The Concert

Irish Jesuit Province

The ConcertAuthor(s): Emily HughesSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 70, No. 832 (Oct., 1942), pp. 395-398Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515053 .

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The Concert

By EMILY HUGHES

HE level sun strikes in through the uncurtained windows, discovering a grey bloom on the floor of the stage and on all its dustv properties. It is cruel, the sun. Tall

potted palms tha-t look graceful and correct by electric light droop apologetically beneath its implacable eye. It makes the ladies of the orchestra seem dowdy, the gentlemen fragile and a

little bald, as their nervous fingers, pallid like plants long denied the daylight, pluck the strings and tighten the screws. The people in front feel a secret affectionate pity for the players. Sentimental stories they have read gather force as they gratu itously bestow a broken heart upon the tympanist, an aged and invalid mother on the double bass and a ruined career on the first violin-a disillusioned-looking man, a Kreisler manque.

Pluck, strum and chord, they caress their shining instruments and speak to each other in soft voices, wvhile the bars of sunlight incarcerate each one of them in turn.

Slowly, hesitatingly, the hall is filling up. There is nothing brisk about a concert audience, and nothing crisp about its appearance. It inclines to the sober shades of dun brown, dark orange, dim green, faded crimson. The people have an air of having been defeated by life; defeated because they are gentle and impractical and deprecating. They have discouraged brown hair and soft eyes. They sit down anxiously as though they had no right to be there. Their chair-legs squeak on the floor, and this causes them intense disnay and embarrassment. Still they come, and now the hall is full and late-comers must stand at the back or cluster round the door. Agreeable in this as in all else,



896 THE IRISH MONTHLY

they raise no objections, they demand no money back, they murmur no bitter comments about the arrangements. They set their tired feet a little apart on the floor and lean against the

wall, greasy from generations of leaning backs. Furtively a few of them produce miusic scores borrowed from the public library.

After a glance at the reassuring faces all about them, they become bolder and invite their neighbours to look on; then a group of intent and serious faces is bent over each thumbed book.

A small, cross and prosaic man, the conductor hurries on to the stage, hurries off again, returns, says a sharp word or two to

the violas, takes up his position; coughs, flourishes a handker chief, puts it back into his pocket and gives his music-stand two smart knocks with his baton. There is a burst of applause, like a rattle of hailstones, dying away into the measured sound of a dripping tap, as one determined enthusiast claps on, oblivious of the silence all about him. The conductor bows to the audience, with a smile for the middle distance and a frown for the irritating sunlight that glances in his eyes. He turns his back again and raises his hand.

Then twenty bows descend on twenty strings, and music comes into its kingdom. What was a rmioment before a shabby

hall full of unsuccessful individuals becomes a great instrument vibrating with a thousand tones. A soul-somebody's soul, perhaps the composer's, perhaps the violin-nmaker's, perhaps some strange composite of those of players, conductors and audience-soars into the air and floats on waves of sound, lost in a rapturous vision.

A lady in the front row of the chairs is wearing a fox skin about her shoulders, with the mask hanging down at the

back. It is, like everything else in these surroundings, a little worn, a trifle battered; but it has tw-o bold bright glass eyes, one



THE CONCERT 397

with an eyelid, the other without. With what a wicked yellowislh leer it surveys the other members of the audience! Their faces are calm, unlined and innocent now, their hands are relaxed, nothing but their memories are at xvork, recognising this thunderous passage in the bass, and that high sweet sudden entry by the violins.

On the stage the sun has mercifully withdrawn, leaving behind a bright cool light that is the very essence of Mozart. The bowing-arms move rhythmically, easily, up and down. The players, their heads inclined to one side, their cheeks pressed against the smooth gleaming wood, watch the conductor's baton as a dog watches his master's hand with a stone in it. The larger instruments take on the very shape of the heavy, mellow notes they play. The army of singing strings produces an effect that is greater than the sum of its members. The thing that is present

has no more to do with catgut and maple-wood than it has to do with round black spots arranged on lined paper. It is the principal character on the stage. The conductor, who dominates the others, is himself dominated by it. It glows and fades, it spins webs and explodes bombshells, it poses questions and weeps over the answers. The man into whose brain it came first is dust long since. It had no origin in him, it possessed his faculties and passed through his mind as words pass through the lips of a

medium. Through the upper panes of the wvindows the sky can be seen

growing rare and thin, like a blue eggshell. The wisps of pink cloud that are a sign of fine weather appear, curl away at the edges like the petals of a rose, and melt into the surrounding radiance. The flames in the west burn white as snow. So higlh and clear grows the ceiling of the world that soon it must become transparent and show what lies beyond.

When the electric switches are pressed down, the theatre



398 THE IRISH MONTHLY'

comes in-tto its own. The stage is no longer a bare island on a grey sea, but a warm, bright box full of magicians. The light and the music stream out from it upon the upturned faces of the audience. They will sit like this, in a trance, until the last note is played.

Then home through the starry evening, on feet that hardly touch the earth; home through the wide streets that have some of the calm spaciousness of a nocturne; home straggle the music lovers. Their world is a fairer place, their fellow-men are noble creatures, and everything must come right in the end. WXrherever

they look there is beauty; for they on honey dew have fed, and drunk the milk of paradise. For this they have renounced success, progress and efficiency, and they feel themselves wvell satisfied. They meet and mingle with the cinema crowds pouring forth from that week's film of the year.

" Did you see it? We stood in a queue for half an hour to get in !" cry their acquaintances, still feverish from the struggle to be in the right place at the right time.

" No. WNe wveren't there," they ans-wer shyly, resuming their lowly position on the scale of humanity. "AWe w Nere at a concert."



The Concert

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