A royal personage being a lover of music possesses many advantages for
attaining proficiency in this art, which are rarely at the command of a
poor musician, however talented he may be. The young prince has from the
beginning the best instruction, excellent instruments, and every
possible assistance in making progress. The most distinguished musicians
consider it an honour to play to him whenever he is disposed to listen
to them. If it affords him pleasure to be a composer, whatever he
produces, even if it is a large orchestral work, he can directly have
performed; and he is thus enabled to ascertain at once whether it sounds
exactly as he contemplated in composing it, and whether the peculiar
instrumental effects in certain bars, which he had aimed at producing,
really answer his expectation. Repeated rehearsals, and revisions of the
score, with the ready assistance of the most experienced professional
musicians in his service, enable him to improve his composition as long
as he likes. And should he be inclined to join the musicians with his
instrument in a performance,--to become for a little while, so to say,
one of them,--he may be sure that they will do everything to help him
through by covering his mistakes and giving him, if possible, the
opportunity of displaying his skill.
What can be more delightful for an influential amateur than to join with
first-rate professional players in practising the classical Quartets of
Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven! All this, and more, is at the command of
the royal musician; and the poor striving disciple of the art may have
some excuse for envying him on this account.
However, if the poor disciple is a true artist, he will also duly
appreciate the disadvantage under which the royal musician labours for
attaining proficiency in the art. He will see how necessary it is for
the sake of progress to know exactly the truth about one's own powers
and requirements, and that in this respect even a musical beggar enjoys
an advantage above the King,--or rather, he has it, whether he enjoys it
or not; a candid opinion as to his musical accomplishments is
gratuitously offered him, and it is often a just one. If his music is
bad, he, instead of being deceived with fine words of flattery, will
simply be told: "Leave off! Begone!" If it pleases, he will be rewarded.
But the royal musician gets praise, however his music may be; there is
no distinction made between good and bad.
No wonder, therefore, that history records but few good royal musicians,
although many are known to have occupied themselves with music almost
like professional musicians. As an example of an estimable one may be
mentioned King David "the sweet singer of Israel," who, as a youth,
soothed the evil spirit of Saul by playing upon his _kinnor_; and who
later, as King, admonished his people in the psalms: "Praise ye the
Lord! Praise him with the sound of the trumpet; praise him with the
psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him
with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals.
Praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals."
And in his religious fervour he joined his royal band in a procession
conveying the ark. On this occasion "David danced before the Lord with
all his might." The band consisted of vocal and instrumental performers.
"And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites
that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah, the master of the
song with the singers: David also had upon him an ephod of linen. Thus
all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting
and with sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals,
making a noise with psalteries and harps. And it came to pass, as the
ark of the covenant of the Lord came to the city of David, that Michal,
the daughter of Saul, looking out at a window, saw King David dancing
and playing: and she despised him in her heart." (II. Sam. chap. vi., I.
Chron. chap. xv.) Michal, Saul's daughter, was David's wife;
nevertheless, after the ceremony she upbraided him: "How glorious was
the King of Israel to-day, who uncovered himself in the eyes of the
handmaids, as one of the vain fellows who shamelessly uncovereth
himself!" If the musicians exhibited some vanity, they might, at any
rate, be more easily excused than many of the present day; for it was an
extraordinary honour for them to perform with a King who was certainly a
noble musician, and of whose companionship they could have been proud
even if he had not been a King. Moreover, he was, as is recorded in the
Bible, not only "cunning in playing," but also "a mighty and valiant
man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and
the Lord was with him." There are not many royal musicians of whom thus
much could be said without flattery.