repulsion. The muse who guides
the dreamings of the Russian artist is a sombre and heavy-lidded lady,
but most sombre, I think, when she moves in the brain of the musician.
Then she wears the glooms and sables of the hypochondriac. She does not
"nerve us with incessant affirmations." Rather, she enervates us with
incessant dubitations. It is more than a relief to leave the crowded
Promenade, after a Tchaikowsky symphony, to stroll in the dusky glitter
of Langham Place, and return to listen the clear, cool tones of Mozart,
as sparkling and as gracious as a May morning! Next to Tchaikowsky, Sir
Henry gives us much of Wagner and Beethoven and Mendelssohn. I can never
understand why Mendelssohn is played nowadays. His music always seems to
me to be so provincial and gentlemanly and underbred as to remind one of
a county ball. I am sure he always composed in a frock-coat, silk hat,
and lavender gloves. When he is being played, many of us have to rush
away and saunter in the foyer.

Usually the programme contains some examples of modern French music (a
delicate horror by Ravel, perhaps) and of the early Italians. You will
get something sweet and suave and restful by Palestrina or Handel, and
conclude, perhaps, with a tempest of Berlioz.

During the season of the Promenades, there are also excellent concerts
going on in the lost districts of London. There is, to begin with, the
Grand Opera season at the Old Vic. in Waterloo Road, where you can get a
box for one-and-sixpence, and a seat in the gallery for twopence. The
orchestra is good, and the singers are satisfactory. The operas include
"Daughter of the Regiment," and run through Verdi and some of Wagner to
Mascagni and Charpentier. The audience is mostly drawn from the
surrounding streets, the New Cut and Lower Marsh. It wears its working
clothes, and it smokes cut Cavendish; but there is not a whisper from
the first bar of the overture to the curtain. The chorus is drawn from
the local clubs, and a very live and intelligent chorus it is. Then
there are the Saturday evening concerts at the People's Palace in
Whitechapel, at the Surrey Masonic Hall, in Camberwell, at Cambridge
House, and at Vincent Square. In each case the programme is distinctly
classical. It is only popular in the sense that the prices are small and
the performers' services are honorary. Many a time have I attended one
of these concerts, because I knew I should hear there some old, but
obscure, classic t