Charles Dickens and Music Part 11

occasionally entertained himself with a melodious howl, intended for a song but bearing not the faintest resemblance to any sc.r.a.p of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental, ever invented by man.

Ba.s.s singers, and especially the Ba.s.so Profundos, will be glad to know that d.i.c.kens pays more attention to them than to the other voices, though it must be acknowledged that the references are of a humorous nature. 'Ba.s.s!' as the young gentleman in one of the _Sketches_ remarks to his companion about the little man in the chair, 'ba.s.s! I believe you. He can go down lower than any man; so low sometimes that you can't hear him.'

And so he does. To hear him growling away, gradually lower and lower down, till he can't get back again, is the most delightful thing in the world.

Of similar calibre is the voice of Captain Helves, already referred to on p. 62.

Topper, who had his eye on one of Scrooge's niece's sisters (_C.C._),

could growl away in the ba.s.s like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead or get red in the face over it.

d.i.c.kens must certainly have had much experience of ba.s.ses, as he seems to know their habits and eccentricities so thoroughly. In fact it seems to suggest that at some unknown period of his career, hitherto unchronicled by his biographers, he must have been a choirmaster.

He also shows a knowledge of the style of song the ba.s.ses delighted in

at the harmony meetings in which the collegians at the Marshalsea[18] used to indulge. Occasionally a vocal strain more sonorous than the generality informed the listener that some boastful ba.s.s was in blue water or the hunting field, or with the reindeer, or on the mountain, or among the heather, but the Marshal of the Marshalsea knew better, and had got him hard and fast.

We are not told what the duet was that d.i.c.kens heard at Vauxhall, but the description is certainly vivid enough:

It was a beautiful duet; first the small gentleman asked a question and then the tall lady answered it; then the small gentleman and the tall lady sang together most melodiously; then the small gentleman went through a little piece of vehemence by himself, and got very tenor indeed, in the excitement of his feelings, to which the tall lady responded in a similar manner; then the small gentleman had a shake or two, after which the tall lady had the same, and then they both merged imperceptibly into the original air.

Our author is quite impartial in his distribution of his voices. In _P.P._ we read of a boy of fourteen who was a tenor (not the fat boy), while the quality of the female voices is usually left to the imagination.

If Mrs. Plornish (_L.D._) is to be believed, her father, Mr. John Edward Nandy, was a remarkable singer. He was

a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, like a worn-out bird, who had been in what he called the music-binding business.

But Mrs. P. was very proud of her father's talents, and in response to her invitation, 'Sing us a song, father,'

Then would he give them Chloe, and if he were in pretty good spirits, Phyllis also--Strephon he had hardly been up to since he went into retirement--and then would Mrs. Plornish declare she did believe there never was such a singer as father, and wipe her eyes.

Old Nandy evidently favoured the eighteenth-century songs, in which the characters here referred to were constantly occurring. At a subsequent period of his history Nandy's vocal efforts surprised even his daughter.

'You never heard father in such voice as he is at present,' said Mrs. Plornish, her own voice quavering, she was so proud and pleased. 'He gave us Strephon last night, to that degree that Plornish gets up and makes him this speech across the table, "John Edward Nandy," says Plornish to father, "I never heard you come the warbles as I have heard you come the warbles this night." Ain't it gratifying, Mr. Pancks, though; really.'

The Mr. Pancks here referred to did not mind taking his part in a bit of singing. He says, in reference to a 'Harmony evening'

at the Marshalsea:

'I am spending the evening with the rest of 'em,'

said Pancks. 'I've been singing. I've been taking a part in "White Sand and Grey Sand." I don't know anything about it. Never mind. I'll take part in anything, it's all the same, if you're loud enough.'

Here we have a round of considerable antiquity, though the date and author are alike unknown.

[Figure 3] or [Figure 4]

White sand and grey sand: Who'll buy my white sand?

Who'll buy my grey sand?

_Glee-Singing_

A feature of the Harmonic Meetings at the 'Sol' (_B.H._) was the performance of Little Swills, who, after entertaining the company with comic songs, took the 'gruff line' in a concerted piece, and adjured 'his friends to listen, listen, listen to the wa-ter-fall!' Little Swills was also an adept at 'patter and gags.' Glee and catch singing was a feature at the Christmas party given by Scrooge's nephew, for 'they were a musical family, and knew what they were about.' This remark can scarcely be applied to the Malderton family, who, a.s.sisted by the redoubtable Mr. Horatio Sparkins,

tried over glees and trios without number; they having made the pleasing discovery that their voices harmonized beautifully. To be sure, they all sang the first part; and Horatio, in addition to the slight drawback of having no ear, was perfectly innocent of knowing a note of music; still, they pa.s.sed the time very agreeably.

