriously and without a word, so as to make room for the next course!
Years later Dr. Holmes and I crossed from England on the same steamer.
He had been feted and made much of in England and we discussed the relative brilliancy of American and English women. I contended that Americans were the brighter and more sparkling, while English women had twice as much real education and mental training. Dr. Holmes agreed, but with reservations. He professed himself to be still dazzled with British feminine wit.
”I'm tired to death,” he declared. ”At every dinner party I went to they had picked out the cleverest women in London to sit on each side of me.
I'm utterly exhausted trying to keep up with them!”
This was the voyage when the benefit for the sailors was given--for the English sailors, that is. It was well arranged so that the American seamen could get nothing out of it. Dr. Holmes was asked to speak and I was asked to sing; but we declined to perform. We did write our names on the programmes, however, and as these sold for a considerable price, we added to the fund in spite of our intentions.
My first season in Boston--from which I have strayed so far so many times--was destined to be a brief one, but also very strenuous, due to the fact that in the beginning I had only two operas in my _repertoire_, one of which Boston did not approve. After _Linda_, I was rushed on in Bellini's _I Puritani_ and had to ”get up in it” in three days. It went very well, and was followed with _La Sonnambula_ by the same composer and after only one week's rehearsal. I was a busy girl in those weeks; and I should have been still busier if opera in America had not received a sudden and tragic blow.
The ”vacillating” Buchanan's reign was over. On March 4th Lincoln was inaugurated. A hush of suspense was in the air:--a hush broken on April 12th by the shot fired by South Carolina upon Fort Sumter. On April 14th Sumter capitulated and Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers. The Civil War had begun.
CHAPTER VI
WAR TIMES