Charles Dickens and Music Part 7

In referring to another boy's attempt at solving the arithmetical puzzles, he mentions the cymbals, combined with a faint memory of St. Paul.

I observe the player of the cymbals to dash at a sounding answer now and then rather than not cut in at all; but I take that to be in the way of his instrument.

In _Great Expectations_ Mr. Wopsle, who is a parish clerk by profession, had an ambition not only to tread the boards, but to start off as Hamlet. His appearance was not a success, and the audience was derisive.

On his taking the recorders--very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door--he was called upon unanimously for 'Rule Britannia.'

Reference has already been made to Bucket's music-shop, so we must not forget to visit Caleb Plummer's little room, where there were

scores of melancholy little carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture.

The old man made a rude kind of harp specially for his poor blind daughter, and on which Dot used to play when she visited the toy-maker's. Caleb's musical contribution would be 'a Baccha.n.a.lian song, something about a sparkling bowl,' which much annoyed his grumpy employer.

'What! you're singing, are you?' said Tackleton, putting his head in at the door. 'Go it, _I_ can't sing.'

n.o.body would have suspected him of it. He hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any means.

The wonderful duet between the cricket and the kettle at the commencement of _The Cricket on the Hearth_ certainly deserves mention, though it is rather difficult to know whether to cla.s.s the performers as instrumentalists or singers. The kettle began it with a series of short vocal snorts, which at first it checked in the bud, but finally it burst into a stream of song, 'while the lid performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother.' Then the cricket came in with its chirp, chirp, chirp, and at it they went in fierce rivalry until 'the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was taken off the fire.'

d.i.c.kens was certainly partial to the cricket, for elsewhere (_M.H.C._) we read of the clock that

makes cheerful music, like one of those chirping insects who delight in the warm hearth.

There are two or three references to the key bugle, which also used to be known as the Kent bugle. It was a popular instrument half a century ago, as the addition of keys gave it a much greater range of notes than the ordinary bugle possessed. A notable though inefficient performer was the driver who took Martin Chuzzlewit up to London.

He was musical, besides, and had a little key bugle in his pocket on which, whenever the conversation flagged, he played the first part of a great many tunes, and regularly broke down in the second.

This instrument was on Mr. Feeder's _agenda_.

Two more instruments demand our attention. At the marriage of Tackleton and May Fielding (_C.H._) there were to be marrow-bones and cleavers, while to celebrate the union of Trotty Veck's daughter Meg and Richard they had a band including the aforesaid instruments and also the drum and the bells. It was formerly the custom for butchers' a.s.sistants to provide themselves with marrow-bones and cleavers for musical effects.

Each cleaver was ground so that when it was struck with the bone it emitted a certain note.[12] A complete band would consist of eight men, with their cleavers so tuned as to give an octave of notes. After more or less practice they would offer their services as bandsmen on the occasion of marriage ceremonies, which they had a wonderful faculty for locating, and they would provide music (of a kind) _ad libitum_ until the requisite fee was forthcoming. If their services were declined the butchers would turn up all the same, and make things very unpleasant for the marriage party. The custom dates from the eighteenth century, and though it has gradually fallen into disuse a marrow-bone and cleaver band is still available in London for those who want it. A band took part in a wedding ceremony at Clapham as recently as the autumn of 1911.

The following extract, referring to the second marriage of Mr. Dombey, shows what bridal parties had to put up with in the good old days:

The men who play the bells have got scent of the marriage; and the marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a bra.s.s band too. The first are practising in a back settlement near Battle-bridge[13]; the second put themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr. Tomlinson, to whom they offer terms to be bought off; and the third, in the person of an artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner, waiting for some traitor-tradesman to reveal the place and hour of breakfast, for a bribe.

Other instruments casually referred to are the Pan's pipes, which in one place is also called a mouth-organ (_S.B.S._ 20), the flageolet, and the triangle. It is difficult to cla.s.sify the walking-stick on which Mr. Jennings Rudolph played tunes before he went behind the parlour door and gave his celebrated imitations of actors, edgetools, and animals (_S.B.C._ 8).

[11] Forster, _Life of Charles d.i.c.kens._

[12] This is rather a modern development.

[13] Near King's Cross Station (G.N.R.).

CHAPTER V

CHURCH MUSIC

d.i.c.kens has not much to say about church music as such, but the references are interesting, inasmuch as they throw some light upon it during the earlier years of his life. In _Our Parish_ (_S.B._) we read about the old naval officer who

finds fault with the sermon every Sunday, says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself, and offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put together.

