But the fact remains, and will be for- the sounds were attributable must, I ever impressed upon my memory, that fear, remain an inexplicable mystery, the felling of the jungle at dead of night or be put down, as by the natives, to was no conjured-up fancy of a disorder- the evil machinations of a veritable ed imagination; though to what cause "Pezazi."-Macmillan's Magazine. PLAIN-SPEAKING. 66 BY THE AUTHOR OF JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." I. A LITTLE MUSIC. "WILL you favor us with a little music ?" or Such, in my young days, used to be the stereotyped request. And truly the "favor" was small; likewise the gratitude. When the music began the talking began also, louder than ever, and probably only the hostess, standing politely by the piano, was much the wiser for that feebie, florid performance of "La Source," or " Convent Bells,' or "Home, Sweet Home, with variations"-very varied indeed. Perhaps, afterward, one or two people condescended to listen to a mild interpretation of "She wore a wreath of roses, even of "The heart bowed down," and "I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls." But any one who remembers what was the standard of drawing-room vocalism a quarter of a century ago will understand how the gentle sentimentalisms of Poet Bunn and Michael Balfe sufficed all our needs. A good many of us young folks sang-some in tune, some out of tune; it did not matter much, nobody listened particularly. And some of us could play our own accompaniments-some could not. These last fared badly enough, falling into the hands of young ladies who had never been used to play at sight," or being hammered into nothing by some wild pianist who considered the accompaniment everything, the voice nothing. And, our performances over, the listen ers or non-listeners said "Thank you!" and went on talking faster than ever. All had done their duty, the evening had been helped on by "a little music' little as possible-and everybody was satisfied. -as This, I believe most middle-aged people will allow, is a fair picture of what English drawing-room music was like from five-and-twenty to thirty years ago. In the concert-room things were not much better. There were so far as I can call to mind-no educated audiences, and therefore no classical repertories to suit them. Ballads and bravuras, theatrical overtures, and pots-pourris of operatic airs, a few showy, noisy pianoforte pieces, or arrangements for violin and flute-this was the ordinary food provided for music-lovers. Such a bill of fare as nowadays true musicians revel in, of Saturday afternoons at the Crystal Palace, at the Philharmonic, or the Monday Popular, was absolutely unknown. Nobody would have cared for it. I myself remember when Mendelssohn's Lieder Ohne Worte" were first played, here and there, and nobody listened to them particularly, or thought very much of them. And sixteen years 66 ago I heard a large and fashionable audience in a provincial town keep up a steady remoreless monotone of conversation all through one of Charles Hallé's best Recitals. People do not do that now. Whenever or wherever you go to hear a Beethoven symphony, you have the comfort of hearing it in silence. Nevertheless, to a great many people might still be applied the withering sarcasm which was hurled at myself the other day, on daring to own to an artist that I did not admire all Old Masters. "Madam, there are people who, if you play to them a fugue of Bach's, will answer, 'Yes, fine!' but in their hearts they prefer Pop goes the weasel.' very It is in the hope of raising the masses from this depth of musical degradation that I am tempted to use a little plainspeaking. If we believe, as most of us do, in our own great superiority to our grandfathers and grandmothers, why not hope that our grandchildren may be superior to ourselves? The old ways are not always the best ways, and the weakest argument one can use against a new thing is its being new. With unalloyed pleasure I admit in how many things I have seen the world improve-even in my own time. For instance, last night I heard a young lady scarcely out of her teens give IIandel's "Whene'er you walk" in a thin soprano, certainly, but with perfectly true intonation and correct taste. Her mother accompanied her, and afterward played a page or two of dear old Corelli in a way to refresh any musical soul. And I have lately been staying in a peaceful provincial family, where the father and son sang "The Lord is a man of war" almost as well as I had heard it at the Handel Festival the week before; and where, out of business hours, the whole house was alive with music, one boy playing the violin, another the organ, a. third the pianoforte, and all being able to take up a glee or anthem and sing it at sight, without hesitation or reluctance. Of course this implies a considerable amount of natural musical faculty, as well as of cultivation. The chief reason of the low standard of what may be called domestic music, in England, where professional