THE MYSTERY OF A MELODY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 27

THE MYSTERY OF A MELODY

Pianos look prosaic enough to most if us, but they have given Mr. Hermon 3arewski several strange experiences (says a writer in "John o' London's iVeekly"). In South Africa he and i friend were travelling by road to Pretoria when, near Laing's Nek, where 3 battle was fought in the first Boer War, they were overtaken by a violent hunderstorm. Hurriedly they made for ;he only available shelter, a deserted farmhouse, where they made themselves as comfortable" as possible. In one room was an ancient piano at which Mr. Darewski seated himself and began to play. Soon, he says, I found :oming into my mind an exquisite melody that I immediately allowed myself to drift into intending to write it down as soon as I had completed it.

"By jove, Darewski," said Simpson, "that's a good tune."

"Well, lend me a pencil," I returned, 'I don't think it's so bad myself."

Then and there I wrote it down,

For the moment he forgot all about it. Then, later, hu went to a concert in Cape Town, where, we are told, he ?ieard this same melody in a, song sung by a young Dutchman. After the concert he went round to see the singer:

"Who wrote that song?" I asked him. 'I would like to buy a copy."

"I'm afraid you can't do that," he said. "I found this in an old shop in manuscript. It appears that' it came from the effects of a Boer farmer, who died years ago. I believe he was killed at the first battle at Laing's Nek, in 1881. It was his own composition."

He never found out anything more about it—but still has the piece of music as he wrote it down.

Another old farmhouse, this time on the Continent, gave him another un:anny experience. Here he found a beautiful old French piano:

I played on it. Its tone was still as full of melody as ever, and I remember one night, tired out after the heat of the day, I fell asleep.

It came to me as a dream—a melody that subsequently was a tremendous success in London. I seemed to hear it being played on that piano by white and delicate hands, and tl;e dream was so vivid and the melody so defined that I had no difficulty in writing it when I awoke.

On his return to London Mr. Darswski mentioned this incident to a musical friend, from whom he learnt that this piano had belonged to "one of the greatest of all French composers who had actually lived in that very farmhouse, and he described this master's hand that I had seen." Unfortunately, he does not give the composer's name.

But however the tunes came, the words of some of Mr. Darewski's songs had more everyday origins. One called "If You Could Care for Me," for which Arthur Wimperis wrote the lyric, was the result of hearing a conversation on top of a bus between a soldier and a girl. He was saying: "If you could care for me," and it immediately struck Wimperis that here was a good title.

Mr. Darewski was once chatting with De Groot, the violinist, in his dressingroom when' in bounded an excited Frenchman. He congratulated De Groot, saying, "As a fellow artist, I say you are wonderful! Your skill — ah! it is superb." He then pointed to De Groot's violin, which was being carefully returned to its case:—

"Ah, yes, you love your instrument, just as I love mine, is it not so?"

Feeling sure that he was a brother artist, and overwhelmed by his compliments, De Groot endeavoured . to square matters, by assuring him how much he enjoyed his performances, concluding with the question: "By the way, what is yours—your instrument, I mean?"

In the same affectionate tones that one might employ when speaking of one's beloved Strad, he answered, turning eyes heavenwards: "The trapeze!"