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In the nineteenth century, the conductor had won full recognition as an instrumentalist of a new type, who, without any instrument of his own, played on the whole body of musicians under his command. Of late, he has become so prominent in the eyes of the public, and his personality has been so insisted upon, that there is danger often lest he may distract attention from the music to himself.
He makes music everywhere among the rosemary-bushes, while the Glow-worms light up their blue lamps to complete the revels. The delicate instrumentalist consists chiefly of a pair of large wings, thin and gleaming as strips of mica. Thanks to these dry sails, he fiddles away with an intensity capable of drowning the Toads' fugue.
Set either instrumentalist by himself, and he will manage to stumble through a tune; but put the whole orchestra together, and the result usually falls short of what should be harmony. The hornist is our feeblest musician.
When this is destroyed and the singer is forced to measure intervals abstractedly he is called upon to do something immeasurably more difficult than anything that is asked of the instrumentalist.
The cheerful Cricket shows herself in a new light at this season; she attacks the mate who lately wooed her with such impassioned serenades; she tears his wings, breaks his musical thighs, and even swallows a few mouthfuls of the instrumentalist.
His father would shrug his shoulders and call him a poseur; his brothers would laugh at him and eat his portion. But he had somehow to find a livelihood. His earnings from the orchestra were not enough. He gave lessons. His talents as an instrumentalist, his good reputation, and, above all, the Prince's patronage, brought him a numerous clientele among the middle classes.
The characteristic which especially touched me about this man, whom from his training I could regard merely as an instrumentalist, was that he had grasped with clear understanding and perfect agreement those very tendencies of mine which many musicians of apparently wider culture than his own regarded with almost despairing horror, as being dangerous to the orthodox practice of their art.
"But I do know that the London musical public depends absolutely on Germany. The only first-class instrumentalist that England has ever produced had no success here until he went to Germany and Germanised his name and himself and announced that he despised England. Then he came back, and he has caused a furore ever since.
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