ABOUT "JIMMY" GLOVER.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1886, 21 October 1913, Page 5

ABOUT "JIMMY" GLOVER.

The following description of Mr. James Glover, the Drur.y Lane maestro, whose "Reminiscences" have created much interest, is supplied by a Wellingtonian who has frequently witnessed Mr. Glover's acrobatic feats on the conductor's dais:—

"Why do people call Mr. Glover 'Jimmy'? Why not 'James'? Just becauso you couldn't. You couldn't possibly call Mr. Glover 'James.' No James could bustle on to tho stage as ho does. No James could make that funny little hop on to,the conductor's dais. Then he must be 'Jimmy' to conduct ns ho does. No James could conduct as if he were playing tennis or fighting his way, sword in hand, as through a cavalry charge. To do these things you have to be just a 'Jimmy.' Jimmy Glover's cpnducting is a study in calisthenics, and something more than that. Ho conducts alternately, or in combination, with baton, hands, and crushed opera hat. Having used his baton for all sorts of sweepings, pointings, dartings, and undor-cuts, ho suddenly grows weary of it. To his left hand he say 'Take away that bauble'; and, held horizontally with the left hand, the baton merely becomes tho base 'for the right hand to bounce up and down upon to set the rhythm. To get jaunty effects, Mr .Glover drops his baton altogether, and plays merrily away, on an imaginary concertina. , To rouse a given section of the band into prominence, he pitches imaginary tennis balls at them. Hi's mightiest blasts from the trombones -he obtains by hauling tho notes out with imaginary ropes. Having done sp, he suddenly becomes scared. He retreats backwards along his dais as though, having sown the storm, he dreads-the whirlwind. Recovering himself, ho quells th? tumult bv holding up two warning hands, as a constable would do to a motorist exceeding the legal limit. Frequently he will direct his conducting to tho people in the private boxes, as though he suspected that a gentleman might havo a clarinet up his coat sleevo, or that somo lady might havo a pair of castanets hidden away with'her powder-puff. His sword-slashing is used to. produce a mightly climax. At the finale you,expect to see the heads of six clarinet players roll into the dust and tho saxophone deprived of an eye. But they come out scathless. At the last moment of the fray Glover flings himself round, faces the audience, and gives two triumphant concluding cuts at them, , as much as to say, 'There I am Jimmy Glover, at your service.' So unexpected and so comic is it all that tho audience bursts into laughter as well as applause, for, however solemn ho may look and ho tries to look very solemn—Glover has been fashioned by Nature as a comedian. Sometimes he himself has to relax, into a smile. But when lie doesn't he, always seems to havo his tongue in his cheek and a twinklo somewhere at the back of his eye. His poso as lie .receives his sustained rounds of applause is still more diverting. Standing passively, with his baton resting on his hip like a sceptre, ho becohies, for the time being, a comic James 111 Rex, and receives the homago of his subjects accordingly."