THE VILLAGE MUSICIAN.
[Illustration]
The press and the railway are sweeping away all the old individualities
and peculiarities that marked the country. It has been said, and said
truly, that the railway has abolished everywhere in Europe a local
_cuisine_, so that the traveller, whether in England, France, in Italy,
Russia, at Constantinople, and even at Cairo, has the same _menu_ at
_table-d'hôte_. There was a time when, by travelling, you could pick
up culinary ideas. That time is now past. You find exactly the same
dishes, served in the same order, everywhere; and when fowl and salad
come on, you know everywhere that the meat courses have arrived at
their full stop. Costumes also are disappearing everywhere, no men now
wear them, hardly any women, except a few artists' models on the steps
of the Trinità at Rome, and a few German tourists who dress up like
mountaineers when excursioning among the Tyrolean Alps.
It is said that the Chinese all dress alike, think alike, talk alike,
act alike, eat the same food, take the same amusements, and look alike.
Civilization is making us all Chinese, we are losing our individuality
and our independence, and, it must be admitted, casting away behind us
what constituted the picturesqueness and variety of life.
In the old times in country places, away from towns, there was much
that was of interest; men and women had then quaint ways, stood out as
characters, and impressed themselves on those who were around them.
Now, all are afraid of being peculiar, of not being like every one
else, of using a word, doing an act, thinking a thought which has
not the sanction of--vulgarity, in the true acceptation of the term,
according to its derivation--of being _common_.
One looks back, with a little compunction, on those old times. There
was a freshness and charm about them which can never be recovered.
Every one in a village knew every one else, and all his belongings;
every one was related, and a stranger from a few miles off passed
as a foreigner. To "go foreign" was to leave the parish. This was,
of course, carried to extraordinary lengths in some places, and
neighbouring villages regarded each other with traditional jealousy.
This was not commendable. There is a story told of two villages, one
called Mary Tavy, the adjoining called Peter Tavy, that is to say, St.
Mary on the Tavy and St. Peter on the Tavy, on the borders of Dartmoor,
that regarded each other for ages with animosity. One day after a storm
of rain the river Tavy rolled down volumes of water, and a poor wretch
was caught by the flood on a rock in mid-stream; he was unable to reach
the bank. He screamed for assistance. Presently a man came along the
side and halted, and called to the fellow in danger, "I say, be you a
Peter Tavy or a Mary Tavy man?" "Peter Tavy," answered the wretch in
danger. "Throw me a rope, or I shall be drownded." "No, no," answered
he on the land, "I be a Mary Tavy man; so go on hollering till a Peter
Tavy chap comes by;" and he left the fellow in distress to his fate.
This exclusiveness had its bad side, but it had its redeeming side
also. There can be no question that the force of popular feeling, the
sense of relationship, the feeling of belonging to a certain village,
or class, did act as a strong moral support to many a young man and
woman. They felt that they dared not bring disgrace on their whole
class, or village, by misconduct. The sense of belonging to, being one
member of a community, in which, if one member were honoured, all the
members rejoiced with it, and if one were disgraced, the humiliation
fell on all, was very strong and tough. That is to an immense extent
gone, and can never be restored. We are all cosmopolitan now, and live
and die to ourselves.
But let us come to some of the peculiar features of old village life,
before there were railways, and when the post did not come every day.
[Illustration: Old Church Orchestra.]
At that time most villages had their feasts, revels, harvest homes,
ringers' suppers, shearing feasts, and other entertainments. Some of
us can remember when in the village churches the gallery was occupied
by the village band, fiddles and viol, ophicleide, flute &c. They were
done away with, and the hand-organ took its place in some churches, a
real organ or a harmonium in others. It was a sad mistake of the clergy
to try to abolish the old orchestra;--no doubt the playing was not
very good, and the instruments were out of tune; no doubt also there
was much quarrelling and little harmony among the performers, but an
institution should be improved, not abolished. That gave the death-blow
to instrumental music in our villages. Previously the smallest village
had its half-dozen men who could play on some instruments. Now you find
that there are half a dozen boys who can manage the concertina--that is
all.