music is as good as anywhere in Europe, is not so much the lack of talent as of education. A professional musician of long experience said to me the other day that he believed everybody had a voice and an ear-a fact certainly open to doubt. But, undoubtedly, the number of persons, male and female, who have voices and ears, and could-with some little trouble-be made into musicians, is sufficiently numerous to prove that we have only ourselves to blame if the present state of English drawing-room music is well! all true musicians and music-lovers know what it is, and how much they have to endure. can be nothing to the positive agonies of those others, blessed, or cursed, with a sense of time and tune, when doomed to be auditors of "a little music." As to the instrumental, one braces one's nerves for what is going to happen; but when it comes to the vocal, one often feels inclined to put one's fingers in one's ears and scream. The torture-I use the word deliberately-that it is to sit and smile at a smiling young lady singing flat, perhaps a quarter of a tone, with the most delightful unconsciousness, or pounding away at a deafening accompaniment, which is sometimes a blessing, as it hides all errors of voice and style! And what patience it takes to say Thank you!" to a young man who has perhaps a really fine voice and great love for music, but has never learned his notes, and sings entirely from ear. Consequently his unhappy accompanyist has to run after him, stopping out a crotchet here, and lengthening a quaver there; abolishing time altogether, and only too glad to be "in at the death" with a few extempore chords. Yet both these young sinners probably consider themselves, and are considered by their friends, as accomplished performers. 66 the There is a delusive tradition that music is an accomplishment," and those who exercise it must be " performers." Whereas it is an art, or rather a science, as exact a science as mathematics (which, perhaps, accounts for the fact that many mathematicians have been also musicians), and all who pursue it ought to be careful, conscientious, laborious students. Thoroughness in anything is good and right-thoroughness in music is indispensable. While pianoforte and singing" are taught merely as superficial branches of education, with a view to showing off, so as to play a well-taught piece or sing a bravura song, so long will the standard of music remain as low as it now is among our young people. They may be performers, after a fashion, but they will never be artists. For the true artist in any art thinks less of himself than of his art, and the great charm of music, to all educated musicians, is that it is a combination art. That is, the aim of it is not-at least never should be-simply to exhibit one's self, but to be able to take a part in a whole, and so contribute 66 66 a to the general benefit and enjoyment of society. Therefore, a pianoforte player who hasn't brought her music, vocalist who doesn't know that duet -has never learned it," or a part-singer who is " very sorry, but cannot sing at sight," are a style of musicians much to be deplored, and a little blamed. Until music is so taught from the first that every one who pretends to love and practise it shall be capable of doing this in concert with others, of sitting down to play an accompaniment at sight, or reading a part in a glee as easily as out of a printed book, I fear we cannot be considered a musical nation. And it would be better for us if we were, since of all the arts music is the most social, and sympathy therein the most delightful and the most humanizing. Another superstition of the last generation I should also like to drag to light and annihilate. It was considered right and fitting that young ladies-all young ladies should learn music, to sing if they could, but at all events to play. Young ladies only. The idea of a boy playing the piano was scouted entirely. Now, both boys and girls who show any aptitude for music should be taught it without hesitation. Nay, for some things, the advantage is greater to boys than to girls. It is a common complaint -how very helpless a man is without his work! Should sickness or other necessity keep him away from it he goes moping about the house, restless and mournful, as cross as two sticks," a torment to everybody, and, above all, to himself. Women have always plenty to busy themselves withal-employment for heads and fingers; but men, unless blessed with some special hobby, have almost nothing. 