ENCORES.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 16, 15 July 1893, Page 10

ENCORES.

Nothing that is new and at the same time true can he written on the encore question, hut it seems to he advisable (writes the Sydney Echo) to repeat once more the old, old truism—that the system of encores, even in moderation, is of doubtful advantage, and that when carried to excess it is absolutely intolerable. The question has been asked again and again, without any satisfactory answer being vouchsafed - Why should a singer or any other musician be expected to give forty shillings for a sovereign, when no other public entertainer is required to do the like P Dickens tells of an enthusiastic youngster who cried “ hencore ” at the : end of a five-act drama, but he does not record that the company performed another drama by way of acknowledgment. Probably the only way to mitigate the evil—for it is an evil that programmes should he unduly lengthened and artists overfatigued through the greed of the least remunerative section of the audience—is for singers to repeat the last verse of the song which obtains the encore, and for those who perform on various instruments to adopt a similar course. This would probably diminish the number of encores, and cause a proportionate saving of time and labour. The only concerts at which' indiscriminate encores are a genuine boon are those amateur, or semi-amateur, entertainments, where the performers are few and the programmes unnaturally meagre.