GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

“Yes, Monsieur; I understand perfectly, perfectly. I will do my best. I shall be inspired. How magnificent it is!”

“Allow me to congratulate you, sir,” said one of the old gentlemen, advancing. “Myself and colleagues have been greatly struck by your work. I am empowered to say on their behalf that whatever difference of opinion there may be among us as to the discretion with which you have employed your powers, of the extraordinary nature of those powers there can no longer be a doubt; and we are thoroughly gratified at having chosen for performance a work which displays so much originality and talent as your fantasia.”

“Ten years ago” said Jack, looking steadily at him, “I might have been glad to hear you say so. At present the time for compliments is past, unless you wish to congratulate me on the private interest that has gained my work a hearing. My talent and originality have been a my chief allies here.”

“Are you not a little hasty?” said the gentleman, disconcerted, “Success comes late in London; and you are still, if I may say so, a comparatively young man.”

“I am not old enough to harp on being comparatively young. I am thirty-four years old; and if I had adopted any other profession than that of composer of music, I should have been seeing a respectable livelihood by this time. As it is, I have never made a farthing by my compositions. I don’t blame those who have Stood between me and the public: their ignorance is their misfortune, and not their fault. But now that I have come to light by a chance in spite of their teeth, I am not in the humor to exchange pretty speeches with them. Understand, sir: I do not mean to rebuff you personally. But as for your colleagues, tell them that it does not become them to pretend to pretend to acknowledge spontaneously what I have just, after many hard years, forced them to admit. Look at those friends of yours shaking their heads over my score there. They have heard my music, but they do not know what to say until they see it. Would you like me to believe that they are admiring it?”

“I am confident that they cannot help doing so.”

“They are shewing one another why it ought not to have been written — hunting out my consecutive fifths and sevenths, and my false relations — looking for my first subject, my second subject, my working out, and the rest of the childishness that could be taught to a poodle. Don’t they wish they may find them?”

The gentleman seemed at a loss how to continue the conversation. “I hope you are satisfied with the orchestra,” he said after a pause.

“No, I am not,” said Jack. “They are over civilized. They are as much afraid of showing their individuality as if they were common gentlemen. You cannot handle a musical instrument with kid gloves on. However, they did better than I hoped. They are at least not coarse. That young woman is a genius.”

“Ye-es. Almost a genius. She is young, of course. She has not the — I should call it the gigantic power and energy of such a player, for instance, as—”

Pshaw!” said Jack, interrupting him. “I, or anybody else, can get excited with the swing of a Chopin’s polonaise, and thrash it out of the piano until the room shakes. But she! You talk of making a pianoforte sing — a child that can sing itself can do that. But she can make it speak. She has eloquence, the first and last quality of a great player, as it is of a great man. The finale of the fantasia is too coarse for her: it does violence to her nature. It was written to be played by a savage — like me.”

“Oh, undoubtedly, undoubtedly! She is a remarkable player. I did not for a moment intend to convey—” Here Manlius rapped his desk; and Jack, with a unceremonious nod to his interlocutor, left the platform. As he passed the door leading to the public part of the hall, he heard the voice of the elder lady. “My child, they seek to deceive you. This Monsieur Jacques, with whom you are to make your debut here, is he famous in England? Not at all. My God! He is an unknown man.”

“Be tranquil, mother. He will not long be unknown.

Jack opened the door a little way; thrust his face through; and smiled pleasantly at the pianist. Her mother, seeing her start, turned and saw him grimacing within a yard of her.

“Ah, Lord Jesus!” she exclaimed in German, recoiling from him. He chuckled and abruptly shut himself out of her view as the opening Coriolan overture sounded from the orchestra, The old gentleman who had congratulated him had rejoined the others in the stalls.

“Well,” said one of them: “is your man delighted with himself?”

“N-no, I cannot say that he is — or rather perhaps he is too much so. I am sorry to say that he appears to rather morose — soured by his early difficulties, perhaps. He is certainly not an agreeable person to speak to.”

“What did you expect?”said another gentleman coldly. “A man who degrades music to be the vehicle of his own coarse humor, and shews by his method of doing it an ignorant contempt for those laws by which the great composers established order in the chaos of sounds, is not likely to display a courteous disposition and refined nature in the ordinary business of life.”

“I assure you, Professor,” said a third, who had the score of the fantasia open on his knees, “this chap must know a devil of a lot. He plays old Harry with the sonata form; but he must do it on purpose, you know, really.”

The gentleman addressed as Professor looked severely and incredulously at the other. “I really cannot listen to such things whilst they are playing Beethoven,” he said. “I have protested against Mr Jack and his like; and my protest has passed unheeded. I wash my hands of the consequences. The Antient Orpheus Society will yet acknowledge that I did well when I counseled it to renounce the devil and all his works.” He turned away; sat down on a stall a little way off; and gave all his attention ostentatiously to “Coriolan.”

The pianist came presently and sat near him. The others quickly surrounded her; but she did not speak to them, and shewed by her attitude that she did not wish to be spoken to. Her mother, who did not care for Coriolan, and wanted to go home, knitted and looked appealingly at her from time to time, not venturing to express her impatience before so many members of the Antient Orpheus Society. At last Manlius came down; and the whole party rose and went into the performers’ room.

“How do you find our orchestra?” said Manlius to her as she took up her muff.

“It is magnificent,” she replied. “So refined, so quiet, so convenable! It is like the English gentleman.” Manlius smirked. Jack, who had reappeared on the outskirts of the group with his hat on — a desperately illused hat — added:

“A Lithuanian or Hungarian orchestra could not play like that, eh?”

“No, truly,” said the Polish lady, with a little shrug. “I do not think they could.”

“You flatter us,” said Manlius bowing. Jack began to laugh. The Polish lady hastily made her adieux and went out into Piccadilly, where a cab was brought for her. Her mother got in; and she was about follow when she heard Jack’s voice again, at her elbow.

“May I send you some music?”

“If you will so gracious, Monsieur.”

“Good. What direction shall I give your driver?”

“F — f — you call it Feetzroysquerre?”

“Fitzroy Square,” shouted Jack to the cabman. The hansom went off; and he, running recklessly through the mud to a passing Hammersmith omnibus, which was full inside, climbed to the roof, and was borne away in the rain.

Table of Contents

It was a yearly custom of the Antient Orpheus Society to give what they called a soiree, to which they invited all the celebrated persons who were at all likely to come. These meetings took place at a house in Harley Street. Large gilt tickets, signed by three of the committee, were sent to any distinguished foreign composers who happened to be in London, as well as to the president of the Royal Academy, the musical Cabinet Minister (if there was one), the popular tragedian of the day, and a few other privileged persons. The rest had little cards of invitation from the members, who were each entitled to introduce a few guests.