'The English are not a musical people.' The dictum long stood
unquestioned, and, in general estimation, unquestionable. All the
world had agreed upon it. There could be no two opinions: we had no
national airs; no national taste; no national appreciation of sweet
sounds; musically, we were blocks! At length, however, the creed began
to be called in question--were we so very insensible? If so,
considering the amount of music actually listened to every year in
London and the provinces, we were strangely given to an amusement
which yielded us no pleasure; we were continually imposing on
ourselves the direst and dreariest of tasks; we were tormenting
ourselves with symphonies, and lacerating our patience with sonatas
and rondos. What was the motive? Hypocrisy was very generally
assigned. We only affected to love music. It was intellectual,
spiritual, in all respects creditable to our moral nature, to be able
to appreciate Mozart and Beethoven, and so we set up for connoisseurs,
and martyrised ourselves that Europe might think us musical. Is there
more truth in this theory than the other? Hypocrisy is not generally
so lasting as the musical fervour has proved itself to be. A fashion
is the affair of a season; a mania goes as it came; but regularly and
steadily, for many years back, has musical appreciation been
progressing, and as regularly have the opportunities for hearing good
music of all kinds been extending.
Take up a daily newspaper, published any time between April and
August, and range your eye down the third or fourth column of the
first page--what an endless array of announcements of music, vocal and
instrumental! Music for the classicists; music for the crowd;
symphonies and sonatas; ballads and polkas; harmonic societies; choral
societies; melodists' clubs; glee clubs; madrigal clubs. Here you have
the quiet announcement of a quartett-party; next to it, the
advertisement of one of the Philharmonic Societies--the giants of the
musical world; pianoforte teachers announce one of their series of
classic performances; great instrumental soloists have each a concert
for the special behoof and glorification of the _bénéficiaire_. Mr
So-and-so's grand annual concert jostles Miss So-and-so's annual
benefit concert. There are Monday concerts, and Wednesday concerts,
and Saturday concerts; there are weekly concerts, fortnightly
concerts, and monthly concerts; there are concerts for charities, and
concerts for benefits; there are grand morning concerts, and grand
evening concerts; there are _matinées musicales_, and _soirées
musicales_; there are meetings, and unions, and circles, and
associations--all of them for the performance of some sort of music.
There are musical entertainments by the score: in the City; in the
suburbs; at every institute and hall of science, from one end of
London to the other. One professor has a ballad entertainment; a
second announces a lecture, with musical illustrations; a third
applies himself to national melodies. All London seems vocal and
instrumental. Every dead wall is covered with naming _affiches_,
announcing in long array the vast army of vocal and instrumental
talent which is to assist at such and such a morning performance; and
the eyes of the owner of a vast musical stomach are dazzled and
delighted by programmes which will at least demand five hours in the
performance.
So is London, in the course of the season, the congress of nearly all
the performing musical notabilities of Europe. Time has been when they
came to London for cash, not renown: now they come for both. A London
reputation is beginning to rival a Parisian vogue, besides being ten
times more profitable; and, accordingly, from every musical corner in
Christendom, phenomena of art pour in, heralded by the utmost possible
amount of puffing, and equally anxious to secure English gold and a
London reputation. It is strange to observe how universally the
musical tribute is paid. A tenor turns up from some Russian provincial
town; a basso works himself to London from a theatre in
Constantinople; rumours arrive of a peerless prima donna, with a voice
which is to outstrip everything ever heard of, who has been dug out,
by some travelling amateur, from her native obscurity in a Spanish or
Norwegian village; an extraordinary soprano has been discovered in
Alexandria; a wondrous contralto has been fished up from Riga. The
instrumental phenomena are not one whit scarcer. Classical pianists
pour in from Germany principally; popular pianists, who delight in
fantasias rather than concertos, and who play such tricks with the
keyboards, that the performances have much more of the character of
legerdemain than of art, arrive by scores; violinists, violoncellists,
professors of the trombone, of the ophicleide, of the bassoon, of
every unwieldy and unmanageable instrument in fact, are particularly
abundant; and perhaps the most popular of all are the particularly
clever gentlemen who, by dint of a dozen years' or so unremitting
practice, have succeeded in making one instrument sound like another.
