Music and Friends: Or, Pleasant Recollections of a Dilettante

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

652-655

text excerpt

After service at St. Paul's Mr. Atwood and Mr. Cooper, the organists, met Mr. Samuel Wesley at the London Coffee-house for dinner.... It was on the Sunday, after prayers at St. Paul's, that we repaired to the tavern hard by. After dinner it was proposed that we should accompany Mr. Cooper to the evening service at St. Sepulchre's, where there is a fine organ. It was suggested that, if I were to ask Mr. Wesley to play at the conclusion of the service, he probably would. I said the request would come better from the king's organist than myself, but, as a stranger, it was urged that I was more likely to succeed. As we walked together I said, " Mr. Wesley, these gentlemen wish me to ask you to touch the organ at the conclusion of the service; you may be a fine organist, that I know nothing about, but I am contented with you as a philosopher and man of letters, in whose company I have spent a pleasant day." I saw, by a cunning leer at the corner of his eye, that I had pleased him by the remark, and the moment the service was over, with a smirk upon his countenance, he sat down, and began a noble fugue in the key of c# major. It was wonderful with what skill and dexterity he conducted it through the most eccentric harmonies. This extemporary playing was his forte, in which he had no rival.

excerpt from 'Music and Friends: Or, Pleasant Recollections of a Dilettante' pp. 652-655 (246 words)

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