"COME, THE RECORDERS!"
Among the earlier emotions of the youthful playgoer, whose enthusiasm
for dramatic representations is generally of a very fervid and
uncompromising kind, must be recognised his pity for the money-taker,
forbidden by the cares of office to witness a performance, and his
envy of the musicians, so advantageously stationed for the incessant
enjoyment of the delights of the theatre. But he perceives, with
regretful wonder, that these gentlemen are habitually negligent of
their opportunities, and fail to appreciate the peculiar happiness of
their position; that they are apt, indeed, their services not being
immediately required, to abandon their instruments, and quietly to
steal away through the cramped doorway that admits to the mysterious
regions beneath the stage. He is grieved to note that for them, at any
rate, the play is _not_ "the thing." One or two may remain--the
performer on the drum, I have observed, is often very faithful in this
respect, though I have failed to discover any special reason why a
love of histrionic efforts should be generated by his professional
occupation--but the majority of the orchestra clearly manifest an
almost indecent alacrity in avoiding all contemplation of the displays
on the other side of the foot-lights. They are but playgoers on
compulsion. They even seem sometimes, when they retain their seats, to
prefer gazing at the audience, rather than at the actors, and thus to
advertise their apathy in the matter. And I have not heard that the
parsimonious manager, who proposed to reduce the salaries of his
musicians on the ground that they every night enjoyed admission to the
best seats, for which they paid nothing, "even when stars were
performing," ever succeeded in convincing his band of the justice of
his arguments.
The juvenile patron of the drama will, of course, in due time become
less absorbed in his own view of the situation, and learn that just as
one man's meat is another man's poison, so the pleasures of some are
the pains of others. He will cease to search the faces of the
orchestra for any evidence of "pride of place," or enjoyment of
performances they witness, not as volunteers, but as pressed men. He
will understand that they are at work, and are influenced by a natural
anxiety to escape from work as soon as may be. So, the overture ended,
they vanish, and leave the actors to do their best or their worst, as
the case may be. But our young friend's sentiments are not peculiar to
himself--have been often shared, indeed, by very experienced persons.
We have heard of comic singers and travelling entertainment givers who
have greatly resented the air of indifference of their musical
accompanist. They have required of him that he should feel amused, or
affect to feel amused, by their efforts. He has had to supplement his
skill as a musician by his readiness as an actor. It has been thought
desirable that the audience should be enabled to exclaim: "The great
So-and-So _must_ be funny! Why, see, the man at the piano, who plays
for him every night, who has, of course, seen his performances scores
and scores of times, even _he_ can't help laughing, the great
So-and-So is so funny." The audience, thus convinced, find themselves,
no doubt, very highly amused. Garrick himself appears, on one occasion
at any rate, to have been much enraged at the indifference of a
member of his band. Cervetto, the violoncello player, once ventured to
yawn noisily and portentously while the great actor was delivering an
address to the audience. The house gave way to laughter. The
indignation of the actor could only be appeased by Cervetto's absurd
excuse, that he invariably yawned when he felt "the greatest rapture,"
and to this emotion the address to the house, so admirably delivered
by his manager, had justified him in yielding. Garrick accepted the
explanation, perhaps rather on account of its humour than of its
completeness.
Music and the drama have been inseparably connected from the most
remote date. Even in the cart of Thespis some corner must have been
found for the musician. The custom of chanting in churches has been
traced to the practice of the ancient and pagan stage. Music pervaded
the whole of the classical drama, was the adjunct of the poetry: the
play being a kind of recitation, the declamation composed and written
in notes, and the gesticulations even being accompanied. The old
miracle plays were assisted by performers on the horn, the pipe, the
tabret, and the flute--a full orchestra in fact. Mr. Payne Collier, in
his "Annals of the Stage," points out that at the end of the prologue
to "Childermas Day," 1512, the minstrels are required to "do their
diligence," the same expression being employed at the close of the
performance, when they are besought either themselves to dance, or to
play a dance for the entertainment of the company:
Also ye menstrelles doth your diligence
Afore our depertying geve us a daunce.
