Improvisatore

“ It was during this period that some of his talents were displayed in the manner we have described, though his great fame as an improvisatore was established more completely in later days. Yet he had already made himself a name in that species of wit—not a very high one—which found favour with the society of that period. We allude to imitation, 'taking off,' and punning. The last contemptible branch of wit-making, now happily confined to 'Punch,' is as old as variety of language. ”

“ In my opinion, the immense crowds of people hanging with open mouths upon the lips of an improvisatore only prove that, in spite of the contempt into which poetry has fallen, it still possesses that power over the minds and the brains of men which their tongues deny it. Cristoforo Altissimo, a poet of the fifteenth century, is said to have publicly improvised his epic in octave stanzas on the Reali di Francia ”

“ Considering their limitations, their faculty for versification is often really remarkable, and it is not unusual to find among them a singer that will improvise with as much facility as an Italian improvisatore. ”

“ Could you not choose another?"
But the improvisatore already felt the approach of the god. . . . He gave a sign to the musicians to play. His face became terribly pale; he trembled as if in a fever ; his eyes sparkled with a strange fire; he raised with his hand his dark hair, wiped with his handkerchief his lofty forehead, covered with beads of perspiration. . . . then suddenly stepped forward and folded his arms across his breast. . . . the musicians ceased. . . . the improvisation began:
"The palace glitters ”

“ The charm of improvisation lies, of course, in this, that we hear a composer creating and playing at the same time. This very fact, however, ought to make us cautious not to overestimate the value of such improvisations. For we all know how a great genius can invest even a commonplace idea with charm by his manner of expressing or rendering it. It is probable, therefore, that in most cases these improvisations, if noted down and played by others, would not make as deep an impression as the regularly [85] written compositions of the great masters. It is with music as with literature. ”

“ In Japanese literary history, I am told, there are some very interesting examples of improvisation. For example, the story of that poetess who, on being asked to compose a poem including the mention of something square, something round, and something triangular, wrote those celebrated lines about unfastening one corner of a mosquito-curtain in order to look at the moon. Among Europeans improvisation is now almost a lost art in poetry, except among the Italians. Some Italian families still exist in which the art of poetical improvisation has been cultivated for hundreds of years. ”

“ Under the pretext that an improvisation is not so good as one of Sebastian Bach’s or Mendelssohn’s masterpieces, young organists have stopped improvising.
That point of view is harmful because it is absolutely false; it is simply the negation of eloquence. Consider what the legislative hall, the lecture room and the court would be like if nothing but set pieces were delivered. We are familiar with the fact that many an orator and lawyer, who is brilliant when he talks, becomes dry as dust when he tries to write. The same thing happens in music. ”

“ We come then to what is called the faculty of improvisation. How much is meant by this term? Is the extempore oration, "the unpremeditated lay," in truth a subliminal product? or have we to do merely with the rapid exercise of ordinary powers?
In the first place, it is clear that much of what is called improvisation is a matter of memory. The so-called secondary automatism which enables the pianist to play a known piece without conscious attention passes easily into improvisations which the player himself may genuinely accept as original ”

“ Most of them claim inspiration for the great practitioners of their art; but wonderful is the unanimity with which they dissociate this from improvisation. They are sticklers for the rules of the game. ”

“ Among a people who look to music and song as a source of enjoyment, the habit of improvisation grows up imperceptibly, and engages all the fertilities of imagination in its exercise. The thought which first finds vent in a poetical form, if worth preservation, is polished and perfected as it passes from lip to lip, till it receives the stamp of popular approval, and becomes as it were a national possession. ”

“ Improvisation in music is greatly cultivated and esteemed. Most of our celebrated musicians have been great improvisers. Those who heard such music would regret that it could not be reproduced, not even by the musician himself. ”

“ An improvisator with the characteristic faults of redundance and verbosity, he wrote far too much, and in most of his numbers there are numerous technical flaws. Yet the richness of his imagery, the movement, fire and variety of his versification, will preserve some few of his poems in the anthologies. ”

“ Welding looked him up and down, an expression of annoyance struggled with one of undisguised interest in his face, as he replied--
"You appear to gauge the musical knowledge of your audience quite correctly, if you venture to offer them such things. They hear the air, and are contented; but sometimes there are exceptions. For instance, it would interest me very much to know from whom certain variations emanate, which utterly change the character of the whole; and as regards the finale, entirely; was this daring improvisation, perhaps, the attempt of an amateur also?" ”

“ Thus far, then, we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in iambic or in heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree?
Very true.
And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth?
Certainly.
And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed? ”

“ It is only on the score of technique, the mere rule of thumb business, that we stand below the serious amateurs; we belong to a higher order of beings and have grander souls; in spirit we come nearer to the great masters. The motives of the serious amateur are not above suspicion. In his assiduous practice, his limited repertoire, his studied semi-public style of performance, is there not a suggestion of vanity? Is his conscious parade of skill, taken along with his fear of unknown works, the mark of a selfless devotion to music, and music alone? ”

“ While one is imitating a copy, he may, indeed, write legibly, nay, even elegantly; for he has nothing to attend to, save the formation of the letters. But when one is writing a report or a sermon or a poem, his mind is busy with something besides chirography.
The fact is, that men seldom succeed well in doing more than one thing at a time. The itinerant musician who imitates the various instruments of a full band, may be detected in an occasional discord. ”

