Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
Miss Davis's simple song of Ruth, and Eussell's
Woodman, spare that Tree, brought, each in the
most vivid manner, a scene of the deepest pathos
before me. I saw Naomi, old and childless, called by
God to return to the land of her birth, leaving behind
her all that she had been left to love ; and it seemed
to me that I could see how she looked when the young
warm-hearted Euth clung to her. And then the ' old
tree,' under whose shadow so much had happened
To be cut down— just perhaps to make room for one
of a later growth !
I took part with the singer. I
sang to the woodman as if he could actually hear me.
I was making him understand that a tree which had
seen so much had a right to live out all its timet even
if it had grown bare and gnarled.
Leaving these childish reminiscences behind me, I
pass on to the evening when I was for the first time
in a concert-room, and for the first time heard not
only an orchestra and a great pianist, but the
orchestra playing a Beethoven symphony, and the
pianist (Sir Charles Halle) playing a Beethoven
concerto. The effect on me was such that I made
up my mind then and there to devote my life to music.
By a singular coincidence, this happened to me Just
at the time when I lost my voice, owing to the
ignorant attempt of a professor (who ought to have
known better) to make me produce chest-notes far
above my natural register. It was a bitter grief to
me, and for some time I would not give up the hope
!