The Elizabethan stage relied greatly upon the aid of trumpets,
cornets, &c., for the "soundings" which announced the commencement of
the prologue, and for the "alarums" and "flourishes" which occurred in
the course of the representation. Malone was of opinion that the band
consisted of some eight or ten musicians stationed in "an upper
balcony over what is now called the stage-box." Collier, however,
shows that the musicians were often divided into two bands, and quotes
a stage direction in Marston's "Antonio's Revenge," 1602: "While the
measure is dancing, Andrugio's ghost is placed betwixt the music
houses." In a play of later date, Middleton's "Chaste Maid in
Cheapside," 1630, appears the direction: "While the company seem to
weep and mourn, there is a sad song in the music-room." Boxes were
then often called rooms, and one was evidently set apart for the use
of the musicians. In certain of Shakespeare's plays the musicians are
clearly required to quit their room for awhile, and appear upon the
stage among the _dramatis personæ._
The practice of playing music between the acts is of long standing,
the frequent inappropriateness of these interludes having been
repeatedly commented on, however. A writer in the last century
expressly complains that at the end of every act, the audience,
"carried away by a jig of Vivaldi's, or a concerto of Giardini's, lose
every warm impression relative to the piece, and begin again cool and
unconcerned as at the commencement of the representation." He
advocates the introduction of music adapted to the subject: "The music
after an act should commence in the tone of the preceding passion, and
be gradually varied till it accords with the tone of the passion that
is to succeed in the next act," so that "cheerful, tender, melancholy,
or animated impressions" may be inspired, as the occasion may need. At
the conclusion of the second act of "Gammer Gurton's Needle," 1566,
Diccon, addressing himself to the musicians, says simply: "In the
meantime, fellows, pipe up your fiddles." But in a later play, the
"Two Italian Gentlemen," by Anthony Munday, printed about 1584, the
different kinds of music to be played after each act are stated,
whether a "pleasant galliard," a "solemn dump," or a "pleasant
allemaigne." So Marston in his "Sophonisba," 1606, indicates
particularly the instruments he would have played during the pauses
between the acts. After act one, "the cornets and organs playing loud
full of music;" after act two, "organs mixed with recorders;" after
act three, "organs, viols, and voices;" with "a base lute and a treble
viol" after act four. In the course of this play, moreover, musical
accompaniments of a descriptive kind were introduced, the stage
direction on two occasions informing us that "infernal music plays
softly." Nabbes, in the prologue to his "Hannibal and Scipio," 1637,
alludes at once to the change of the place of action of the drama, and
to the performance of music between the acts:
The place is sometimes changed, too, with the scene,
Which is transacted as the music plays
Betwixt the acts.
The closing of the theatres by the Puritans, in 1642, plainly
distressed the musicians almost as much as the players. Their
occupation was practically gone, although not declared illegal by Act
of Parliament. "Our music," writes the author of "The Actor's
Remonstrance," 1643, "that was held so delectable and precious that
they scorned to come to a tavern under twenty shillings for two hours,
now wander with their instruments under their cloaks--I mean such as
have any--into all houses of good fellowship, saluting every room
where there is company with: 'Will you have any music, gentlemen?'"
At the Restoration, however, king, actors, and orchestra all enjoyed
their own again. Presently, for the first time it would seem in an
English theatre, the musicians were assigned that intrenched position
between the pit and the stage they have so long maintained. "The front
of the stage is opened, and the band of twenty-four violins with the
harpsicals and theorbos which accompany the voices are placed between
the pit and the stage. While the overture is playing the curtain rises
and discovers a new frontispiece joined to the great pilasters on each
side of the stage," &c. So runs one of the preliminary stage
directions in the version of Shakespeare's "Tempest," arranged by
Dryden and Davenant for performance at the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's
Inn Fields, in 1667. The change was, no doubt, introduced by Davenant
in pursuance of French example. The authors of the "Histoire
Universelle des Théâtres" state, regarding the French stage, that
after the disuse of the old chorus in 1630, "à la place du chant qui
distinguoit les actes et qui marquoit les repos nécessaires, on
introduisit des joueurs d'instrumens, qui d'abord furent placés sur
les aîles du théâtre, où ils exécutoient différens airs avant la
commencement de la pièce et entre les actes. Ensuite ils furent mis au
fond des troisième loges, puis aux secondes, enfin entre le théâtre et
la parterre, où ils sont restés."
Theatres differ little save in regard to their dimensions. The minor
house is governed by the same laws, is conducted upon the same system,
as the major one. It is as a humbler and cheaper edition, but it
repeats down to minute particulars the example of its costly original.
The orchestra, or some form of orchestra, is always indispensable.
Even that street-corner tragedy which sets forth the story of Punch
and Judy, could not be presented without its pandean-pipe
accompaniment. The lowest vagrant theatre must, like the lady in the
nursery ballad, have music wherever it goes. No doubt this is often of
most inferior quality, suggestive of a return to very early musical
methods. But poverty constrains to primitiveness. Mr. Pepys,
comparing the state of the stage under Killigrew to what it had been
in earlier years, notes: "Then, two or three fiddlers; now, nine or
ten of the best," &c. The orchestra of a strolling theatre has been
known to consist of one fiddler only, and he has been required to
combine with his musical exertions the discharge of secretarial
duties, enlivened by occasional appearances on the stage to strengthen
casts, or help fill up the scene. The strollers' band is often of
uncertain strength. For when the travelling company meets with
misadventure, the orchestra are usually the first to prove unfaithful.
They are the Swiss of the troop. The receipts fail, and the musicians
desert. They carry their gifts elsewhere, and seek independent
markets. The fairs, the racecourses, the country inn-doors, attract
the fiddler, and he strolls on his own account, when the payment of
salaries is suspended. A veteran actor was wont to relate his
experiences of fifty years ago as a member of the Stratford-upon-Avon
company, when the orchestra consisted only of a fife and a tambourine,
the instrumentalists performing, as they avowed, "not from notes but
entirely by ear." Presently the company removed to Warwick for the
race week. But here the managerial difficulties increased--no band
whatever could be obtained! This was the more distressing in that the
performances were to be of an illegitimate character: a "famous
tight-rope dancer" had been engaged. The dancer at once declared that
his exhibition without music was not for a moment to be thought of.
One of the company thereupon obligingly offered his services. He could
play upon the violin: four tunes only. Now, provided an instrument
could be borrowed for the occasion, and provided, moreover, the
tight-rope artist could dance to the tune of "There's Nae Luck," or
"Drink to Me Only," or "Away with Melancholy," or the "National
Anthem," here was a way out of the dilemma, and all might yet be well.
Unfortunately a violin was not forthcoming at any price, and the
dancer declared himself quite unable to dance to the airs stated! How
was faith to be kept with the public? At the last moment a
barrel-organ was secured. The organist was a man of resources. In
addition to turning the handle of his instrument, he contrived to play
the triangle and the pan-pipes. Here, then, was a full band. The
dancer still demurred. He must be assisted by a "clown to the rope,"
to chalk his soles, amuse the audience while he rested, and perform
other useful duties. Another obliging actor volunteered his help. He
would "by special desire and on this occasion only," appear as clown.
So having played Pangloss in the "Heir at Law," the first piece, he
exchanged his doctorial costume for a suit of motley, and the
performance "drew forth," as subsequent playbills stated, "universal
and reiterated bursts of applause from a crowded and elegant
audience." The experiment of the barrel-organ orchestra was not often
repeated. The band of the Leamington Theatre was lent to the Warwick
house, the distance between the establishments being only two miles.
The Leamington audience were provided with music at the commencement
of the evening only; the Warwick playgoers dispensed with orchestral
accompaniments until a later period in the performances.