Mr. Pepys the Musician (Continued) Author(s): Francis Hueffer Source: The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 22, No. 457 (Mar. 1, 1881), pp. 116-118

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This content downloaded from 128.252.67.66 on Sat, 14 Nov 2015 01:20:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 116 THE MUSICAL TIMES.-MARCH I, 1881. is one which requires great acting to do it hour upon the contemporary stage in a cleverly de- justice, and to awaken the human interest, monstrative manner. Time is the test of opinions, which, it must be confessed, does not lie on the and Mr. Pepys's utterances about the composers of surface, and which, in almost any other hands, his age have stood that test remarkably well-as we might easily fail to find expression. Herr Schott's shall see by-and-by. But first of all as to facts. Azim, was a creation of no less excellence. Gifted, There are in the Diary a number of curious entries as those of our readers who witnessed his per- referringto the mechanical appliances of the art, the formance of Lohengrin last winter in London various musical instrumentsfrom which our ancestors will remember, with a superb stage presence, he elicited sweet sounds in the days of the Restoration. looked the part to perfection, and sang the music To appreciate the historical or practical value of allotted to him most admirably, but the character is these pieces of information,the present writer knows not one to excite great interest. The central figure himself to be peculiarly incompetent. All he can do of the opera unfortunatelydid not find so satisfactory is to quote the words as they stand for the benefit of a representative. Doubtless the part of Mocanna is Mr. Hipkins, Mr. Carl Engel, and other learned men one of no ordinary difficulty,chiefly perhaps because, interested in these matters. by the face being covered, all expression is of neces- To begin with the king of instruments,the organ: sity confined to movements of the figure and limbs; here is a statement relating to the history of its but Herr Nollet, to whom the part was intrusted, vicissitudes in England. The following extract, although possessed of a powerful voice, has ex- dated November 4, 166o, will at the same time tremely little histrionic ability, and failed utterly illustrate the havoc the Commonwealth had made in his conception of the character. The parts of in the service-musical and otherwise-of the Fatima, Abdullah, the Watchman, and the Caliph Church :- were admirably filled by Frau Vizthum-Pauli and "Lord's Day. In the morn to our own church, Herren Bletzacher, Emge, and Von Milde respec- where Mr. Mills did begin to nibble at the Common tively. The chorus was very efficient, and the Prayer by saying 'Glory be to the Father,' etc., playing of the orchestra absolute perfection. The after he had read the two psalms; but the people whole opera was exceedingly well put upon the had been so little used to it that they could stage; the mountingof the second act especially being not tell what to answer. This declaration of the of unusual beauty. The evolutions of the ballet were King's do give the Presbyterians some satisfaction, extremelygraceful, being copied fromoriental dances; and a pretence to read the Common Prayer, which the dresses were a great relief fromthe conventional they would not do before because of their former costume, with its hideous contour, being long, almost preaching against it. After dinner to Westminster, reaching to the feet, and soft and flowing in outline, where I went to my Lord's, and having spake with with veils which were used with great effectivenessin him I went to the Abbey&where the first time that the dance. These dresses, and indeed those of all ever I heard the organs in a cathedral." the principal characters, were closely copied from The explanation of the last sentence is too obvious. Mr. Tenniel's illustrations to " Lalla Rookh." The ordinance passed by the Lords and Commons After the second and third acts, at the first per- on May 9, 1644, "for the further demolishing of formance, the composer and the chief singers were monuments of idolatry and superstition," contains a called repeatedly before the curtain; and at the special paragraph to the effect"that all organs and second performance, on the iith ult., the ultimate the frames and cases wherein they stand, in all success of the work was assured, the enthusiasm churches and chapels aforesaid, shall be taken away with which it was received being, if possible, still and utterlydefaced, and none others hereafter set up greater than that of the firstnight. in their places"; and Mr. Hopkins, who reprints the It is surely a matter for regret that a work of such ordinance in his exhaustive article on the "Organ " importance as this should have been first performed in Grove's " Dictionary," adds a description of how, in a foreigncountry, and that, with all our national "at Westminster Abbey, the soldiers brake down the taste for music, we should be unable as yet to point organs and pawned the pipes at several alehouses for to an institution where operas of a high class by pots of ale." native composers can be produced. It is to be hoped Immediately afterthe Restoration a new organ was however that, before long, our countrymenmay have erected in the Abbey, being, like that in the Chapel an opportunityof witnessing a performance of " The Royal-also mentioned by Pepys (July 8, i66o)-the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan " sung in the language work of Father Smith. It was a small instrument, to which it was originally composed. having cost only