Quackery as this is, it is enormously run after by no small proportion
of the public. Not that they do not appreciate the art of the device
at its proper level, but that the trick is curious and novel; and most
people, even the dignified classicists, have a gentle toleration for a
little--just a little--_outré_ amusement of the kind in question.
Paganini was the founder of this school. He might have played on four
strings till he was tired, without causing any particular sensation;
but the single string made his fortune. Sivori is one of the cleverest
artists of the present day, who resorts to tricks with his violin, and
wonderfully does he perform them. At a concert last season, he
imitated the singing of a bird with the strangest and happiest skill.
The 'severe' shook their heads, but smiled as they did so, and owned
that the trick was clever enough, and withal agreeable to hear. But it
is gentlemen who make one instrument produce the sounds of another,
or, at all events, who extract from it some previously unknown effect,
who carry all before them. The present phenomenon in this way is
Bottesini, who, grasping a huge double-bass, the most unwieldy of
instruments, tortures out of it the notes of a violin, of an oboe, and
of a flute. A season or two ago, M. Vivier took all London by storm,
by producing a chord upon the French horn, a feat previously
considered impossible, and probably only the fruit of the most
determined and energetic practice, extending over many years. At all
the popular concerts, this trick-music is in immense request.
Bottesini was the lion of Jullien's last series; but in his place in
the orchestra of the Philharmonic, he plays his part and holds his
instrument like any ordinary performer. Bagpipe music is not much
appreciated on the banks of the Thames; but I can assure any
enterprising Scotsman, that if he can only succeed in producing the
notes of the bagpipe out of the trombone, he will make a fortune in
five seasons or less.
Such is musical London, then--rushing from concert to concert, and
opera to opera--from severe classicism to the most miscellaneous
_omnium gatherum_--from solemn ecclesiastical harmonic assemblages to
the chanting of merry glees, and the warbling of sentimental ballads.
Let us, then, contemplate a little closer the different kinds of
concerts--their features and their character--their performers and
their auditories. Our sketch must be very hurried and very vague, but
it will give an idea of some of the principal characteristics of the
London musical season.
First, then, among the performances of mingled vocal and instrumental
music, stand the two Sacred Harmonic Societies, which execute
oratorios and similar works in Exeter Hall. The original Sacred
Harmonic Society has within the last couple of years split into two
bodies. It had long contained within itself the elements of division.
There were the Go-ahead party and the Conservative party--the first,
eager to try new ground, and aim at new effects; the second, lovers of
the beaten way. At length, the split took place. The progressistas
flung themselves into the arms of M. Costa, the famous conductor of
the Royal Italian Opera orchestra, and the highest and most Napoleonic
of musical commanders. The Tories of the society went peaceably on in
the jog-trot ways of Mr Sarman, the original conductor. Each society
can now bring into the field about 800 vocal performers, the immense
majority of them amateurs, and their concerts take place
alternately--Exeter Hall being invariably crammed upon either
occasion. The Costaites, no doubt, have the _pas_. The discipline of
their chief is perfect, and as rigid as it is excellent. The power
which this gentleman possesses over his musical troops is very
curious. The whole mass of performers seem to wait upon his will as
the spirits did on Prospero. At the spreading of his arms, the music
dies away to the most faintly-whispered murmurs. A crescendo or
musical climax works gradually up step by step, and bar by bar, until
it explodes in a perfect crash of vocal and instrumental tempest. The
extraordinary choral effects produced in the performance of the
_Huguenots_ almost bewildered the hearers; and the wondrous lights and
shades of sound given in many of the oratorios, are little behind the
dramatic achievement. The aspect of Exeter Hall on an oratorio night
is one of the grandest things in London. The vastness of the
assemblage, the great mountain of performers, crested by the organ,
and rising almost to the ceiling, are thoroughly impressive, while the
first burst of the opening chorus is grand in the extreme. The
oratorio is, in fact, the Opera of the 'serious' world. It is at once
a place in which to listen to music and a point of social reunion.
There are oratorio _habitués_ as well as Opera _habitués_; and between
the parts of the performance, the same buzzing hum of converse rises
from the assemblage which you hear in the Opera corridors and lobbies.
