Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/261

Rh was some cause for this, as witness the following: Intending to dine at a certain inn, Händel ordered dinner for three. He waited a while, and, as the dinner did not put in an appearance, he asked why the delay. The waiter replied,

"It shall be sent up, sir, as soon as your company arrives."

"Den bring up de tinner prestissimo. I am de gombany!"  

A peculiarity about the singing of French artists is a tendency toward a nasal quality of tone. This probably owes its origin to the language and, perhaps, somewhat to the French school of singing. So whenever Frenchmen condemn a singer for using a nasal quality we may be sure the peculiarity was quite pronounced. Such was the case with a singer of the last century named Larivee who sinned so much in this nasal respect that when he appeared he was frequently greeted with the remark, "That nose has really a fine voice."

How many noses we may listen to in the average congregation that can hardly be said to have good voices; or, perchance, we might put it, how many voices which have defective noses.  

It is to Ferdinand Ries that we are indebted for many particulars as to the life and habits of Beethoven. This great master lived a solitary life, and for this reason our records of him are not so complete as to details as are the accounts of some of the other great composers. It is said that Ries, who, by the way, was a pupil of Beethoven, gave way to the temptation to "draw the long bow" occasionally, and that some of his statements concerning Beethoven are more or less tinged by his imagination. 