In some theatres, the chef d'orchestre strikes an attitude of total disrespect towards the picture. He makes up his musical program as if he were giving a concert, not at all with the view of effectively accompanying the action on the screen. In a theatre on Second Avenue in New York, for example, I have heard an orchestra play the whole of Beethoven's First Symphony as an accompaniment to Irene Fenwick's performance of The Woman Next Door. As the symphony came to an end before the picture, it was supplemented by Waldteufel's waltz, Les Patineurs. The result, in this particular instance, was neither altogether incongruous nor particularly displeasing, and it occurred to me that if one had to listen to music while the third act of Hedda Gabler were being enacted, one would prefer to hear something like Boccherini's celebrated minuet or a light Mozart melody rather than anything ostensibly contrived to suit the situation.
On the other hand, there are certain accompanists for pictures who remind one by their methods of the anxiety of Richard Strauss to describe every peacock and bean mentioned in any of his opera-books. If a garden is exposed on the screen, these players swing into. The flowers that bloom in the spring; a love scene is the signal for Un peu d'amour; a religious episode suggests. The Rosary to these ingenuous musi-
