Chương Chương 4 · 第4章

Only don't try it in Sicily!

For several months I had buried the fiddler in the errant pure and

simple, when, one sunset, across a gorge in Monte Venere, my first

strain of Sicilian music floated, to reawaken in me all the primeval

instincts of the musical adventurer. The melody came from the reed pipe

of a goat-herd as he drove his flock down into Taormina. Such a pipe was

perhaps to Theocritus what the fiddles of Stradivarius are to us. It was

pleasant to imagine that this goat-herd's music might possibly be the

same that used to inspire the tenderest of Sicilian poets twenty-three

hundred years ago.

Piercingly sweet, indescribably pathetic, the melody recalled the Largo

in Dvorák's New World Symphony. Yet, there on the mountain-side, with

Ætna rosy on the right, and the purple Mediterranean shimmering far

below, the voice of the reed sounded more divine than any English horn

or Boehm flute I had ever heard singing in the depths of a modern

orchestra. And I began to doubt whether music was so completely a

product of the last three centuries as it purported to be.

But that evening, when the goat-herd, ensnared by American gold, turned

himself into a modern chamber musician in our hotel room, I regained

poise. Removed from its properly romantic setting, like seaweed from the

sea, the pastoral stop of Theocritus became unmistakably a penny

whistle, with an intonation of the whistle's conventional purity. Our

captured Comatas seemed to realize that the environment was against him

and that things were going 'contrairy'; for he refused to venture on any

of the soft Lydian airs of Monte Venere, and confined himself strictly

to tarantellas, native dances, which he played with a magnificent

feeling for rhythm (if not for in-tuneness) while, with a pencil, I

caught--or muffed--them on the fly. One was to this effect:--

[Illustration: musical notation]

While this was going on, a chance hotel acquaintance dropped into the

room and revealed himself as a professor by explaining that the

tarantella was named for its birthplace, the old Greek city of Taranto

over yonder in the heel of the Italian boot; that dancing it was once

considered the only cure for the maddening bite of the spider known as

the Lycosa Tarantula; and that some of the melodies our goat-herd was

playing might possibly be ancient Greek tunes, handed down traditionally

in Taranto, and later dispersed over Calabria and Sicily.

This all sounded rather academic. But his next words sent the little

professor soaring in our estimation. He disclosed himself as a fiddler

errant by wistfully remarking that all this made him long for two

things: his violin, and a chance to play trios. Right heartily did we

introduce ourselves as pianist and 'cellist errant at his service. And

he and I decided to visit Catania next day to scout for fiddles and

music. We thought we would look for the music first.

Next day, accordingly, we invaded the largest music store in Catania.

Did they have trios for violin, violoncello, and piano? 'Certainly!' We

were shown a derangement of La Somnambula for violin and piano, and

another for 'cello and piano. If we omitted one of the piano parts, we

were assured, a very beautiful trio would result, as surely as one from

four makes three.

Finding us hard to please, the storekeeper referred us to the conductor

of the Opera, who offered to rent us all the standard works of chamber

music. The 'trios' he offered us turned out to be elementary pieces

labeled 'For Piano and Violin or 'Cello.' But nothing we could say was

able to persuade our conductor that 'or' did not mean 'and.' To this day

I feel sure that he is ready to defend his interpretation of this word

against all comers.

We turned three more music stores upside down and had already abandoned

the hunt in despair when we discovered a fourth in a narrow side street.

There were only five minutes in which to catch the train; but in thirty

seconds we had unearthed a genuine piece of chamber music. Hallelujah!

it was the finale of the first Beethoven trio!

Suddenly the oil of joy curdled to mourning. The thing was an

arrangement for piano solo! We left hurriedly when the proprietor began

assuring us that the original effect would be secured if the piano was

doubled in the treble by the violin and in the bass by the 'cello.

This piano solo was the nearest approach to chamber music that a

thorough search and research revealed in the island of Trinacria. But

afterwards, recollecting the misadventure in tranquility, we concluded

that it was as absurd to look for chamber music in Sicily as to look for

'Die Wacht am Rhein' among the idylls of Theocritus.