My Musical Recollections. By Wilhelm Kuhe. (Bentley and Son.)—Herr Kuhe
was born more than seventy years ago. lie remembers many curious things that he has seen or heard him- self ; he has recorded not a few remarkable reminiscences of others. Here is a story of Mozart, who died in 1791. In Don Giovanni Zerlina cries out for help ; the actress who was rehearsing did not scream out energetically enough to please the maestro. He crept unnoticed on to the stage and pinched the girl's arm. She shrieked in earnest. " Admirable 1" he said, " mind you scream like that to.night." At five years of age Kuhe was taken to hear Paganini, and carried home a scrap of melody which he "contrived to pick out, more or loss accurately, on the piano." In 1845 he came to London, and with this begins a series of reminiscences which includes every musical celebrity that has visited the Metropolis during the last half-century,—Sims Reeves, Michael Costa, Jenny Lind, Lablache, father and son (Lablache the elder never visited England again after receiving an Income- tax return), Mario, Madame Albani, Arthur Sullivan, are some of them. He has something to tell us about scores of others, and is always pleasant and kindly, sometimes very entertaining. One of his amusing experiences as a conductor was this i—A gentle- man of good birth, who wanted to make for himself a career such as that of the late Mr. Grain, offered a large sum for permission to give a comic song at a classical concert. He was to be adver- tised to sing, say, "The Erl King," and was to astonish the audience with a negro melody.
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