The Savannah morning news., 1900-07-22

Out of a hundred young piano players
IL is safe TO say that not more than two
know what they are doing. They drum
away and their parents swell with pride,
while the little fingers often talk non
sense. Send to New York, or Boston for
some pretty new music, Airs de Ballet,
minuets, gavottes. little studies, waltzes,
air gay. and nocturnes, spring songs, cradle
songs or character stueke usually supply
the poetic and sentimental. Read the right
hand carefully, sentence by sentence,
with your brain as well as your fingers,
and you will make discovery of how the
composer did his work; you will be intro
duced TO a musician for the first time.
He usually takes four bars to make his
first remark. Sometimes he likes what he
says SO much that he repeats ii at once;
then Ne answers his own remark by an
other sentence. and that part of the con-
versation ends: then the first stanzas OF
the poem is said. This is musical analysis
in a n tshe,l. for sometimes the first STAN
"a of the poem is repeated before the sub
ject is changed, and sometimes there is
no change of subject. and the writer goes
on saving the same thing over and over,
only in a different tone of voice.
Now. the important idea in the COM
poser's head having been announced in
the very beginning, all the player who IS
TGdulES tIS piece III tAlC III 81 tiihO mas ~
do is to go on and see how we'll he tells
his story.
I know an excellent pianist who has not
much time for practice, but who always
manager to keep a large repertoire of new
pieces on hand by first playing the new
music over a few times until it goes
without apparent fault and then playing
these novelties every time she is asked
to play until she is ready to take up
a new batch. Her audience does not care
at all that the pieces are not played
quickly or brilliantly as long as they ore
pleasing and especially when they be-
come better with every repetition. She
plays things they do not know; she plays
them Interestingly, and above all,
smoothly-she is entertaining her audi
ence and learning herself. Among the
German composers of to-day Schuett, who
is a Vienna teacher; Ludwig Schytte,
Dane; Won Win, a German, and Chaui-
made, a Frenchman, have written nu-
merous things which are both pretty,
easy and brilliant. We have a host of
good composers right here in America. of
which Arthur Foote. Nevins, Hadley,
Rogers, and above all. Mcdowell, al
though his pieces are mostly too difficult
for the average parlor player. There is
no lack of simple music which is not
in the least hackneyed, and it is neither
necessary for every one in the same vii
lage to play the same light opera than it
is for every singer in a large city 10
play the same coon song. Good music is
in plenty these days. and it has the I'm
mense advantage over trash of being not
only individual in its speech, but of be-
ing able to be heard many times without
exhaustng the patience of the listener.
Here is a partial list of new and inter-
esting compositions for the piano: The
Flatteror," Flatterer) in Spanish style,
and THE Scarf Dance" are both by
Chauimade, and quite easy to play with
coed effect. A "Gavotte Humoresque," by
Schuett, is brilliant, not hard at all. so is