This reminds us that during the first half of last century, and indeed later in many places, the church choir as we know it did not exist, and the leading of the singing was entrusted to the children of the charity school under the direction of the clerk, a custom which had existed since the seventeenth century. The chancel was never used for the choir, and the children sat up in the gallery at the west end, on either side of the organ. In a City church that d.i.c.kens attended the choir was limited to two girls. The organ was so out of order that he could 'hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music.' When the service began he was so depressed that, as he says,

I gave but little heed to our dull manner of ambling through the service; to the brisk clerk's manner of encouraging us to try a note or two at psalm time; to the gallery congregation's manner of enjoying a shrill duet, without a notion of time or tune; to the whity-brown man's manner of shutting the minister into the pulpit, and being very particular with the lock of the door, as if he were a dangerous animal.

Elsewhere he found in the choir gallery an 'exhausted charity school' of four boys and two girls. The congregations were small, a state of things which at any rate satisfied Mrs. Lirriper, who had a pew at St. Clement Danes and was 'partial to the evening service not too crowded.'

In _Sunday under Three Heads_ we have a vivid picture of the state of things at a fas.h.i.+onable church. Carriages roll up, richly dressed people take their places and inspect each other through their gla.s.ses.

The organ peals forth, the hired singers commence a short hymn, and the congregation condescendingly rise, stare about them and converse in whispers.

d.i.c.kens pa.s.ses from church to chapel. Here, he says,

the hymn is sung--not by paid singers, but by the whole a.s.sembly at the loudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied by any musical instrument, the words being given out, two lines at a time, by the clerk.

It cannot be said that, as far as the music is concerned, either of these descriptions is exaggerated when we remember the time at which they were written (1838). Very few chapels in London had organs, or indeed instruments of any kind, and there is no doubt that the congregations, as a rule, _did_ sing at the tops of their voices, a proceeding known under the more euphonious t.i.tle of 'hearty congregational singing.'

He gives a far more favourable account of the music in the village church. In the essay just referred to he mentions the fact that he attended a service in a West of England church where the service 'was spoken--not merely read--by a grey-headed minister.'

The psalms were accompanied by a few instrumental performers, who were stationed in a small gallery extending across the church at the lower end; and the voices were led by the clerk, who, it was evident, derived no slight pride and gratification from this portion of the service.

But if the church music in England was not of a very high quality when d.i.c.kens wrote the above, it was, according to his own account, far superior to what he heard in certain churches in Italy. When in Rome he visited St. Peter's, where he was quite unimpressed by the music.

I have been infinitely more affected in many English cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many English country churches when the congregation have been singing.

On another occasion he attended church at Genoa on a feast day, and he writes thus about the music:

The organ played away l.u.s.tily, and a full band did the like; while a conductor, in a little gallery opposite the band, hammered away on the desk before him, with a scroll, and a tenor, without any voice, sang. The band played one way, the organ played another, the singer went a third, and the unfortunate conductor banged and banged, and flourished his scroll on some principle of his own; apparently well satisfied with the whole performance. I never did hear such a discordant din.

_Parish Clerks_

We have but few references to parish clerks in the novels. Mr. Wopsle (_G.E._)--whom Mr. Andrew Lang calls 'one of the best of d.i.c.kens' minor characters'--'punished the Amens tremendously,'[14] and when he gave out the psalms--always giving the whole verse--he looked all round the congregation first, as much as to say 'You have heard our friend overhead; oblige me with your opinion of this style.' This gentleman subsequently became a 'play-actor,' but failed to achieve the success he desired. Solomon Daisy (_B.R._) is bell-ringer and parish clerk of Chigwell, though we hear nothing of his exploits in these capacities. However, he must have been a familiar figure to the villagers as he stood in his little desk on the Sunday, giving out the psalms and leading the singing, because when in the rifled and dismantled Maypole he appeals to the poor witless old Willet as to whether he did not know him--

'You know us, don't you, Johnny?' said the little clerk, rapping himself on the breast. 'Daisy, you know--Chigwell Church--bell-ringer--little desk on Sundays--eh, Johnny?'

Mr. Willet reflected for a few moments, and then muttered as it were mechanically: 'Let us sing to the praise and glory of--'

'Yes, to be sure,' cried the little man hastily, 'that's it, that's me, Johnny.'

Besides the numerous body of more or less distinguished artists whom the novelist introduces to us and whose achievements are duly set forth in these pages, there are two others whose connexion with Cloisterham gives them a prominent position in our list. One of these is the Rev. Mr. Crisparkle (_E.D._), Minor Canon of Cloisterham: