MUSICAL COMPOSITION

ISOMUSICAL COMPOSITIONsuggestions from experimenting with passages onthe violin.Nine-tenths of the ideas, no matter how beautifulthey may be, which a composer may invent in improvisation,are forgotten as soon as they are played.They are waste of substance, valuable products of thebrain, which throws them away as fast as it createsthem. To improvise with method has a certain valueof its own. It needs sense of balance, in order to keepthe movement clear in design, and a long and accuratememory to insure the exact repetitions of themes. Butit is only a rare genius who can fulfil these conditionswithout a long previous experience in writing at thetable, using his eyes as his ears. No composer of thefirst rank ever wrote at the pianoforte, or hammeredout melodies with his fingers. One who did (not ofthe first rank) showed the mark it left upon him atevery turn. It so affected his belief in his owncertainty of touch, that he used to orchestrate passagesin different coloured inks in order to be able to choosein rehearsal the form which he preferred. It obligedhim to take three Hats in his town house, of which heinhabited the middle one, so that no one above or belowshould hear his music in process of being cooked uponthe pianoforte. It so far affected his sense of the effecthis dramatic climaxes would produce upon audiences,that he used to sit next the "chef-de-claque" at theGrand Opera at rehearsals, and even take hints fromhim as to emendations in the passages which suggestedapplause. Man of genius though he was, as any manwho wrote the fourth act of the Huguenots must havebeen, Meyerbeer is a sign-post of this danger of trustingto the pianoforte as a medium for inspiration. The