A glance at the audience will enlighten you as to their character.
They represent the staid respectability of the middle class. The
dresses of the ladies are often rich, seldom brilliant, and there is
little sparkle of jewellery. You very frequently perceive family
parties, under the care of a grave _pater familias_ and his
staid and stately partner. Quakers abound; and the number of
ecclesiastically-cut coats shews how many clergymen of the church are
present. The audience are in the highest degree attentive. The rules
forbid applause, but a gentle murmur of admiration rises at the close
of almost every _morceau_. Here and there, you have a practical
amateur, or a group of such with the open score of the oratorio before
them, eagerly following the music. Often these last gentlemen are
members of the rival Society, and, as might be expected, pick plenty
of holes in the execution of their opponents, for which charitable
purpose only they have probably attended. But in M. Costa's Society,
at all events, the task is difficult; the orchestra 'goes,' as the
phrase is, like one instrument, and the singers are beautifully under
the control of the master-spirit who directs them.
Let us pass from Exeter Hall to Hanover Square. Here, in the Queen's
Concert Room--a _salle_ which once was smart, and the decorations of
which were fashionable seventy years ago--we have unnumbered concerts,
and chief among them the twelve annual performances of the
Philharmonic Society. The 'Philharmonic,' as it is conversationally
called, holds almost the rank of a national institution. The sovereign
patronises it in an especial manner. It is connected with the Royal
Academy of Music, and Her Majesty's private band is recruited from the
ranks of its orchestra. The Philharmonic band may be indeed taken as
the representative of the nation's musical executive powers; and, as
such, comparisons are often instituted between it and the French,
Austrian, and Prussian Philharmonics. The foreigners who hold places
in the orchestra are resident, and in some sort naturalised, but the
bulk of the executants are English. To be a member of the Philharmonic
orchestra is, indeed, to take a sort of degree in executive music, and
at once stamps the individual as a performer of distinguished merit.
The music performed is entirely classic, and principally instrumental.
New compositions are seldom given; and, in fact, it was the practice
of adhering so exclusively to the standard works of great composers
which started the new Philharmonic Society, which has just come into
existence. The elder body stick stanchly to the safe courses of Bach,
Gluck, Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. The newly-created
association proclaim that their mission is to look after aspirants, as
well as to honour the veterans of the art; and accordingly they bring
forward many compositions experimentally--a meritorious policy, but
one not without its dangers. Few unprofessional people are aware of
the cost of producing elaborate compositions. When _William Tell_ was
played some years ago at Drury Lane--to mention one single item--the
price of copying the parts from the full score, at 3d. a page, came to
L.350. All the old music is of course to be had printed; and to these
standard scores the steady-going Philharmonic principally devotes
itself. Each performance consists in general of two symphonies, or a
symphony and an elaborate concerto, each occupying at least
three-quarters of an hour, with two overtures, and solos, vocal and
instrumental--the former generally sung by performers from either
Opera, but usually from Covent Garden. M. Costa wields the baton at
Hanover Square as at Exeter Hall; and under his management, the band
have attained a magnificent precision and _ensemble_ of effect. Its
musical peculiarity over ordinary orchestras is the vast strength of
stringed instruments, which gives a peculiar _verve_ and light vigour
to the performances. The rush of the violins in a rapid passage is
overwhelming in its impetuosity and vigour, and is said, of late years
especially, to beat the 'attack,' as it is technically called, of any
of the continental Philharmonic Societies. The Philharmonic concerts
are very fashionable. It is good taste, socially and artistically, to
be present; and, consequently, the room is always crowded by an
assemblage who display most of the characteristics of an Opera
audience. The musical notabilities of town always muster in full force
at the Philharmonic. Composers, executants, critics, amateurs, and
connoisseurs, are all there, watching with the greatest care the
execution of those famous works, the great effect of which can only be
produced by the most wary and appreciative tenderness of rendering. In
the interval between the first and second parts, the very general hum
of conversation announces how great the degree of familiarity
subsisting among the _habitués_. There is none of the common stiffness
of waiting one sees at ordinary entertainments. Everybody seems to
know everybody else, and one general atmosphere of genial intercourse
prevails throughout the room.
Let us change the scene to a classic concert of quite another kind. In
a quiet West-end street, we are in a room of singular construction. It
is in the form of a right-angled triangle; and at the right angle,
upon a small dais, is placed the pianoforte and the desks, and so
forth, for the performers. The latter are thus visible from all
points; but about one-half the audience in each angle of the room is
quite hidden from the other. Everybody is in evening dress; the ladies
very gay, and the party very quiet--a still, drawing-room sort of air
presides over the whole. Many of the ladies are young--quite girls;
and a good many of the gentlemen are solemn old foggies, who appear
strongly inclined to go to sleep, and, in fact, sometimes do.
Meantime, the music goes on. A long, long sonata or concerto--piano
and violin, or piano, violin, and violoncello--is listened to in
profound silence, with a low murmur of applause at the end of each
movement. Then perhaps comes a little vocalism--sternly classic
though--an aria from Gluck, or a solemn and pathetic song from
Mendelssohn: the performer being either a well-known concert-singer,
or a young lady--very nervous and a little uncertain--who, it is
whispered, is 'an Academy girl;' a pupil, that is, of the institution
in question. Sometimes, but not often--for it is _de rigueur_ that
entertainments of this species shall be severely classic--we have a
phenomenon of execution upon some out-of-the-way instrument, who
performs certain miracles with springs or tubes, and in some degree
wakens up the company, who, however, not unfrequently relapse into all
their solemn primness, under a concerto manuscript, or a trio
manuscript, the composition of the _bénéficiaire_. Between the parts,
people go quietly into a room beneath, where there are generally some
mild prints to be turned over, some mild coffee to drink, some mild
conversation about mild things in general; and then the party remount
the stairs, and mildly listen to more mild music. This is the common
routine of a classical pianoforte soirée. The _bénéficiaire_ is a
fashionable teacher, and, in a small way, a composer. He gives, every
season, a series, perhaps two or three series, of classic evenings.
The pupils and their families form the majority of the audience,
interspersed with a few pianoforte amateurs, and those _fanatici per
la musica_ who are to be found wherever a violin is tuned, or a piano
is opened.
Another species of classic concert is to be found in the
quartett-meetings. These take place in some small concert-room, such
as that I have described, or at the houses of the executants; and the
audience comprehends a far larger proportion of gentlemen than the
last-mentioned entertainments. The performers are four--pretty sure to
be gentlemen of the highest professional abilities. The instruments
are first and second violin, viola, and violoncello; and three or four
quartetts by the great masters, or, very probably, as many
compositions, marking the different stages of Beethoven's imagination,
are played with the most consummate skill and the tenderest regard for
light and shade. People not deep in the sympathies and tastes of the
musical world, have no idea how these compositions are loved and
studied by the real disciples of Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn; how
particular passages are watched for; and how old gentlemen nod their
heads, or shake them at each other, according as they agree or
disagree in the manner of the interpretation. Half the audience
probably know every bar of the music by heart, and no inconsiderable
number could perhaps perform it very decently themselves. It is indeed
at these quartett and quintett meetings, that you see genuine
specimens of musical knowledge and musical enthusiasm. They take place
by half-dozens during the season; and you always find the same class
of audience, often the same individuals, regularly ranged before the
executants.
But place now for the real grand, miscellaneous, popular, and populous
morning concert! Now for elephantine dimensions and leviathan bills of
fare. It is nominally, perhaps, or really, perhaps, the annual benefit
concert of some well-known performer, or it is the speculation of a
great musical publishing house, in the name of one of their composing
or performing _protégés_. The latter is, indeed, a very common
practice. But whether the music-publishing and opera-box-letting firm
be the real concert-giver, or merely the agent, to it is left the
whole of the nice operation of 'getting up' the entertainment. It has
then exhausted all the dodges of puffery in pumping up an unusual
degree of excitement. The affair is to be a 'festival' or a 'jubilee;'
'all the musical talent' of London is to be concentrated; the
continent has been dragged for extra-ordinary executive attractions;
every musical hit of the season is to be repeated; every effect is to
be got up with new _éclat_: never was there to be such a _super extra,
ne plus ultra_ musical triumph. The day approaches. Rainbow-hued
_affiches_ have done their best; placard-bearers, by scores, have
paraded, and are parading, the streets; advertisements have blazoned
the scheme day after day, and week after week; the gratis-tickets have
been duly 'planted;' puffs, oblique and implied, have hinted at the
coming attraction in every Sunday paper; and programmes are fluttering
in every get-at-able shop-front. The day comes. A long line of
fashionable carriages, strangely intermingled with shabby cabs, file
up to the doors, and the gay morning dresses, flaunting with colours,
disappear between the two colossal placards which grace the entrance.
