Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/180

168 the ladies were soon overcome with delight; some even fainted!

In telling a friend of the matter afterward, Liszt said: "Believe me, I played many wrong notes intentionally; indeed, so palpable were some of my errors, that had I been playing at any elementary music school I should certainly have been expelled as an impostor!"

So much for the power of imagination. Had some other than Liszt played the same music perfectly, the ladies would have thought it not worth their while to faint.  

The matters called "time" and "accent" in music are stumbling-blocks for many a pupil and for many people who profess to understand the tone-art. If music students have trouble in understanding these subjects, it is small wonder that so stupid a body as the average court jury should need a detailed explanation of these somewhat common technical terms; and it would need a musician who not only understood his subject, but one who was able to express his ideas in clear, terse language, and to employ apt illustration, to elucidate the matter.

Such a musician was found, when, in 1833, there came up for trial before an English court a case of violation of copyright, and Cooke, the composer, was called as an expert witness. In the course of the examination the following dialogue took place:—

"Now, sir," said the lawyer, "you say that these two melodies are identical but different; what am I to understand by that, sir?"

"What I said," replied Cooke, "was that the notes in the two arrangements are the same, but with a different accent, one being in common, the other in triple, time; consequently the position of the accented notes is different in the two copies." 