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264 MUSIC [CHAP, XVIII
man, who has done much for the grand musical uprising
connected with Queen's Hall in London, a native of the
great German musical centre Frankfort, has asserted
more than once that no audiences in Germany could
compare with the old Monday Pop. audiences in St. James's
Hall in intelligent musical appreciation. (This reminds
me of the statement in Leach's English Schools at the
Riformation-a. very interesting book-that according to
Erasmus, writing about 1499 (?),England was the musical,
Germany the drunken country.)
The other was from no less an artist than Joachim
himself, whom I heard say at luncheon in Stanford's rooms
in Trinity, Cambridge, about 1876, that in avoiding Ehe
ugly scraping noise when the wood of the bow presses on
the strings of the violin in moments of excitement, he
had to be far more careful in England than at home.
" In Berlin they do not mind ; but your ears in England
are more sensitive." This explains some of the phenomena
of German solo singing. I have heard a leading soloist at
Bayreuth take breath in the middle of a word I Yet we
have, I believe, caught the detestable habit of tremolo
from the Wagnerian singers in Germany. Onght that to
contin}le after the War?
The mention of Stanford's luncheon recalls a singular'
incident. Charlie Brookfield (always called Brooks, as his
father was, according to Tennyson, later a well-known
comedian) was asked by Stanford to take a few professionals
of the orchestra to luncheon, before the University
concert in the afternoon. Brooks, as host, found conversation
with these gentlemen tended to drag, so he
invented a tale of a musical practical joke played upon a
performer on the violin not of the very front rank, who
had an awkward high note to hit in a short solo whieh it
fell to him to play from the body of the orchestra on the
platform. To provide against accident he made a chalk
mark exactly where his finger was to press. But as he
was rash enough to reveal the fact, a waggish friend got
at the instrument and surreptitiously altered the mark.