From the Stanford, Kentucky Interior Journal, November 2, 1877
CRITICISM AS IS CRITICISM – When “Henry V” was produced in one of our Southern cities recently, the entire orchestra consisted of a single fiddler; and a critic upon a local journal thus reviewed his performances: “In the furious battle-scenes his bow flashed across the strings like shining strokes of swords.” The climax of the lone orchestra’s performance is thus described: “Then when the charge rested and the King stopped for breath, the fiddler stood by his post. The wounded groaned on the A string, begged for water on the E catgut, and cursed their luck on the G chord. Andante and adagio, piano and pianissimo, all the confused, pathetic and terrible scenes of the fight, were produced by the orchestra with painstaking labor, sudorific suffering and sublime skill. He crescended on the crescendo with crescending crescendation, and diminished on the diminuendo with diminishing diminution.”
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