The record-union., 1893-09-16
THE QUESTION OF RNooRES.
Obvious Need of a Method by Whic
to Obtain or Avoid Them.

Obvious Need of Method by Which
to Obtain or Avoid Them.
Encore is the watchword of artistic sue
cess. OF this there can be no gainSaying.
To be applauded is something to be re-
called is great deal, but to be encored
is all the professional artist desires or
asks.
The performer who sets out ready to
conquer takes with him an extra number
for everyone assigned him on the pro-
gramme, and not infrequently two to
three, all for the purpose of encore.
| Often, for the good of the public, and of
the artist, too, if he but knew it, the ex-
ira numbers are left in the waiting-room
in sad unrolled disuse. Often they are
hurriedly and rapturously brought forth
TO fulfill their mission, and quite as often
as not the result is melancholy failure.
We are talking of professionals. Unfor-
tunately in the matter of encores seven
tenths of the professionals are amateurs.
Occasions rise where nothing but a
deadly stiffness in the house can possibly
deter the player or singer from sWooping
on us again-where it's positive danger
to lay our palms together even for once.
1t goes without saying that only medi-
ocre artists are so prodlgal of their gifts,
which, OF course, aggravates the intlic-
ton, and-so long as we do not adopt the
unmistakable call OF Encore or ''Bis''
from Europe-makes the need more stren-
uous for some tacit form of conveying
our wishes this side of the water, and
preventing us from being treated to deal
more than we want.
There might be some unwritten rule of
professional etiquette which would forbid
an artist giving encore under anything
less than an insistent double recall. No
matter how appreclable or appreciated an
artists work may be, the public is per-
1p0flU willing to testify q ntbuGi-
asm but are not prepared to listen to a bar
more than they've paid for. Many an
artist walks OFT the stage about 10 p. NJ.
smarting under what he feels poor re-
ception. when the fact is that he may have
given infinitely more satisfaction than
show it, afraid of their very souls that if
they do he'll return promptly like the
rest and give them the tateful encore.
1t is not any better at the opening of an
evening when you unfold a programme
of, perhaps, twenty numbers, and find
the very first soprano, tenor, contralto
and bass starting in SUCCESSFULLY with
this ready, lavish encore after the merely
conventional hand-clapping of polite APP
proval. It's pretty dreary outlook for
| the house, and frequently takes away the
taste from its palate. But it's also pretty
dreary for artists who come on late in
any event, and who sit in miserable inn
patience behind the stage door ruefully
weighing the possibilities of public en-
durance lasting until it gets to their turn
TO come on. which, in all bounds of mu-
steal tolerance, it couldn't be expected to
do. It's all wrong from every point of
view. The system of encore, as it at
present exists, hardly presents one claim
for eXtenuation, prolonging, as it does,
entertainment beyond the torbearance of
the most polite and appreciative public
5,,f~ inc it w hat inoGTtf
and, in the matter of many artists, with
holding their trial until such stage of
time and patience has been reached that
even a Patti or a Paderewski could hardly
obtain showing.
Even among amateurs this love for en-
core-giving calls for heroic remedy de-
spite all the indulgence they command.
Let it now be assumed, however, in the
case of professional or amateur that an
encore has been earned and is unequivo-
cally called for. There is just as much
tact required in knowing how as in
knowing when" it should be given.
Very often an encore is quite as much for
the song as for the singer, but where do
you find the singer you can persuade of
it? a young artist Of pleasing personal
ity comes Out and sings acceptably-no
more-some pretty fetching ballad with
gay refrain, and the audience would like
little more Of the same thing or at least
something in the same spirit. What they
frequently get is something diametrically
opposite. The artist won't make up his
or her mind that anything other than
their beauty of tone or perfection in
method can be the subject of admiration,
and proceed at once to give Il sample OF
what they can do III another direction.
Instead of holding in its mood of buoy
ancy and swing, they abruptly swamp it
in melancholy, merging into some ro-
in TloinfiXyn cn1n which
ever beautiful and apprecable at another
time, does far too much violence to cur
rent sentiment to prove anything but
damper and failure. For this is trans
lation in feeling which even the musi-
cianly in an average audience cannot
figure when it comes In the form of en-
core. Whatever we may do in giving our
| feelings a wrench so as to follow the vary
ing spirit of a printed programme we
don't care to have them wrenched for us
by somebody else without any announce
ment. After the deeper chords of feeling
have been touched a popular house may
accept sympathetically transition from
grave to gay" but when it comes to
| "ively TO severe" there is a shock and
lar and an ultimate depression.
Ii artists would only take to- heart
! few suggestions on the encore question
| they would run fewer risks of failure to
| themselves, and would serve to bring
| about positive millennium Of confident
content to the concert-going world.
| First, not to give an encore unless I'M
mistakably borne in upon them that the
house will not be satisfied with anything
| else: second let the encore be in the
same spirit as the number which called it
forth; third, let encores be short. until
! they can no shorter be. OF course, pre-
negatives which none resents belong to
the leading lights, whose every phrase is
dear TO the music-loving public, but for
the majority OF artists who go 10 make
up our winter programmes these sugges-
! tions are proved by experience to be in
place. And if only they could bear some
| fruit we might look forward to briefer
but correspondingly more enjoyable
evenings of music than heretofore in the
season 1S93-lS94.-New York World.