My Musical Life

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

75-6

text excerpt

I do not think, on the whole, the sea-coast street music, especially at Brighton, has improved during the last thirty years the German bands, niggers, and itinerant. I can recollect fine part-singing out of doors in the old days, and I know of no small band violin, tenor, flute, and harp at all comparable to that of SIGNOR BENEVENTANO, who used to play on the beach at Brighton, with a power of expression that drew crowds, and half-crowns too. I was so much fascinated by this Italian, that I took him home with me and bade him try my violin. It was simply horrible. He scraped, and rasped, and powdered the rosin all over the finger-board, till I was glad to get the instrument out of his hands. The fact is, the coarse playing, so effective on the Parade, was intolerable indoors. He was essentially a street player a genius, but his music was, like coarse and effective scene-painting, better a little way off.

I do not think, on the whole, the sea-coast street music, especially at Brighton, has improved during the last thirty years the German bands, niggers, and itinerant. I can recollect fine part-singing out of doors in the old days, and I know of no small band violin, tenor, flute, and harp at all comparable to that of SIGNOR BENEVENTANO, who used to play on the beach at Brighton, with a power of expression that drew crowds, and half-crowns too. I was so much fascinated by this Italian, that I took him home with me and bade him try my violin. It was simply horrible. He scraped, and rasped, and powdered the rosin all over the finger-board, till I was glad to get the instrument out of his hands. The fact is, the coarse playing, so effective on the Parade, was intolerable indoors. He was essentially a street player a genius, but his music was, like coarse and effective scene-painting, better a little way off.

excerpt from 'My Musical Life' pp. 75-6 (164 words)

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