46 But then, as I said, music must be studied as an art, and not as a mere amusement. Whether or not my clever professor be right, and everybody has a voice and ear, only needing cultivation more or less, still, in many cases, it requires the more and not the less, Everything that is worth doing at all is worth doing well," and music is one of those things which if not done well is better left undone, for the sake of other folk. A man may hide his feeble sketches in his portfolio, and publish his bad poetry in books which nobody 46 reads, but an incapable violinist, an incorrect pianoforte player, or a singer out of tune, cannot possibly be secluded, but must exhibit his shortcomings for the affliction and aggravation of society. Therefore, let no child be taught music who has not a natural aptitude for it. Decided musical talent generally shows itself early. Many children sing before they can speak. I have written down, with the date affixed, so that there could be no mistake, more than one actual tune invented and sung by a small person of three years old. But the negative to these positive instances is less easily ascertained. The musical, like many another faculty, develops more or less rapidly according to the atmosphere it grows in. And there is always a certain period of "grind "so very distasteful that many a child will declare it "hates music," and wish to give it up, when a little perseverance would make of it an excellent musician. I am no cultivated musician myself-I wish, with all my heart, the hard work of life had allowed me to be! but I feel grateful now for having been compelled, three times over, amid many tears, to "learn my notes," which was nearly all the instruction destiny ever vouchsafed me. Nevertheless, I believe I did a good deed the other day. A mother said to me, "My child is thirteen, and has been working at music ever since she was seven. She has no ear and no taste. If she plays a false note, she never knows it. knows it. Yet she practises very conscientiously two hours a day. What must I do?" My answer was brief: "Shut the piano and never let her open it more." The advice was taken, and the girl, who now spends that unhappy two hours upon other things, especially drawing, in which she is very diligent and very clever, would doubtless bless me in her heart if she knew all. But the love of music, which she had not, often exists without great talent for it. Still in such cases cultivation can do much. Many vocalists, professional and otherwise, have begun by being vox et præterea nihil-that is, possessing a fine organ, but no skill in using it. While, on the other hand, many delightful singers, I recall especially Thomas Moore and Sheridan Knowles, have had scarcely any voice at all. The expression, the taste, the reading of a song are as essential and delightful as the voice to sing it with; and these last long after nature's slow but inevitable decay has taken away what to a singer is always a sore thing to part with, so sore that many are very long-far too long!-in recognizing this. Sadder to themselves even than to their listeners is the discovery that now, when they really know how to sing a song, they have not the physical power of singing it. 66 the little soul, should there be a musical soul, will soon wake up-will comprehend the why and wherefore of the most wearisome of scales and the hardest of exercises, and conceive an ambition not merely to "play a piece," but to become a true musician. The too early playing of pieces or singing of songs is the most fatal thing possible. It substitutes clap-trap for pure taste, and outside effect for thoroughness of study. It is also very bad for the young performer. Many a nervous child can play well enough alone, but if set to show off before a room full of indifferent people is absolutely paralyzed. And an inferior child who is not nervous is probably made intolerably self-conceited by this showing off, which foolish parents applaud and are delighted with, ignorant that the true aim and end of music is first the delight of the musician himself, and next that he should be able, either singly or as part in a whole, to contibute to the delight of other people. Cultivated people first, but likewise all people: for, in spite of my friend's severe remark about But art, cultivation, and a little timely clear-sightedness or clear-hearingness-can prop up many a failing voice. Any one who remembers how Braham sang at seventy-five will acknowledge this. A then young, but now elderly musician, once told me how he remembered having had to accompany the great tenor in the "Bay of Biscay,' given with a fire and force almost incredible in a septuagenarian, and reIceived with thunders of encores. My boy," whispered Braham, "play it half a tone lower. Again it was given, and 46 "Half a tone lower again encored. still," said the old vocalist; "they'll never find us out.' Nor did they. And the applause after the third effort was loudest of all, so completely did art conceal the defects of failing nature. But suppose the singer had not been an artist, or the accompanyist had only understood a little music, and been incapable of transposing the song "half a tone?'' If music is studied at all it ought to be studied thoroughly, and from the very first. Parents are apt to think that any body can teach music to a child, and that any sort of piano is good enough for a child to practise on. No mistake can be more fatal. A child who is fit to be taught at all should be taught by a capable musician with intelligence enough to make the groundwork not merely superficial, but solid; and not only solid, but interesting. A great deal of the preliminary study of music is not at all interesting unless the teacher thoroughly understands it, and takes the trouble to make the child understand it -the infinite and complicated beauty of the science of harmony, in opposition to the dulness of mere strumming. Then Pop goes the weasel," I believe that the very highest art is also the simplest, and therefore will always touch the masses; perhaps far more than art a degree lower and more complex. There may be two opinions upon Beethoven's "Mount of Olives," grand as it is; but I think the veriest clown that ever breathed could not listen unmoved to Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus, or to what, after twenty-five years, I remember as the perfect expression of musical art and religious faith-Clara Novello's singing of "I know that my Redeemer liveth. It is art such as this, and taste cultivated so as to be able to appreciate it, which I would desire to see put in place of that "little music" which, like little learning, is a dangerous thing." Dangerous, in the first place, because all shallow and superficial acquirements must be so; and secondly, because it inclines to a system of personal display at small cost, which is always the deterioration of true art. Surely it would be none the worse for us in England-it is not in Germany-if, instead of each person being taught to sing or play for himself, more or less badly, the general So. aim of musical education was that every member of every family should try to be able to take part in a simple family concert-classical chamber music or pleasant after-dinner part-songs and glees. In the good old times probably it was "Fepys's Diary" seemed to imply that in his day everybody could bear a hand, or a voice, in an after-supper catch; and farther back still we have plenty of evidence that the Elizabethan soldiers thought none the worse of themselves for being able, not only to sing, but to compose an Elizabethan madrigal. But even in my own generation I have seen music advance so much that I have hope in the "good time coming," which often casts its shadow before. It did on me the other day at a garden-party, where one of Mendelssohn's concertos for piano, violin, and violoncello was given by three young people, not professional, in a manner that Mendelssohn himself would have liked to hear. Afterward a brother and sister played a Handel duet -violin and piano-after a fashion that implied many a pleasant evening of fraternal practising. And in the singing, though one voice was a little past its first youth, and the other owed more to cultivation than nature, and the third, which was exceedingly beautiful-well, the luckless accompanyist had now and then to count five crotchets in a bar in order to keep time-still every vocalist showed taste, feeling, and expression, and every song was well chosen and pleasant to hear. Between whiles people wandered to the simple tea-table under one tree, and the fruit-table under another, but they always came and filled the music-room-filled it, I am glad to say, with an audience that was perfectly silent. 44 And here let me end with one passionate and indignant protest against the habit which ill-conditioned guests indulge in, and timid hosts and hostesses allow, of talking during music, a breach of good-manners and good-feeling which whenever it is found, either in public or private, should be put a stop to firmly and remorselessly. If people do not like music they need not listen to it; they can go away. But any person who finds himself at a concert, or in a drawingroom where music is going on, and does not pay it the respect of total silence, is severely to be reprehended. To recapitulate in a few words the aim of this Plain-Speaking." Let every child, boy or girl, be taught music, or tried to be taught, till found incapable. In that case, abolish music altogether, and turn to more congenial and useful studies. Secondly, let no one pretend to learn music who does not really love it, but let those who do study it well and thoroughly, so far as the work of life will allow, always remembering that the aim of their studies is not to exhibit themselves, but the music-for the best of musicians is only an interpreter of other people's language. There are endless varieties of language to choose from; each reader may have a different taste and different style; nay, I will go so far as to say that he who plays "Pop goes the weasel" with spirit, force, and accuracy, is not at all to be despised. But one thing is inexorably right and necessary-let every one who does anything in the science of sweet sounds try to do it as well as he possibly can. Then, haply, we shall gradually cease to be "favored with that great abomination to all appreciative souls—“ a little music!"'-Good Words. THE BUGLE. FROM THE FRENCH OF PAUL DÉRoulède. THE air is keen, the line is long, |