Glee-singing seems to have been a feature in the social life of Cloisterham (_E.D._).

'We shall miss you, Jasper' (said Mr. Crisparkle), 'at the "Alternate Musical Wednesdays" to-night; but no doubt you are best at home. Good-night, G.o.d bless you. "Tell me shepherds te-e-ell me: tell me-e-e have you seen (have you seen, have you seen, have you seen) my-y-y Flo-o-ora-a pa.s.s this way!"'

It was a different kind of glee party that left the Blue Boar after the festivities in connexion with Pip's indentures (_G.E._).

They were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang 'O Lady Fair,' Mr. Wopsle taking the ba.s.s, and a.s.sisting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner by wanting to know all about everybody's private affairs) that _he_ was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going.

Perhaps the most remarkable glee party that d.i.c.kens gives us is the one organized by the male boarders at Mrs. Todgers', with a view to serenading the two Miss Pecksniffs.

It was very affecting, very. Nothing more dismal could have been desired by the most fastidious taste. The gentleman of a vocal turn was head mute, or chief mourner; Jinkins took the ba.s.s, and the rest took anything they could get.... If the two Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs. Todgers had perished by spontaneous combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would have been impossible to surpa.s.s the unutterable despair expressed in that one chorus: 'Go where glory waits thee.' It was a requiem, a dirge, a moan, a howl, a wail, a lament, an abstract of everything that is sorrowful and hideous in sound.

The song which the literary boarder had written for the occasion, 'All hail to the vessel of Pecksniff, the sire,'

is a parody of Scott's 'All hail to the chief who in triumph advances,' from the _Lady of the Lake_.

Two words that by themselves have a musical meaning are 'Chaunter' and 'Drums'; but the Chaunter referred to is one of Edward Dorrit's creditors, and the word means 'not a singer of anthems, but a seller of horses.' To this profession also Simpson belonged, on whom Mr. Pickwick was 'chummed' in the Fleet prison. A 'drum' is referred to in the description of the London streets at night in _Barnaby Rudge_, and signifies a rout or evening party for cards; while one where stakes ran high and much noise accompanied the play was known as a 'drum major.'

In _Our Bore_ (_R.P._) this sentence occurs:

He was at the Norwich musical festival when the extraordinary echo, for which science has been wholly unable to account, was heard for the first and last time. He and the bishop heard it at the same moment, and caught each other's eye.

Dr. A.H. Mann, who knows as much about Norwich and its festivals as any one, is quite unable to throw any light on this mystic remark. There were complaints about the acoustics of the St. Andrew's Hall many years ago, but there appears to be no historic foundation for d.i.c.kens' reference. It would certainly be interesting to know what suggested the idea to him.

There is a curious incident connected with Uncle d.i.c.k, whose great ambition was 'to beat the drum.' It was only by a mere chance that his celebrated reference to King Charles's head got into the story. d.i.c.kens originally wrote as follows (in Chapter 14, _D.C._):

'Do you recollect the date,' said Mr. d.i.c.k, looking earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, 'when the bull got into the china warehouse and did so much mischief?'

In the proof d.i.c.kens struck out all the words after 'when,'

and inserted in their place the following:

'King Charles the First had his head cut off?'

I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and forty-nine.

'Well,' returned Mr. d.i.c.k, scratching his ear with his pen and looking dubiously at me, 'so the books say, but I don't see how that can be. Because if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it was taken off, into mine?'

The whole of the subst.i.tuted pa.s.sage is inserted in the margin at the bottom of the page. Again, when Mr. d.i.c.k shows David Copperfield his kite covered with ma.n.u.script, David was made to say in the proof: 'I thought I saw some allusion to the bull again in one or two places.' Here d.i.c.kens has struck through the words, 'the bull,' and replaced them with 'King Charles the First's head.'

The original reference was to a very popular song of the period called 'The Bull in the China Shop,' words by C. Dibdin, Junior, and music by W. Reeve. Produced about 1808, it was popularized by the celebrated clown Grimaldi. The first verse is:

You've heard of a frog in an opera hat, 'Tis a very old tale of a mouse and a rat, I could sing you another as pleasant, mayhap, Of a kitten that wore a high caul cap; But my muse on a far n.o.bler subject shall drop, Of a bull who got into a china shop, With his right leg, left leg, upper leg, under leg, St. Patrick's day in the morning.

[17] Mr. Alfred Payne writes thus: 'Some time ago an old friend told me that he had heard from a Hertfords.h.i.+re organist that Dr. W.H. Monk (editor of _Hymns Ancient and Modern_) adapted "Belmont" from the highly cla.s.sical melody of which a few bars are given above.