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best told in the words of Mr. Mackinlay, who is my authority for the story.
" Foli was singing Cooke's famous duet ' Love and War' with a tenor. During the tenor solo, which was on the subject of love, instead of the soft, rippling music as written, burst out a thunderous accompaniment descriptive of war. The singer finished somehow, with great difficulty preserving his gravity. Then Foli began to bellow forth the terrors of war, when there came from the piano an absurd little pastoral accompaniment in the treble, suggestive of babbling brooks and bleating lambs, with the occasional call of the cuckoo. Foli tried hard to keep grave, but at last had to give up the struggle and walk off the platform roaring with laughter. Naylor won his bet."
Naylor was a very fine accompanist, who could transpose anything at sight into any key, a faculty possessed in an equal degree by another accompanist, Henry Bird. Foli was a singer who called for strenuous efforts on the part of his accompanist, his voice being so extraordinarily broad and deep, and Bird relates how once, when he was accompanying the great basso, the latter turned to him between the verses and in a loud voice said, "Slam it out, Bird, slam it out!'
Though Henry Bird has only recently celebrated the jubilee of his first London concert, he |
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