“ To speak metrically or rhythmically is no difficult matter if one is in the atmosphere or habit of verse-making; and there is nothing surprising either in the feats of memory or of improvisation performed by the minstrels and balladists of the old time. The faculty of improvising was easily developed and was very generally used by people of all classes. ”

“ If a performer has sufficient imaginative faculty to do this—if he can so enter into the spirit of his part, as himself to believe in the marvels he professes, he will achieve an almost unlimited mastery over the imaginations of his audience.
As we have already intimated, each individual illusion should have its appropriate words and gestures—in technical language, its “patter,” or “boniment”—carefully arranged and rehearsed, so as to produce the maximum of effect. These are, in truth, the very life of the trick. ”

“ Could we, who have perhaps more than once disappointed the public in ourself, venture to believe we had the power to excite its expectations in another, we would fain hazard the prediction of a great and a deserved popularity for the said novel, whenever it appear. Every one knows that the writer of the Improvisatrice can command, at will, the auxiliaries of sentiment, thought, imagination, and an exceeding richness of imagery and glow of diction ”

“ On a much lower level we distinguish the hyperbole and rapid development in descriptions of persons and events which are lit up by humorous intention in the speaker—we distinguish this charming play of intelligence which resembles musical improvisation on a given motive, where the farthest sweep of curve is looped into relevancy by an instinctive method, from the florid inaccuracy or helpless exaggeration which is really something commoner than the correct simplicity often depreciated as prosaic. ”

“ For my own part, I confess, I am not only very much disposed to maintain the absolute necessity of imitation in the first stages of the art; but am of opinion that the study of other masters, which I here call imitation, may be extended throughout our whole lives, without any danger of the inconveniences with which it is charged, of enfeebling the mind, or preventing us from giving that original air which every work undoubtedly ought always to have. ”

“ The patter for a given trick, once composed, and tested by a few performances in public, may thenceforth, so far as the professional is concerned, [202] be left to take care of itself. It should automatically improve with each of its earlier repetitions as good wine improves in bottle. Faults will correct themselves, and being made perfect by practice, the performer will thenceforth be able to “speak his piece” without effort, and devote his whole energies to the actual working of the trick. ”

“ Careful rehearsal, preferably before an expert friend, will furnish the best hints as to the danger-spots in the working of a trick, and how best to devise patter to meet them.
A final word of advice—advice that has been often given, but cannot be too often repeated if you really aim to carry your audience with you. Never lose sight of the fact that you are, in the words of Robert-Houdin, “an actor playing the part of a magician,” and take your office seriously. In particular, never before an audience use the word “trick,” which at once gives away all your pretension to magical power. ”

“ The improvising musician and his audience act and react upon each other; the latter receive the direct impression of the artist's individuality and power, and feel themselves, as it were, let into the secret of his method of producing the works which delight them, while the former is inspired to fresh efforts of genius by his consciousness of possessing the sympathy of his hearers. ”

“ The earlier examples, which succeed the Roland, are unlike that great work in having no plan, no system of composition. They are improvisations which wander on at their own pace, whither accident may carry them. ”

“ When we come to the element of impersonation, we are nearer the heart of dramatic art, and perhaps deeper into the circle of the child's interests and instincts as well. Imitation is one of the absolute and fundamental aspects of a child's activities. It is impossible to escape calling it an instinct, when one sees that it is deeper and more universal than any impulse or tendency. The interpretation put by more recent psychologists upon the term and the fact of imitation throws a new and grateful light upon it as a principle in drama. ”

“ When the play is in verse, or in rhythmical prose, it does not gain by the change, and a company of amateurs, if they love literature, and are not self-conscious, and really do desire to do well, can often make a better hand of it than the ordinary professional company. ”

“ The companies of professional actors, endowed with that marvelous power of improvisation which the very language of Italy seems to stimulate, hardly permitted the poet to offer them more than a mere outline of a shallow plot, to be filled in from scene to scene at the impulse of the moment on the stage! ”

“ We have had the spectacle of a society, that goes through a flippant imitation of living, engaged in being polite to people who imitate at second hand, in song, and color, and story. Some smart people have even taken to those arts, thus imitating the professional imitators. As far as the smart point of view goes, I couldn't do anything better than go in for the studio, or novelistic business. The dull people whom smartness has rubbed to a thin polish would conspire in calling me clever. Is there anything more dreadful than being called clever? ”

“ Most amateurs in the art of magic, and also only too many professional performers, place their reliance mainly upon the trick itself—the deceptive manipulation or the novel apparatus—and are satisfied to get out of it what they can. ”

“ One more point before this part of rehearsing is dispensed with: amateur productions suffer largely from a lack of continuous tension and variety. Often the action is slow, jerky, and consequently tedious. ”

“ In many cases, no doubt, it is the plain and literal fact that the impulse to write some play--any play--exists, so to speak, in the abstract, unassociated with any particular subject, and that the would-be playwright proceeds, as he thinks, to set his imagination to work, and invent a story. ”

“ And here lies the difference between creators and imitators: the creator tells what passes in his own world—the imitator does not. The imitator abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees. He is like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he has traveled. ”