The room is filled. _Habitués_, and knowing musical men on town,
recognise each other, and congregate in groups, laughingly comparing
notes upon the probabilities of what artists announced will make an
appearance, and upon what apologies will be offered in lieu of those
who don't. A couple of these last are probably already in circulation.
Madame Sopranini is confined to bed with an inflammatory attack; and
Signor Bassinini has got bronchitis. Nevertheless, the concert begins;
and oh! the length thereof. The principal vocalists seem to have
mostly mistaken the time at which they would be wanted; and the
chopping and changing of the programme are bewildering. Bravuras take
the place of concertos; a duet being missing, an aria closes the
ranks; a solo on the trombone not being forthcoming, a vocal trio
(unaccompanied) is hurriedly substituted. Still, there is plenty of
the originally announced music; all the favourite airs, duets, and
trios from the fashionable operas; all the ballads in vogue--the music
published by the house which has set the whole thing on foot, of
course; all the phenomena of executive brilliance are there, or are
momentarily expected to appear. We begin after an overture with, say,
an air from the _Puritani_, by a lovely tenor; another, from the
_Somnambula_, by a charming soprano; a fantasia by a legerdemain
pianist, with long hair, and who comes down on the key-board as though
it was his enemy; the famous song from _Figaro_--encored; the
madrigal, 'Down in a Flowery Vale'--the latter always a sure card; a
duet from _Semiramide_, by two young ladies--rather shaky; solo on the
clarionet, by a gentleman who makes the instrument sound like a
fiddle--great applause; 'In manly Worth,' by an oratorio tenor; the
overture to _Masaniello_, by the band; concerto (posthumous,
Beethoven), by a stern classical man--audience yawn; pot pourri, by a
romantic practitioner--audience waken up; ballad, 'When Hearts are
torn by manly Vows,' by an English tenor--great delight, and
encouragement of native talent; glee, 'Glorious Apollo,' or, 'The
Red-cross Knight'--very well received; recitative and aria, from
_Lucia di Lammermoor_--very lachrymose; violin solo, by Signor
Rosinini, who throws the audience into a paroxysm of delight by
imitating a saw and a grindstone; 'The Bay of Biscay,' by the
'veteran' Braham, being positively his last appearance (the 'veteran'
is announced for four concerts in the ensuing week!); ballad, again,
by the native tenor, 'When Vows are torn by slumbering Hearts'--more
great applause; the page's song from the _Huguenots_, for the
contralto; 'When the Heart of a Man,' _Beggars' Opera_; quartett for
four pianofortes, great bustle arranging them, and then only three
performers forthcoming--an apology--attack of bronchitis--but Mr
Braham will kindly (thunders of applause) sing 'The Death of Nelson;'
quartett for double-bass, trombone, drum, and triangles--curious
effect; the audience hardly know whether they like it or not; the
bravura song of the 'Queen of Night,' from _Zauberflöte_; overture to
_William Tell_; ballad, 'When Slumber's Heart is torn by Vows;' duet,
'I know a Bank,' by the Semiramide young ladies; fantasia pianoforte,
from the _Fille du Régiment_; 'Rode's air, with variations,' from the
text; and the storm movement of the _Sinfonia Pastorale_, by
Beethoven!
Such may be taken as a fair specimen-slice of a _Concert Monstre_; and
in listening to this wild agglomeration of chaotic music, the day
passes, very likely from two o'clock until six. In a future paper, I
may touch upon the peculiarities of the artists performing.