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3 io The National Music of America.
the chorus, eight hundred musicians in the orchestra, proved that Gilmore disdained the retail business in music. There are always plenty of people who figure music upon arithmetical principles, i. e., if eighty musicians make good music, eight hundred must make ten times as good !
The scheme of wholesaling art proved profitable, and in 1872 another "Peace Festival" was arranged on much larger lines. A hall holding fifty thousand people; a chorus of twenty thousand members; an orchestra of two thousand musicians; a " bouquet of artists" consisting of fifty soloists who were to sing in unison or at times a dozen to a part; a number of foreign bands; a host of celebrated singers; Strauss, the waltz-king ; fifty anvils, pounded by members of the Boston fire department in full uniform; a battery of cannon to emphasise the rhythm of the " Star-spangled Banner;" these were a few of the attrac- |
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