356 Ohitaary. 



duriug his holidays, and at Ironbridge he practised on the organ in 

 Coalbrookdale Church. He became organist there in 1877, just before 

 he came to London. He first heard orchestral music in Bath. Here 

 also his mother took him to his first opera. He attended a performance 

 of "Elijah" in Worcester Cathedral in 1872 — his first choir and organ 

 performance. Another stimulus towards music was the piano recitals- 

 given by Rubinstein at Birmingham in 1875. Here he has said that 

 he heard for the first time the real thing, and in consequence his own 

 music improved enormously. 



The hard medical work at Norwood did not lessen his desire for 

 music. He could generally manage to find a little spare time for 

 playing the piano and to go to concerts. He was a frequent visitor to 

 the opera. In later years he became a Fellow of the Royal Philharmonic 

 Society. His figure was well known in the musical world. 



He was quite broad-minded in his music, but he had, if anything, a 

 preference for the works of Wagner. He was present at the first 

 performances at Bayreuth, and was a member of the Patronat Verein. 

 He went to almost every festival until about 1895. One instance 

 showing his broad-mindedness was a visit to Stuttgart to hear the first 

 performance of the new opera "Ariadne," by R. Strauss. Whether he 

 . played the works of Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Franck, Debussy, 

 Tschaikovsky, Strauss or others, all were rehearsed by Plimmer with 

 equal patience, and in addition their developnient was carefully studied. 

 For several years he gave recitals of music to his friends in his music 

 room, 3 Hall Road. It was extraordinary for a man so busy in other 

 fields to find the time and to give renderings which were a revelation. 



He wrote an analysis of Sinding's pianoforte quintette, and two 

 articles on the Bayreuth Festival of 1891 in the Musical News, and a 

 long article, "A Great Conductor," in the Times of March IS, 1911. 

 He was well acquainted with many of the foremost musicians of his 

 time. 



Fine literary gifts were also included in his mentality. During his 

 early life at Ironbridge he read a great deal, in particular the works 

 of Carlyle, Emerson, and Ruskin. At the same time he taught him- 

 self German and French, and added enormously to his school-boy 

 knowledge of Latin and Greek. He had correspondence with Ruskin, 

 for whom he translated a passage from the German. By Ruskin he 

 is mentioned in " Fors Clavigera " " as a young student belonging to 

 the working class," and he had a letter from Carlyle. He visited 

 Carlyle in his Chelsea home whilst he hved at Norwood. Later he 

 became acquainted with William Morris and visited Kelmscott House. 

 He knew Hubert Herkomer and many other distinguished literary 

 men. He was most intimate with George Meredith, who visited him 

 annually in the earlier years of their friendship. Throughout his busy 

 life literature always occupied part of his time. He collected a large and 

 valuable library. Many of his best books were secured by chance. He 

 could not and never cared to pay a large price for a book, and was not 

 in the ordinary sense a book collector. His scholarship in literature is 

 only dimly seen in the few articles which he wrote outside his scientific 

 papers. The following are some of these articles : — 



