In the spring of 1921 a Paris music hall asked me if I could let them have a few pages of incidental music for a little sketch, within the range of their audience. It amused me to try my hand at that sort of thing, and I therefore orchestrated four pieces taken from my collection of 'Easy Duets'. Although my orchestra was more than modest, the composition as I wrote it was given only at the first few performances. When I went to see the sketch again a month later I found that there was but little left of what I had written. Everything was completely muddled; some instruments were lacking or had been replaced by others, and the music itself as executed by this pitiful band had become unrecognizable. It was a good lesson. One must never risk entrusting honest work to that sort of establishment in which music is certain to be mutilated to suit the show and its patrons. << less