"Familiar Airs": A Logical Deduction
by Robert Emile
This evening I shall play the "favorite airs" played for Watson as compensation for
the melancholy, improvised solos he endured at Holmes' hand in A Study in Scarlet.
While the airs are not named in the Canon, we can identify them by adopting the Master's
method of detection and inference.
First, it is clear the airs appealed to both Holmes and Watson since they are played
from memory by the former to the obvious enjoyment of the latter. Hence, by comparing
the tastes of Holmes and Watson and looking for overlapping agreement, we can narrow
the range of choice immensely.
Let us quote the appropriate paragraph from A Study in Scarlet:
'I see,' Watson wrote, 'that I have alluded to Holmes' powers upon the violin. These
were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments. That he
could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because at my request he had
played me some of Mendelssohn's Lieder, and other favourites. When left to himself, however,
he would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognized air. Leaning back in
his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the
fiddle which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy.
Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts
which possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or whether the playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy, was more than I could have determined.
I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos had it not been that he usually
terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs
as a slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.'
We may conclude that since the Mendelssohn Lieder was played at the specific request
of Watson and the favorite airs were volunteered by Holmes, they cannot logically
be the same. Watson also rejects melancholy and fantastic solos as exasperating.
Additionally, the favorite airs must be difficult pieces since Watson so describes his favorites
in this passage. Lastly, we may also conclude that Watson's favorite airs are to
be played by the unaccompanied violin. From Watson's taste we know the favorite airs
are familiar tunes, other than Mendelssohn, unlikely to be either melancholy or fantastic,
written for solo violin and difficult to play.
As for Holmes, we know he speaks approvingly of Chopin, a French opera by Meyerbeer,
Les Heugonots, the polyphonic motets of Lassus and the music of the middle ages.
Each of these is a blind alley, however. Chopin never wrote for the solo violin.
The French opera is vocal music. Besides, Watson makes it clear in The Hound of the Baskervilles
that Holmes' interest was in seeing Irene Adler on stage, not in hearing Meyerbeer's
music. The motets of Lassus are the subject of a Holmesian monograph.(BRUC) But the motets are for several voices. Lastly, the favorite airs mentioned in A Study in
Scarlet could not be the music of the middle ages studied by Holmes. The favorite
airs date from A Study in Scarlet in 1881. But Watson describes Holmes' interest
in the music of the middle ages as "a subject recently made a hobby" in the Bruce Partington
case of 1895, fourteen years later.(BRUC) A recent hobby would not include works
that had been in a repertoire for fourteen years. So we may remove even more music
from the list of possible alternatives. In two other references, Holmes attends the second act
of a Wagner opera and plays the Tales from Offenbach in The Adventure of the Mazarin
Stone. But Wagner is heavy opera, not violin music, and, although we know Holmes
played Offenbach, he specifically said, "I shall try over the Hoffmann on my violin." This
is not the statement of one intimately familiar with a piece, able to dash it off
as the dessert to a hard-to-digest musical meal of improvised melancholia.
But how, you might ask, will we know the identity of the airs from the music that
remains? Two important clues remain in the Canon. Their application, added to our
existing list yields our musical quarry. Both clues come from The Adventure of the
Red-Headed League. Holmes asks Watson to join him at a violin concert by Sarasate and says,
"Then put on your hat and come I observe that there is a good deal of German music
on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French." That
Watson joins him clearly establishes both men enjoyed German composers. While this seemingly
leaves a broad area for exploration, the final clue points to a clear solution, although
it requires a trained musician to discern it. Watson writes, "My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer but a composer
of no ordinary merit." No composer springs forth unschooled, it requires training
and analysis of those who have gone before. Classical training in composition dwells,
more than anything else, on the study of the pure musical logic and careful construction
of one German composer. That Holmes was a gifted composer makes it clear he would
be schooled in this giant; a master whose very style of craft, logic and careful
construction forms a musical parallel to Holmes' own logical method. Further evidence of this
particular favorite comes from Holmes' insistence in A Study in Scarlet in seeing
the foremost female violinist of his day, Madame Neruda, who at the age of seven
became renowned for playing a sonata by this composer.(STUD) The master is none other than
Johann Sebastian Bach who is German, logical, the model for composition students,
composer of familiar but difficult music for unaccompanied violin that is neither
melancholy nor fantastical. In fact, from among his work the antithesis of the fantastical is
the country dance. Therefore, I am certain that at the end of his exasperating improvised
solos, Holmes played Bach's "Country Dances 1 and 2" for Watson as I now play them for you.
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