Whistlist

An earnest bespectacled young man bowed formally to a Philadelphia audience last week, glanced at his program, nodded to his accompanist, pursed up his lips and proceeded to whistle. The Philadelphians had been fairly warned. Andrew Garth was serious about his whistling. Oldtime vaudevillians could make a living imitating canaries or mocking mocking birds. Andrew Garth was appearing as a concert artist, ambitious enough to undertake the Mad Scene from Lucia, a Schubert sonatina, the first-act love music from Wagner's Die Walkiire in which he took turns at being the orchestra, Sieglinde, the soprano, and Siegmund, the heroic tenor.

Whistler Garth, who is really Edward B. Dolbey Jr., was not to be discouraged by critics who next day questioned the artistic value of the human whistle. He had felt really frustrated at the age of 12, when his boyish soprano voice broke and his only musical outlet was whistling. He learned then to produce his tones breathing in or out, to hold a long-sustained legato, trill like a coloratura. After his graduation from Bucknell University (Class of 1928) he began his double life: Five days a week he is Edward B. Dolbey, working in his father's chemical shop. Saturdays and Sundays he is Andrew Garth, the whistler, who lists himself as such in the Philadelphia telephone directory, keeps his own studio, entertains friends who listen to his ambitions to found a whistling orchestra, produce his own opera already part written. In it the hero is a whistler.

For his public demonstrations Whistler Garth trains rigorously. He drinks only lukewarm water because anything colder will tighten the membranes of his mouth. He avoids drafts as scrupulously as if he were a sensitive high-priced singer, never brushes his teeth before whistling because, as he explains, the natural film-coating provides a necessary lubricant. A dentist tends his teeth each month or so, however, because "I couldn't whistle with false teeth, at least not a solo." Says he: "I never have known what to style myself. Perhaps I am a whistlist."

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