Charles Dickens and Music | Page 9

enterprising body?to its orchestra. We have it, on the best authority,?that its compositions will be quite as rough and?discordant as the real old original.
Fourteen years later he makes use of a well-known phrase in writing to his friend Wills (October 8, 1864) in reference to the proofs of an article.
I have gone through the number carefully, and have?been down upon Chorley's paper in particular, which?was a 'little bit' too personal. It is all right now?and good, and them's my sentiments too of the Music?of the Future.[8]
Although there was little movement in this direction when?Dickens wrote this, the paragraph makes interesting reading nowadays in view of some musical tendencies in certain quarters.
[1] In his speech at Birmingham on 'Literature and Art'
(1853) he makes special reference to the 'great music?of Mendelssohn.'
[2] Moore's Irish Melodies.
[3] Moore.
[4] 'Seven Dials! the region of song and poetry--first
effusions and last dying speeches: hallowed by the?names of Catnac and of Pitts, names that will entwine?themselves with costermongers and barrel-organs, when?penny magazines shall have superseded penny yards of?song, and capital punishment be unknown!' (S.B.S. 5.)
[5] The 'Hutchinson family' was a musical troupe composed of
three sons and two daughters selected from the 'Tribe of Jesse,' a name given to the sixteen children of Jesse?and Mary Hutchinson, of Milford, N.H. They toured in?England in 1845 and 1846, and were received with great enthusiasm. Their songs were on subjects connected?with Temperance and Anti-Slavery. On one occasion?Judson, one of the number, was singing the 'Humbugged?Husband,' which he used to accompany with the fiddle,?and he had just sung the line 'I'm sadly taken in,'?when the stage where he was standing gave way and he?nearly disappeared from view. The audience at first?took this as part of the performance.
[6] Miss Rainforth was the soloist at the first production
of Mendelssohn's 'Hear my Prayer.' (See The Choir,?March, 1911.)
[7] John Curwen published his Grammar of Vocal Music
in 1842.
[8] Quoted in Mr. R.C. Lehmann's Dickens as an Editor
(1912).
CHAPTER II
INSTRUMENTAL COMBINATIONS
VIOLIN, VIOLONCELLO, HARP, PIANO
Dickens' orchestras are limited, both in resources and in the number of performers; in fact, it would be more correct to?call them combinations of instruments. Some of them are of?a kind not found in modern works on instrumentation, as, for instance, at the party at Trotty Veck's (Ch.) when a 'band of music' burst into the good man's room, consisting of a drum, marrow-bones and cleavers, and bells, 'not the bells but a portable collection on a frame.' We gather from Leech's picture that other instrumentalists were also present. Sad to relate, the drummer was not quite sober, an unfortunate state of things, certainly, but not always confined to the drumming fraternity, since in the account of the Party at Minerva House (S.B.T.) we read that amongst the numerous arrivals were 'the pianoforte player and the violins: the harp in a state of intoxication.'
We have an occasional mention of a theatre orchestra, as,?for instance, when the Phenomenon was performing at Portsmouth (N.N.):
'Ring in the orchestra, Grudden.'
That useful lady did as she was requested, and shortly?afterwards the tuning of three fiddles was heard,?which process, having been protracted as long as it?was supposed that the patience of the orchestra could?possibly bear it, was put a stop to by another jerk of?the bell, which, being the signal to begin in earnest,?set the orchestra playing a variety of popular airs?with involuntary variations.
On one occasion Dickens visited Vauxhall Gardens by day, where 'a small party of dismal men in cocked hats were "executing" the overture to Tancredi,' but he does not, unfortunately, give us any details about the number or kind of instruments employed. This would be in 1836, when the experiment of day entertainments was given a trial, and a series of balloon?ascents became the principal attraction. Forster tells us?that Dickens was a frequent visitor at the numerous gardens and places of entertainment which abounded in London, and?which he knew better than any other man. References will?be found elsewhere to the music at the Eagle (p. 47) and the White Conduit Gardens (p. 93).
Violin and Kit.
We meet with but few players on the violin, and it is usually mentioned in connexion with other instruments, though it was to the strains of a solitary fiddle that Simon Tappertit danced a hornpipe for the delectation of his followers, while the same instrument supplied the music at the Fezziwig's ball.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to?the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned?like fifty stomach-aches.
The orchestra at the 'singing-house' provided for Jack's?amusement when ashore (U.T. 5) consisted of a fiddle and?tambourine; while at dances the instruments were fiddles?and harps. It was the harps that first aroused Mr. Jingle's curiosity, as he met them being carried up the staircase?of The Bull at Rochester, while, shortly after, the tuning?of both harps and fiddles inspired Mr. Tupman with a strong desire