Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1901 — “BONA FIDE ‘AMERICAN.’” [ARTICLE]

“BONA FIDE ‘AMERICAN.’”

Aa It Was Taught to a Foreigner with a Good Memory. Dr. William Mason tells, in the Century, a good anecdote of the violinist Remenyi. I have already had something to say of Eduard Remenyi, the Hungarian violinist who accompanied Brahms to Weimar in 1853. He was a talented man, and was esteemed by Liszt as being, in his way, a good violinist. He belonged to the class typified by Ole Bull, but did not achieve so great a reputation. He remained at Weimar after Brahms left there, and I became intimately acquainted with him. He was very entertaining, and so full of fun that he would have made a tiptop Irishman. He was at home in the Gipsy music of his own country, and this waa the main characteristic of his playing. He had also a fad for playing Schubert melodies on the violin with the most attenuated pianissimo effects, and occasionally his hearers would listen intently after the tone had ceased, imagining that they still heard a trace of it. Not long before leaving Weimar I had some fun with him by asking if he had ever heard “any bona fide American spoken.” He replied that he did not know there was such a language. “Well,” said I, “listen to this for a specimen: ‘Ching-a-ling-a-dardee, Chebung cum Susan.’ ” I did not meet him again until 1878, 24 years after leaving Weimar. I was going upstairs to my studio in the Steinway building, when some one told me that Remenyi had arrived and was rehearsing for his concerts in one of the rooms above. So, going up, I followed the sounds of the violin, gave a quick knock, opened the door and went in. Remenyi looked at me for a moment, rushed forward and seized my hand, and as he wrung it cried out: “Ching-a-ling-a-dardee, Chebung cum Susan!” He had remembered it all those years.