MU SIC.
MENIAL MUSIC.
"DURING the wait the excellent band of the Crystal Palace Company played a selection much appreciated by the public." The above extract from the telegraphic account of the great football match at the Crystal Palace posted upon a club notice- board last Saturday caught the eye of the present writer and set him wondering what "G.," with his contempt for the tyranny of athletic pastimes, would have said of this strange mixture of /ha:16mi and yey.cratrrtz4,—the forty thousand ex- cursionists from the North, and some forty thousand more from the South, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the gladiators hired from all sides to do battle for Sheffield and Southampton, yet not too impatient to listen to and appreciate the efforts of the excellent band of the Company. After all, Music, as we understand the word, is by far the youngest of the arts, and in virtue of her youth must expect to be treated as a Cinderella, and condemned to a certain amount of ignoble drudgery. We are not aware of the precise character of the programme selected to appease the impatience of the ex- pectant onlookers last Saturday, but can imagine that it did not contain anything of a severely classical nature, or that anybody's feelings were greatly affronted. In spite of the growth of the taste for symphonic music and the multiplica- tion of instrumental concerts, it is not always easy even for a first-rate orchestral player to dispense with engagements of which little more can be said than that they bring in bread-and- butter,—engagements, that is, in theatre bands, or in bands that play at dances. A few years ago the writer recognised in the orchestra of a theatre where an alleged "musical comedy" of more than usually deplorable inanity was being performed the features of a famous wood-wind player whom Richter has pronounced "a great artist." A more tragic figure it would be difficult to conceive.—Imagine, by way of illustra- tive parallel, a Bishop on the running-path, Lord Salisbury playing ping-pong, or Mr. Herbert Spencer condemned to write personal paragraphs for a syndicate of society papers!
If, however, one were to make out a list in order of demerit of all the ignoble functions which music is forced to fulfil, there would be several stages below that of furnishing the hors d'oeuvre to football matches or musical comedy. With regard to theatrical music outside opera, we are not at all sure that it is not poesible to lay down a canon that the respect paid to music varies inversely with the quality of the text. At any rate, we can imagine few more trying experi- ences for a serious musician than those involved in carrying out a commission to cOmpose incidental music to a "standard" or " high-class " drama. We sometimes hear it said that conversation is a lost art. Persons who hold that pessimistic view need only attend the "first night" of a Shakespearian revival and observe the audience during the performance of the music between the acts. As the old lady remarked in extenuation of the old habit of swearing: "It was a great set-off to conversation" ; much the same might be said of incidental music. In the theatre, music has still for the most part an unrecognised claim to an independent existence. As an accompaniment to be sung or danced to its utility is generally recognised, and in pantomimes it is indispensable as a means of accentuating strong situations by vehement tremolando in the strings. A piccolo, or better, a cornet, sob in the entr'acte will generally extort a tribute of applause. But otherwise the function of the theatre band is distinctly ancillary, not to say menial.