These instrumentalists attended all the festivities in a village,
wakes, harvest homes, revels, and weddings, and were well received
and well treated. They played old country dances, old ballads, old
concerted pieces of no ordinary merit. In some parish chests may
be found volumes of rudely written music, which belonged to these
performers, mostly sacred, but not always so.
When in 1617 James I. was making a progress through Lancashire, he
found that the Puritan magistrates had prohibited and unlawfully
punished the people for using their "lawful recreations and honest
exercises" on holidays; and next year he issued a declaration
concerning sports and merry-makings, such as May-games, morris-dances,
Whitsun-ales, the setting up of maypoles; and James very wisely
said, "If these be taken away from the meaner sort, who labour hard
all the week, they will have no recreations at all to refresh their
spirits; and in place thereof it will set up filthy tipplings and
drunkenness, and breed a number of idle and discontented speeches in
their ale-houses." Also it would "hinder the conversion of many, whom
their priests will take occasion hereby to vex, persuading them that no
honest mirth or recreation is lawfully tolerable in our religion."
At the present day we hardly realize the extent to which music was
cultivated in old times, so that England--not Italy, Germany, or
France--was the great musical nation of Europe. What astonished
foreigners, when they visited England in the reign of Henry VIII. and
Elizabeth, was the perfection to which music was brought here, and the
widespread knowledge of music that prevailed. France had its music
school created by Sully, a Florentine by birth, who was placed at the
head of a band of violins by Louis XIV. At that time "not half the
musicians of France were able to play at sight." Even that band, got
together with difficulty, could play nothing at sight. Nor did Sully
effect any great reform in this respect, for when the Regent, Duke of
Orleans, wished to hear Corelli's sonatas, which were newly brought
from Rome, no three persons were to be found in Paris who could play
them, and he was obliged to content himself with having them sung to
him by three voices. On the other hand, in England at that time every
gentleman was expected to be able either to sing a part at sight, or
play a part on some instrument or other. As a regular thing after
supper, the party in a country house adjourned to the music-room, and
there spent the rest of the evening in singing or in instrumental
music. Nor was this knowledge of music confined to the upper classes.
A curious instance of this we find in Pepys' diary. That diary extends
between the years 1660-1669. In the course of his diary, four maids
are mentioned as being in his household, to attend on his wife, and
a boy who waited on himself. All of these seem to have possessed, as
an ordinary qualification, some musical skill and knowledge. Of the
first of the serving-maids he says (November 17, 1662), "After dinner,
talking with my wife, and making Mrs. Gosnell (the maid) sing--I am
mightily pleased with her humour and singing." And again, on December
5, "She sings exceedingly well." Within a few months Gosnell was
succeeded by Mary Ashwell; and he tells us in March, "I heard Ashwell
play first upon the harpsicon, and I find she do play pretty well. Then
home by coach, buying at the Temple the printed virginal book for her."
The harpsicon and the virginal were the pianofortes of the period,
something like square pianos; in the virginal the strings were struck
by quills. Of the third maid Mrs. Pepys had, Mary Mercer, he says on
September 9, 1664, that she was "a pretty, modest, quiet maid. After
dinner my wife and Mercer, Tom (the boy) and I, sat till eleven at
night, singing and fiddling, and a great joy it is to see me master of
so much pleasure in my house. The girle (Mercer) plays pretty well upon
the harpsicon, but only ordinary tunes, but hath a good hand; sings
a little, but hath a good voyce and eare. My boy, a brave boy, sings
finely, and is the most pleasant boy at present, while his ignorant
boy's tricks last, that ever I see." After some time Mercer went to
see her mother, and Mrs. Pepys, finding her absent without leave, went
after her, found her in her mother's house, and there _beat her_. The
mother having urged that Mary was "not a common prentice girl," and
therefore ought not to have been thus chastized, Mrs. Pepys construed
it into a question of her right to inflict corporal chastisement, and
dismissed Mary.
In October, 1666, says Pepys, "my wife brought a new girle. She is
wretched poor, and but ordinary favoured, and we fain to lay out seven
or eight pounds worth of clothes upon her back: and I do not think I
can esteem her as I could have done another, that had come fine and
handsome; and, which is more, her voice, through want of use, is so
furred that it do not at present please me; but her manner of singing
is such that I shall, I think, take great pleasure in it."
After a while Mary Mercer was taken back, and then we hear of singing
on the water, especially after a trip to Greenwich when returning by
moonlight. The boy Tom was usually of the party. Of him Pepys says
(Oct. 25, 1664), "My boy could not sleep, but wakes about four in the
morning, and in bed laying playing on his lute till daylight, and it
seems did the like last night, till twelve o'clock." And again, Dec.
26, 1668, "After supper I made the boy play upon his lute, and so, my
mind is mighty content,--to bed."
We do not in the least suppose that Pepys' household was singular in
the respect of having a succession of musical servants. All people
in those times were musical--men, boys, women, and girls, of all
classes and degrees. At the fire of London in 1666, Pepys, who was an
eye-witness, tells us that the Thames was full of lighters and boats
taking in goods, and that he "observed that hardly one lighter or
boat in three, that had the goods of a house, but there was a pair of
virginals in it."
How those old fellows loved and cared for their instruments! Mace,
a writer of 1676, tells how a lute should be treated. "You shall do
well," he writes, "even when you lay it by in the day-time, to put it
into a bed that is constantly used, between the rug and the blanket,
but never between the sheets, because they may be moist. There are
great commodities (advantages) in so doing; it will save the strings
from breaking; it will keep your lute in good order." He enumerates six
conveniences of so doing. At that time a lute, a good one, cost about
£100.
So completely was it a matter of course to have music after supper,
that Cromwell, a lover of music, only altered the character of the
performance. When the ambassadors of Holland came to him, as Lord
Protector, on the occasion of peace between the two Commonwealths,
after having entertained them at a repast, he and the "Lady
Protectrice" led them into the music-hall, where they had a psalm
sung. This was in 1654. The dissolution of the cathedral choirs, the
abolition of sacred music in the churches, scattered professional
musicians over the country. There is a very curious traditional song
relative to this change, sung in Devonshire, and called _Brixham Town_.
It relates how--
"In Brixham town so rare
For singing sweet and fair,
With none that may compair."
The instrumentalists and singers considered that they were the best
anywhere. But--
"There came a man to our town,
A man of office and in gown,
Strove to put music down,
Which most men do adore."
Then the story goes on to exhort him and all others who love not music--
"Go search out Holy Writ,
And you will find in it,
That it is right and fit
To praise the Lord.
On cymbal and with lute,
On organ and with flute,
And voices sweet that suit
All in accord."
Very pointedly the song goes on to mention how an evil spirit haunted
Saul, and how it proved that this devil also hated music, and how that
when David played on his harp the evil spirit fled. The song ends--
"So now, my friends, adieu;
I hope that all of you
Will pull most just and true
In serving the Lord.
God grant that all of we,
Like angels may agree,
Singing in harmony,
And sweet concord."
There was a great effort made at the time of the Commonwealth to
put down all kinds of music. In 1648 the Provost-marshal was given
power to arrest all ballad-singers. Organs were everywhere destroyed,
and probably a great many viols, lutes, and other instruments.
One gentleman, when he adopted Puritanism, had a deep hole dug in
his garden, and buried in it "£200 worth of music-books, six feet
underground, being, as he said, love-songs and vanity." This was a
considerable sum indeed for an amateur to have spent in books of vocal
music only; and as he continued to play "psalms and religious hymns on
the theorbo," it may be presumed that what was interred formed but a
portion of his musical collection.
The singers and instrumentalists dispersed by the orders of Parliament
were reduced to the greatest poverty, and went round the country
taking up their abode in gentlemen's houses, where they were gladly
given quarters, when these gentlemen could afford it; but as many were
utterly impoverished, often the musicians frequented the ale-houses,
and picked up a precarious subsistence from the tavern frequenters.
