coming attraction in every Sunday paper; and programmes are fluttering
in every get-at-able shop-front. The day comes. A long line of
fashionable carriages, strangely intermingled with shabby cabs, file
up to the doors, and the gay morning dresses, flaunting with colours,
disappear between the two colossal placards which grace the entrance.
The room is filled. _Habitués_, and knowing musical men on town,
recognise each other, and congregate in groups, laughingly comparing
notes upon the probabilities of what artists announced will make an
appearance, and upon what apologies will be offered in lieu of those
who don't. A couple of these last are probably already in circulation.
Madame Sopranini is confined to bed with an inflammatory attack; and
Signor Bassinini has got bronchitis. Nevertheless, the concert begins;
and oh! the length thereof. The principal vocalists seem to have
mostly mistaken the time at which they would be wanted; and the
chopping and changing of the programme are bewildering. Bravuras take
the place of concertos; a duet being missing, an aria closes the
ranks; a solo on the trombone not being forthcoming, a vocal trio
(unaccompanied) is hurriedly substituted. Still, there is plenty of
the originally announced music; all the favourite airs, duets, and
trios from the fashionable operas; all the ballads in vogue--the music
published by the house which has set the whole thing on foot, of
course; all the phenomena of executive brilliance are there, or are
momentarily expected to appear. We begin after an overture with, say,
an air from the _Puritani_, by a lovely tenor; another, from the
_Somnambula_, by a charming soprano; a fantasia by a legerdemain
pianist, with long hair, and who comes down on the key-board as though
it was his enemy; the famous song from _Figaro_--encored; the
madrigal, 'Down in a Flowery Vale'--the latter always a sure card; a
duet from _Semiramide_, by two young ladies--rather shaky; solo on the
clarionet, by a gentleman who makes the instrument sound like a