Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-05-26
MUSICAL.

II the musicians wish to do the proper
thing with the little musical insanity cali
ed rag-time, they will do what List did
for the gypsy jigs of Hungary-take 1T up
themselves, and glorify it with an immor-
tai work of genius founded upon it. All
really national and characteristic music
has been developed in some such way.
Very likely the current rag-time ditties,
which have a negro foundation, whether
or not they are the original compositions
of negroes, are intrinsically inferior to the
Hungarian czardas, or to the Bohemian
melodies upon which Dvorak based some
of his admirable compositions. But at the
same time we are hardly expecting from
our native American composers as great
a composition as the foremost of LISTS
Hungarian rhapsodies. Americans who
would like to see their country take a
rank in the field of music not greatly in
ferior, to say the least, to that which it
occupies in literature and painting, are
disposed to be modest in their expecta-
tions.
The whimsicalities, the weaknesses, the
very depravities of a people are reflected
in their national music. If the music has
not the human and fallible quality, 1t
misses the point altogether. We should
be very far from saying h the rag
time melody is representative of the
American character, but it does repre-
sent one phase of 1.-THE cheerful, restless,
loose-jointed, no-account side, which must
not be forgotten in making up the esti-
mate. "Unkempt, disreputable, vast, the
American has the rag-time in him at the
same time that his soul echoes with the
symphonies of the very worlds in their
spheres. We need not expect, perhaps, for
a hundred years the musical composition
that shall express both the grandeur and
the t%riflingness Of the American spirit.
Nevertheless, as a beginning, we might
perhaps properly ask of these critical
musicians who condemn a of the
popular taste a few really meritorious
compositions along the lines that trouble
them so much.
"Annfe Laurie"
The long-neglected grave of Annie Lau-
RE has just been brought to public notice
in England, and the discovery that it has
remained all these years without a tomb
stone is attracting attention. The st.
st. Jarnes's Gazette remarks: Many peo-
pie are under the delusion that Annie Lau-
RE was merely a Pigment Of the poets
brain, but this was not so. She was the
daughter of Sir Robert Laurie, and was
born in Maxwelton House, which stands
on the 'braes'' immortalized in the song.
Maxwelton House is still full of memories
of this winsome girl, and in the long draw
ing room there still hangs her portrait.
Her lover and the author of the original
Song was young Douglas of Fingland, but
whether he. as in common with lovers of
poetic temperament, did not press his suit
sufficiently, or whether she wished a
stabler husband, she CAV her hand to a
prosaic country laird, her cousin, Mr..
Alexander Ferguson. They lived the rest
of their lives at Craigdarrock House. five
miles from Maxwelton, and when she died
Annie was buried in the beautiful glen of
the Cairn. Lady Scott Spottiswoode, who
died early in the present year, was respon-
sible for the modern version Of the song