Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/168

156 of skill the general verdict was that the Italian excelled on the harpsichord, but the German carried away the palm on the organ.

Some time afterward, Händel was invited to a masked ball, and in the course of the evening he sat down at the harpsichord, and astonished all those present by his masterly improvisations. Presently Scarlatti came in, also en masque. Walking quickly to the instrument he listened a moment, and then called out, "It is either the devil or the Saxon!"

Händel achieved this enviable reputation when only twenty-one years of age.  

The biographer of von Bülow will find no trouble in securing anecdotes characteristic of this whimsical player and conductor, for the peculiar things he did were legion. His criticisms, while often severe, were certainly to the point and were stated without hesitation or reserve. Especially cutting were his remarks about singers. He had a great antipathy to the majority of tenor singers. One especially did he dislike, and speaking of his singing, said, "Do you call that singing? I call it a disease."

While conducting a rehearsal of "Lohengrin" at Hanover he became enraged at the singer's rendition of a certain passage and, throwing his baton at him cried, "You don't sing like a "Knight of the Swan," but like a knight of the swine!"

A caller once noticed as the principal picture in his apartments that of the leader of the ballet. On his friend's expressing surprise, Bülow said, "Yes, she is the only woman of the artists on the stage who does not distress me by bad singing."

When this eccentric pianist met any one to whom for any reason he took a dislike, he would turn and hasten away in an opposite direction. Once in Copenhagen an