George Bernard Shaw, his life and works; a critical biography (authorized) . ch to Wagner, with which his mother and Leewere so familiar. While he was yet a small boy, he whistled andsang, from the first bar to the last, not only the operas hefrequently heard, but also the many oratorios rendered fromtime to time by the musical society. Indeed, Mr. Shaw onceremarked that, besides their respectability, the chief merit of hisfamily was a remarkable aptitude for playing all sorts of windinstruments by ear, even his father playing Home, SweetHome upon the flute. Before he was fifteen, Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw, his life and works; a critical biography (authorized) . ch to Wagner, with which his mother and Leewere so familiar. While he was yet a small boy, he whistled andsang, from the first bar to the last, not only the operas hefrequently heard, but also the many oratorios rendered fromtime to time by the musical society. Indeed, Mr. Shaw onceremarked that, besides their respectability, the chief merit of hisfamily was a remarkable aptitude for playing all sorts of windinstruments by ear, even his father playing Home, SweetHome upon the flute. Before he was fifteen, Bernard Shawknew at least one important work by Handel, Mozart, Bee-thoven, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi andGounod from cover to cover. Not only did he whistle thethemes to himself as a street boy whistles music-hall songs, buthe also sang incessantly, to himself and for himself, opera andoratorio, in an absurd gibberish which was Italian picked upby ear—and Irish Italian at that. No one ever taught himmusic in his youth, but when he grew up, although he had a 18. La. inda Elizabi Hi• Gnrly i shau. Vandalt ur Lee. George CarrShaw. Reproduced from a copy, by Bernard Shaw, of the original photograph by RichardPigott. forger of the Parnell letters. Taken in 1 863. [rntp. DUBLIN DAYS very indifferent voice, he took some singing lessons under hismother. At first, he found that he could not make a rightlyproduced sound that was audible two yards off. But he learnedreadily, under the competent instruction of his mother, andnow his voice, a commonplace baritone of the most ordinaryrange, B flat to F, and French pitch preferred for the F, isdistinguished rather by audibility than in any other is noteworthy that the lessons he learned from his mother—the secrets of breathing and enunciation—proved of incalculablevalue to him afterwards on the platform, in the strenuous daysof his dialectical warfare. Although Bernard Shaw idled away his time at school, thevery r
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