Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/250

238 65½ years. Another compiler of statistics finds the average of several thousand musicians to be 62½ years. He finds teachers to be the longest lived; then, following in the order given, writers, vocalists, wind instrument players, composers, organists, pianists, and, lastly, players of stringed instruments.  

Even modern advertisers might get a "pointer'* from Liszt on advertising methods. He was once billed for two concerts in a French town. The first night the audience numbered only fifty people, of whom but one was of the gentler sex. The artists gave the most of their programme, and then Liszt stepped forward and said: "Gentlemen and madam, I think you've had enough music. We now ask you to do us the honor of supping with us." As maybe expected, the audience did not decline the invitation, and they enjoyed a banquet at Liszt's expense. The next night the house was full and the pianist was more than reimbursed for his outlay on the previous evening. But the second audience "went supperless to bed," realizing that a supper did not always go with a piano recital.  

The famous baritone, Tamburini, once had an experience which showed the appreciation in which he was held by royalty. He was passing through Venice, where he was very popular and greatly idolized, on his way to Trieste to keep an operatic engagement in that city. As he, with his lovely young wife, were seated in their gondola on the way to the ship which was to carry them on their journey, they were overtaken by a Government gondola filled with armed men, and the singer was placed under arrest. He protested that he was an opera singer simply passing through Venice, that he never