159.—AN ABSENT-MINDED CONDUCTOR.
We have elsewhere spoken of the growth and culmination of Robert Schumann's sad malady. The more serious phases of this affliction were preceded by an occasional absence of mind that sometimes produced ludicrous results.
A characteristic instance of his forgetfulness occurred when he was once conducting a rehearsal of Bach's "Passion Music." The choir had begun the great opening chorus and were singing bravely along, when it was noticed that his beat grew less and less decided, and finally stopped altogether. He then laid down his baton, rapidly turned over fifty or sixty pages of the score before him, and became absorbed in reading a movement in the second part of the work. The chorus kept on singing and Schumann kept on reading, utterly oblivious to what was going on around him.
After a while he became conscious of the singing, and finding that what he heard did not agree in the least with the music he was reading, he stopped the singers and cried out to them: "Good heavens! ladies and gentlemen, what on earth are you singing there?"