HANDEL BEETHOVEN SMITH proved to be of uncertain temper. At times he
was sullen, or sarcastic, and he was always severe. He would not have
this, and he would have that. He told the leading bass that his voice
sounded like a trombone, without its correctness of pitch. He said
the Emmons girls had harsh, grating voices, and that Carrie Fowler's
singing reminded him of a certain rooster which used to disturb his
morning slumbers. You hardly need to be told the results of all this.
They became apparent to us by degrees. One by one the choir grew
smaller. The leading bass accepted an invitation elsewhere. The Emmons
girls felt their throats needed rest from regular singing. Cissy Burton
decided that she preferred a seat by mamma. Poor Cissy was a nervous
little thing, her mother said, quite unused to Mr. Smith's brusque
ways; dear Mr. Pemberton had always been so considerate of people's
feelings. It is true that Mr. Smith had been rather brusque. He told
her savagely one day that she was always half a tone behind, and
sang with no more expression than a hand-organ! Nor was it the choir
alone, who were the subjects of these home thrusts. Handel Beethoven
Smith carried things with a high hand in every direction. He told Dr.
Powers, who asked to have the chant, "Suffer little children to come
unto me," rendered the Sabbath after the funeral of his little child,
that they had sung it but three Sabbaths before at somebody's request,
and he couldn't afford to establish such a precedent as that; a leader
of a choir couldn't be all the time practising funeral chants because
people's babies would die. That "Suffer little children" was nothing
but trash, anyway; ought never to be sung; he had strained a point to
sing it once, and he didn't mean to get caught in that way again.
I must do Mr. Smith the justice to explain that when he called the
chant in question "trash," he referred to the words, not the music.
Words were the merest nothings to him; indeed, he had been heard to say
that all music ought to be rendered in Italian, that the clumsiness of
the English tongue might be lost sight of. Handel Beethoven Smith had a
very cultivated ear.
Dr. Powers was by no means the only senior whom Mr. Smith subdued
with savage speech. The long-suffering minister ventured one day to
suggest to the organist the wish that he would not send the people out
of church to the sound of music which seemed to belong to the dance,
or the parade, or some festive scene, when the organist assured him
that he was himself under orders, that he did not dare to hint to the
leader that his soul was his own, much less his fingers. After due
consideration, and also after the minister had preached a sermon on the
betrayal, and heard a young lady exclaim, as she fluttered down the
aisle a few minutes after its solemn closing, "Oh, isn't that music
perfectly exquisite! I can hardly keep my feet from whirling off with
me in a waltz," he determined to brave the fierce Handel Beethoven
himself; and little did he gain by the operation. The great artist
informed him that he did not presume to dictate to him what texts he
should select, nor, indeed, how long he should make his discourses;
however much he might dislike their length, he was in the habit of
leaving that matter entirely to the minister's judgment, and he desired
and expected to be treated in the same way as regarded the music. If
the minister would see to it that his part of the service was properly
managed, be sure that he, Handel Beethoven Smith, was entirely capable
of attending to his part.
Neither did the constant resignations from the choir apparently disturb
the leader in the least. Indeed, he sometimes, with an approach to
almost complaisance, remarked that they were well rid of such an one,
and the choir improved with each departure. He had no very high opinion
of chorus choirs, anyway; you could never do really classic work with a
mixed chorus.
He imported in the place of the irate bass singer a young man with a
faultless voice and dress. To be sure, this importation created dismay;
it was whispered abroad that the owner of the divine voice supported
himself by selling fancy liquors in a fashionable up-town saloon!
Could it be endured that he should roll out the praises of God in our
choir on Sundays, and deal out liquid death to our young men during
the week? There were many who thought it could not, and Deacon Slocumb
was appointed chairman of a committee to interview the savage leader,
who, after hearing his somewhat lengthy complaint, silenced him with
the severe statement: "You are laboring under a foolish mistake, Deacon
Slocumb. I engaged the young man because of his voice, not because
of his business. He does not sell his fancy drinks in our choir on
Sunday, and it is a form of business which has not, as yet, affected
his throat. He has a very cultured voice, which can be said of very few
singers in this town, I assure you; music is at a very low ebb here,
and lower nowhere than in your church. I tell you frankly I do not
think there is a man among you who knows real music when he hears it,
and therefore it is absurdly impossible that you should be permitted to
dictate to me."
The deacon was silenced, but not convinced. Still, we had been through
such seas of trouble with our choir that we trembled at the thought of
touching it. And then, there was dear old Auntie Barber, who murmured:
"Well, the young man gets to church twice a day by this means; and they
do say he hasn't been in the habit of going to church for years. If
he has a mother, poor soul, she must be glad of something that brings
him within sound of the Gospel." And yet Auntie Barber remembered,
within her honest, sinking heart, how they had rejoiced in bringing the
affable Theodore under the sound of the Gospel, and how disastrous had
been the apparent results.
There came a morning in our church which I am inclined to think was
a triumph to our highly cultivated leader. One by one the chorus had
slipped away, until now there were left just four singers—the leading
soprano, the best alto we had, the divine bass voice of the saloon
clerk, and for tenor, Handel Beethoven himself. That he was satisfied
with the situation he showed in his face, and the first piece they
rendered certainly astonished the congregation. Joe Slocumb, who was
learning to take notes of what was said and sung, for the benefit of
the dear old grandma at home, gave the following copy of the words:
"Whytee ugh seeeepro take tip ou-ou-ou-ouur
Beem I'ven wiiiish us till,
Nan mate is conseek raaateee tower,
We uth beeeta ropes by Phil."
In vain did grandma don her spectacles and study carefully for a
familiar word. Then she laid the paper down with a sigh and a protest:
"I didn't think, Joe, that you would be for playing tricks on your old
grandma."
Then Joe, virtuous and indignant: "I didn't, Grandma, do any such
thing. Them's the very words, jist as near as I can make them out. It
wasn't a piece the minister read; they just squealed it out, without
anybody telling what it was; and if them ain't the words, then it
didn't have any words."
By all of which I trust you will understand how entirely Handel
Beethoven Smith succeeded in training his choir to overcome the
clumsiness of the English language.