Musical Memories by Camille Saint-Saëns
page 60 of 176 (34%)
page 60 of 176 (34%)
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were playing some sort of music. The crowd was indifferent and passed by
talking without paying the slightest attention. Suddenly there sounded the first notes of the delightful _andante_ of Beethoven's _Symphony in D_--a flower of spring with a delicate perfume. At the first notes all walking and talking stopped. And the crowd stood motionless and in an almost religious silence as it listened to the marvel. When the piece was over, I went out of the garden, and near the entrance I heard one of the managers say, "There, you see they don't like that kind of music. And that kind of music was never played there again. CHAPTER IX ANARCHY IN MUSIC Music is as old as human nature. We can get some idea of what it was at first from the music of savage tribes. There were a few notes and rudimentary melodies with blows struck in cadence as an accompaniment; or, sometimes, the same primitive rhythms without any accompaniment--and nothing else! Then melody was perfected and the rhythms became more complicated. Later came Greek music, of which we know little, and the music of the East and Far East. Music, as we now understand the term, began with the attempts at harmony |
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