This had one advantage, for it no doubt helped to educate the village
people generally in music. But even thus they got into trouble, for
Oliver Cromwell's third Parliament passed an Act ordering the arrest
and punishment of all minstrels and musicians who performed in taverns.
Hitherto in country places the only instruments used had been rude,
and the only music known was the ballad air, which also served as a
dance-tune. Hence most of our old dances are known by the names of the
ballads to which they were sung. But the dispersion of the orchestras
from cathedrals and theatres and large town churches throughout
the country places not only brought in a new notion of music, the
playing of concerted pieces, but also in a great many cases placed
the costly instruments at the disposal of village musicians. The old
instrumentalists were obliged to part with their lutes and theorbos,
their viol de gambas and violins, at a low price; or dying in the
villages where they had settled, they left their loved instruments
to such men in the place as seemed likely to make good use of them.
These old musicians in country places gathered men about them in their
lodgings in the village ale-houses, and taught them a more artistic
method of playing, and a higher class of music, and they really gave
that impetus to orchestral church music which only died out--shall we
not rather say was killed?--within the memory of man.
The old village musician was a man remarkable in his way. One, David
Turton, of Horbury, in Yorkshire, was perhaps typical of the better
class. A man of intense enthusiasm for his art, and passionate love of
his viol; one may be quite sure that his viol shared his bed, taking it
by day when Turton was out of it, like Box and Cox. The story was told
of him, that he was returning one night from a concert at Wakefield,
where he had been performing, when he passed through a field in which
was a savage bull. The bull seeing him began to bellow, and run at him
with lowered horns. "Now then," said old David, "that note must be
double B." He whipped the bass viol out of the green bag, set it down,
and drew his bow over the strings, to try to hit the note bellowed.
The bull, staggered at the response, stopped, threw up his head,
and--turned tail.
But there were musicians of a less dignified character, jolly,
reckless, drinking dogs, who fiddled at every festive gathering till
they could fiddle no more. They were invariably present at a wedding.
In a popular song called _Chummie's Wedding_, it is said of the
merry-makers--
"The fiddler did stop, and he struck up a hop,
Whilst seated on top of a trunk,
But not one of the batch could come up to the scratch,
They were all so outrageously drunk."
Very quaint old tunes were played; as the space for dancing in
cottages was extremely limited, the performance was often confined to
one couple, sometimes to a single performer--a man, who took off his
shoes and went through really marvellous steps. The step-dance is now
gone, or all but gone, but was at one time much cultivated among the
peasantry of the west of England. Much depended on the fiddler, who
played fast or slow, and changed his air, the dancer altering his pace
and step, and the whole character of his dance, to suit the music.
The village clerk was generally the great musical authority in the
parish; he led the orchestra in the church, and not unusually also
played at merry-makings. It may be remembered that in _Doctor Syntax_
is a plate representing the parson in his black cocked hat and bushy
wig performing on his violin to the rustics as they dance about the
May-pole; and again, fiddling, he leads the harvest-home procession.
Such conduct would be regarded as highly indecorous now; but was there
harm in it? Was it not well that the parson should be associated with
the merry-makings of his flock? that he should lead and direct their
music?
Those old orchestras were, I fear, subject to outbreaks of discord, and
that was one reason why they were displaced first by the barrel organ,
then by the harmonium. Well, but the solar envelope is always torn
by tempests, and yet it diffuses a light in which we live and enjoy
ourselves, regardless of these storms. The very necessity for living
together in some sort of agreement, in order that they might be able
to perform concerted pieces, was of educative advantage to the old
musicians. It taught them to subdue their individuality to the common
welfare. And so, not only because it gave more persons an interest in
the conduct of Divine worship than at present is the case, but also
because the orchestra was a great educative school of self-control, its
disappearance from every village is to be regretted.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: James Olver. _From a Photograph by_ Hayman, Launceston.]