Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-10-31
SINGERS AND fNsTRUMENTALIsTS
Why the Former are More Capricious
and Subject to Whims.

and Subject to Whims.
From the London Spectator.
correspondent who should know his sub
ject if anybody alive knows it, indorses all we
| said q fortnight ago about the wild whims of
the great singers, and the pardon extended to
them by the public, but asks us to explain why
the great instrumentalists are so different from
their rivals. The very greatest instrumental
lists, he intimates-justly, as far as our more
limited knowledge extends-are, as a rule, dis
tinctly able men and women; people with
minds, whose converse has charm, who are sane
in all their acts and thoughts, and who are just
as capable Of sef-restraint as other selfrespect-
ing people. They keep their engagements,
they are not mad about their places on bill
posters, and if they sometimes grow faddy about
the quality of their instruments, they are no
more given to wild luxury, or to flying kites in
the streets, as MIR. Mapleson reports of Signor
Glugllnl, than other professional men and
women who have achieved success. II cannot
be that devotion to music on the part of the
singers is the cause of the difference. for the
lnstrumentalists are just devoted TO their
art, and occupy about eight times as much of
their lives In cultivating it. Then what is the
cause?
We should say there are three reasons of ac-
cumulative force. One is, that the greatest
singer Is almost always great actor or actress
also, and shares in that sense of the unreality
OF most things, and especially of the unreality
OF apparent conduct, which habitual acting al
most necessarily begets Plenty of actors and
actresses are good men and women; but il is
impossible 70 be another person-often a some
what bad person, and always an exaggerated
person-for hours of every day, and retain the
ordinary full sense of responsibility. That ad-
mIrable actress, Mrs. Boucicault, used to say,
or at least 1t was SO reported. that at one time
she felt as if she could not tell whether she
were Mrs. Boucicault acting the Colleen Bswn-
In the best melodrama ever written yet-or the
Colleen Bawn acting Mrs. Boucicault; and Just
so far as that was true must the atmosphere of
reality have pressed lightly ON her. Every
great singer or songstress must be more or less
under that Intermediary Lind, sanest and
soundest of them all, latterly avoided opera
| and to it is added another. Great instrument
| talsts work much harder for their bread than
great singers. The latter are, as a rule, care
fully trained - though Mr.. Mapleson tells
story of one, a stupid man with a mag
lcal gift, who said sincerely and not as a Joke
| that he would learn music as soon as he
had done earning money-but when they
are once fully appreciated, they dare not
to work too hard. They might strain their
! Threats, and the health of their throats-which
curiousiy enough, are with some of them as
sound as leather found in the pit when the
tanner died." and with others as delicate as
babies digestions-is worth hundreds of
pounds an hour. They live lives of involuntary
Incidence. broken by performances which re-
qtlire long attendance, but actual effort only
tor portions of two hours day. The instru-
mentalists. on the contrary, work every day
and all day all their lives, work like students
| or professionals, at what, even when they enjoy
as well as feel their art-a point upon which no
two are quite alike-is most fatiguing, and oc-
caslonally even eXhausting labor Work of
that sort takes the nonsense out of all women
and most men-has, that is, the effect of a con-
| tinuous and severe training in personal self
restraint Your fingers may ache, and your
head be racked, and your nerves go to fiddle
strings with the strain; but you must go on
practiclng, or be pronounced by some critic
falling away from perfect FORM" which m cans
| twenty pounds less night ON the expiration of
your contract. There is no cure for whims
like the treadmill, especially if the sufferer sets
1t going for himself
The third and greatest reason for the differ
ence In character between singers and instru-
mentalists Is, We take it, this: All artists or
pleasers of the public who are conscious that
their power, or their popularity, or their means
OF earning fortunes depend mainly upon a
gift" tend to remain childish-we do not
mean childlike, but childish. That which ban
lshes chi1dishness is not merely natural growth,
but pressure, the heavy weight of experience
and difficulty and suffering, which, sometimes
unconsclously, sometimes without full con-
seriousness, trains us all. The great singer is
nearly exempted from this discipline. At an
early age, just when most men and women be-
gin to realize that they have no protection
from the wind, that life is heavy as well as
light, that, In short, effort is indispensable, the
great singer or songstress is released from eff
| fort finds himself or herself in possession of
an unearned and undeserved gift which is al
most magical in its power, which makes it rain
gold, which brigs worshippers, fatterers. low
ers, in streams-they say Mario at one time had
a dozen ''Offers" month-which lifts thou
sands of cultivated hearers on their feet pant
of
enjoyment at once intellectual and sensual. A
| court forms round successful primo tenore or
prima donna in an instant, and thenceforward,
till their Threats give out, eager hands lift
from them the very burden of the air.
Their agents are as devoted" as the equerries
of kings. How should they get experience, or
training, or the habit of severe thought, any
more than princes in Asia or princesses i'll Eu-
rope? They are from the first where severe
effort lands few of the ablest at the close of
life, with this aggravation-that they have suf-
fered in achieving eminence, from no passing
or general dlsllkes; have never, in all their in
tercourse with the world seen that world look
anything but enthusiastic approval. There is a
pathetic passage in the queens diary wherein
she. Just for a moment and as it were with a
suppressed sigh, notes the danger of being a
sovereign at eighteen; and that, altering the
age little but not the experience, is the lot of
every prima donna. She and her companion
on the stage, the tenor, too, have no compul-
elOn UOL 10 De CullulSD. anu as cullUlsnneSs Is
enjoyable SO long all whims are gratifed
they tend to remain in that mental position
Why learn when learning brings nothing? Why
strive when all is obtainable without effort?
Why, above all, be self-restrained when no one
asks of you to restrain yourself, and self
restraint may be as painful breeches
to savage, or fine etiquette to a
street rough? Unsuccessful or half-suc-
cessful, or slowly successful folk like the ma
jority of us, hardly recognize how they have
grown to bear self-restraint as they have grown
to bear leather boots, by ncessant repititions of
small endurances. 1t is not only that the first
burden of life, pecuniary care, is not for the
great singer. Most heads are turned by sudden
fortune, but the possessor of great voice has
to bear more mental shocks than that-suddeu
popularity. sudden alteration, sudden affection.
often real and deep, all drawn to him or her
by something internal, involuntary and incom-
municable. Talk of genius; what is it in intoxi-
eating power to the possession of a gift like
this, unique, it may be- through all the singing
houses of the world? No wonder its possessor
remains, till it departs, an enjoying. unre-
strained, almost irresponsible, and sometimes
very naughty child. The instrumentalist has
neither this joy nor this temptation He. too,
has his ''gift," the something magical which
learning cannot yield, or labor produce; but it
is not gift. He has to pay price, usually
full price, for its development; and when. by
strenuous toll, it is developed, it produces
neither the same rain of gold nor the same pas
sion of alteration.
How to Improve Clock.