Trying as it must be at times to the self-respecting artist to take part in a theatre band, there is another extremely common function of music of a decidedly less dignified posi- tion. We mean the part played by the divine art at fashion- able restaurants and public dinners. People who really care very much about music do not as a rule enjoy eating to the accompaniment of a band. If the musk is really good, they feel it to be something of an insult to the musicians and the composers. Even if it is only light music well played, it tends to distract the diner's attention from his neighbour, and impairs the flow of conversation. Some people, again, com- plain that in these circumstances they always want to wield knife, fork, and spoon in time to the music, just as we have heard competitors at athletic sports complain that a band" put them off" by making them try to run in step with the music. —Imagine the feelings of an accomplished hurdler trying to adapt the " three strides" to a piece of music in common time!—. When, therefore, optimists expatiate on the growth of musical culture in England, it is open to objectors to adduce the increased demand for instrumental music at meal-times. Nowadays, when everybody who wishes to be anybody never dines at home, restaurant and hotel bands have increased and multiplied so largely that we may look forward to the gradual development of the practice of harmonising the programme to the menu. Handel would obviously clash with any course save the joints, just as Spohr, Chopin, and Gounod should syn- chronise with the later and non-carnivorous stages of a banquet. But after all, some one may say, why lay stress on the performance of music at meal-times in public places as an indication of defective musical taste amongst the English? Is it not a custom that obtains widely in Germany ? That is true enough, but we would point out that at the best German musical restaurants the music goes on long after every one has finished dining, and that it is the music rather than the dinner which constitutes the chief attraction. Still, view it as one may, the gastronomic) or digestive function of music is one which cannot be regarded as particularly dignified. Another quasi-menial duty most efficiently performed by music may be observed at political meetings, where the itupatience of the audience is allayed either by the singing of topical songs or, the playing of popular airs on the organ,—a degradation, of that noble instrument which reminds one of Samson being forced to make sport for the Philistines. As a rule, however, the menial functions in music are entrusted for the most part..to instruments which have least to complain of such treatment. The cornet, though in its place a very uaeful auxiliary, justifies its existence solely as an orchestral instrument, and in virtue of the superior certainty with which passages can be played upon it in comparison with the true trumpet. Other- wise it is the most ignoble and undistinguished voice in the orchestra, and whelk& musician hears it bleating forth some familiar air from Balfe at a public-house door, his sense of the fitness of things is far less outraged than by the spectacle
or s–violin, or even a harp, condemned to keep such low com- pany. As for the banjo, one is always comforted by the pleasing spectacle of a perfect 'accordance between the character and appearance of the instrument on the one side, and the pur- poses to which it is devoted on the other. The penny whistle, as the instrument of the democracy, claims attention, if not sympathy, and the virtuosity displayed by some street per- formers is truly miraculous. It has also had the good fortune to be immortalised by R. L. Stevenson in "The Wrong Box." (Who can ever forget that inimitable chapter which opens with a discussion of the strange fact that one seldom meets a tiro on this instrument--" the young of the penny whistler, like those of the salmon, are occult from observation "—and pro- ceeds to narrate the encounter between Sergeant Harker and the boy ?) But on the whole its strains, if "soul-animating," can hardly be described as " alas ! too few."
The disabilities of music and musicians are still numerous enough to wound the susceptibilities of a devout lover of the art, though distinguished artists are no longer subjected to the social indignities which aroused the wrath of Spohr when he visited England some seventy years ago. On the other hand, music, as compared with the other arts, enjoys certain countervailing advantages or immunities by no means to be lightly overlooked. Thus in an age in which literature and pictorial art are habitually condemned to be the helots of com- mercial enterprise, music knows little of the base uses of advertisement. It has never even occurred to a pill manu- facturer to hire a composer to write an opera in praise of his wares, or to the proprietor of a hair-wash to induce a long- haired pianist to testify to its efficacy. The attitude of the piano manufacturers is undoubtedly open to a certain amount of criticism, and one cannot but wonder at the resource- fulness which some of the "monarchs of the keyboard" have displayed in writing testimonials ascribing supreme excellence to the instruments not of one but of several different makers. The attitude of the manufacturers is illustrated by the anecdote of one of the tribe who, on being asked after some recital, "What did Rubinstein play?" replied indignantly, "Why, a Bliithstein, of course!" As for the proper attitude of the pianist, we have the liveliest sympathy with von Billow, of whom it is related that, in the course of a tour in America, he greatly resented the action of the firm on whose pianofortes he played in affix- ing an unusually monstrous name-board on the front of the instrument. At last he determined to be revenged on the culprits, and the mode of his vengeance was thoroughly characteristic. Coming on to the platform at the beginning cf one of his recitals, he removed the offending board, threw it oa the floor, danced a war-dance upon it, and then, with an air of great relief, sat down at the pianoforte.
C. L. G.
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