Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/84

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72
ANECDOTES OF GREAT MUSICIANS

of his manuscript. He searched high and low, but nowhere could he find them. He called in the servant, but she was as ignorant as he of their whereabouts. Finally, when he had given up the search and was about to sit down to rewrite the Kyrie, the missing part, some loose papers with notes on them were discovered in the kitchen. They were brought up to his room, and there, begrimed by soot and dust, was the missing music.

The servant had removed them from his room one day when "clearing up," and had used the precious sheets to wrap some superannuated pots and kettles! As to Beethoven's words on this interesting occasion, deponent sayeth not.

72.—A PATTI RECEPTION THAT SHE DIDN'T RECEIVE.

There was once a glorious reception for Adelina Patti which did not come off as per programme. She was expected to arrive in New York on a certain steamer, and her manager, in order to stir up public interest in her appearance, chartered sixteen huge tugboats. These, covered with bunting, were to range themselves on each side of her vessel as it steamed into the harbor, and by means of their steam whistles and military bands which they were to carry, such a racket was to be raised as to leave no one in doubt that Patti had arrived.

Besides this there was to be a salute of twenty-one guns at Sandy Hook, and the opera chorus was to sing a cantata which Arditi had written for the occasion.

But as luck would have it, owing to the fog, the ocean steamer was not perceived until it had arrived almost at its anchorage. Patti disembarked unobserved and took a cab for her hotel "as happy as though twenty boats had come down the bay to meet me," she said.