Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/47

Rh 

While the great composers have, as a general thing, had remarkably retentive memories for musical matters, some of them were not so good at remembering other things. Rossini was one of these. He had a remarkably poor memory for names but could remember faces. On one occasion he met Bishop, the English composer, and, recognizing him, started to greet him with:

"Oh! my dear Mr. ," but he could get no farther. The name was gone. But to show Bishop that he remembered the man, if not the name, he began to whistle Bishop's chorus, "When the Wind Blows." This was a compliment that the "English Mozart," as Bishop has been called, was not slow to recognize.  

Hans von Bülow, was considered by the political authorities of Berlin and Leipzig as a great nuisance as well as a great musician. This arose from the fact that he persisted in interpolating in the speeches he frequently made at his concerts, remarks of a political nature, and often they were of a decided incendiary cast.

In the latter city this "concert preacher" as he was called, was compelled by the police to sign a promise not to speak a word at his concerts, not even to announce the date of his next appearance. And this was not two hundred years ago, either, as one might suppose from the denial of the right of speech, but was in our own times, in a supposable free country.

But it was in Berlin that he had a still greater difficulty with the powers that be. Having conceived a strong dislike for the government intendant, that official which had control of the operatic performances, who in this case happened to be Count von Hulsen, he referred to him in one of his impromptu concert speeches in a