i12o, and stood on " the north side of the choir." These and other details may be found in that mine of valuable information,"The Organ; MR. THE PEPYS MUSICIAN its History and Construction," by Mr. Hopkins and BY FRANCIS HUEFFER. Dr. Rimbault. The followingfacts relating to the (Continuedfronmpage 68.) instrument on which Purcell played, and which Mr. III. Pepys heard, are found in the same work. According Music, as we have seen, was with Mr. Pepys a, to one account it was removed from the Abbey in matter of sentiment, a passion, but a passion not 1730, when the present organ by Schreider and Jor- wholly irrational, not altogether in the clouds, but dan was built. It was given or sold to the parish of founded on a sound basis of fact. To facts, as con- St. Margaret's, Westminster, and the remains of it, nected with the music of his time, this thirdPepysian lying for many years in the tower, were disposed of article shall be devoted; opinions must be left till a by the churchwardens about fortyor fiftyyears ago. later occasion. Not that these latter are, in this Another account states that it was removed to Vaux- particular instance, of no value, or even of less value hall Gardens, and was the instrumentin the orchestra than the bare record of things existing. On the con- of the Royal Gardens when they ceased to exist. trary, Mr. Pepys was a man of great taste and a It seems strange that Mr. Pepys, who was born in judicious critic, if ever there was one. There are 1632 and passed his early youth in or near London, critics who have acquired a world-wide reputation should, as he states in the passage last referredto, by being always wrong, by abusing genius before the not " rememberto have heard the organs and singing- world had acknowledged it, and by mistaking for men in surplices in my life." The explanation is giants the pigmies who manage to strutand frettheir probably that the boy was a staunch roundhead,

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although the man conformed to the more congenial and two children,whereof one a very prettylittle boy, tenets of the loyal Church. Mr. Pepys's early repub- like him, so fat and so black. Here I saw the organ, lican tendencies troubled him a good deal in later but it is too big for my house and the fashion do years, and there is an amusing account in the Diary not please me enough; and therefore I will not of how he meets a Mr. Christmas, an old schoolfellow, have it." and is much afraid "that he would have remembered Readers may care to know that the " fat and black" the words that I said the day the King was beheaded boy so unceremoniously introduced grew up to be (that were I to preach upon him my text should be an Irish judge, and a baronet of Queen Anne's ' The memory of the wicked shall rot '), but I found creation. afterwards that he did go away from school before We next come to a short excursion on scientific that time." ground, which, although it does not refer to the After a passing reference to a " pair of Virginalls " art of music, may be interesting to the pupils of saved in a boat fromthe Great Fire ofLondon, we pass Helmholtz and others, as a landmark in the history to the description of a fearful and wonderful instru- of acoustics. Mr. Pepys, it may be added, although ment which, with its congeners, the learned men afore- a man of science and later on the President of the said must identify. " Thence to the musique meeting Royal Society, was too reasonable a man to believe at the Post-office where I was once before. And in the monstrous idea propounded by some people thither anon came all the Gresham College, and a nowadays, that composers as composers would be great deal of noble company, and a new instrument benefited by a knowledge of acoustics, or of what is was brought called the Arched Viall, where being absurdly called the science of music. In a passage, tuned with lute strings and played on with keys like which will be quoted by-and-by,he classes music with an organ, a piece of parchmentis always kept moving; " the other parts of mathematical knowledge," but and the strings which by the keys are pressed down this has reference to a more systematic and, there- upon it are grated in imitation of a bow by the parch- fore, more scientific method of teaching musical ment; and so it is intended to resemble several vyalls theory, which he justly advocates against the bar- played on with one bow, but so basely and harshly barous jargon of his contemporaries. As for acous- that it will never do. But after three hours stay tical science, he regarded it as being on the same foot- it could not be fixed in tune, and so they were ing with other branches of knowledge in which he took fain to go on with some other musique of instru- an interest, not as a musician or musical amateur, ments." but merely as a man of wide culture and catholic in- There seems to be a curious fate reigning over the telligence. In explanation of the following passage, instrumentswhich have the word " arch " prefixedto it should be stated that the Mr. Hooke referredto is their name. They have no vitality, and somehow or Robert Hooke, a great scientific authority of the other come to grief. Even the famous archlute, which period, who frequently turns up in the Diary as a was still a living thing in the time of Handel, has lecturer on the Comet of 1664, and on feltmaking, now disappeared from the concert-room and joined and as the author of a book "of the Micro- Mr. Pepys's " Arched Viall" in the limbo of things scope, which is so pretty that I presently be- forgotten. Whether the latter twanged again on any spoke it, and away home." This is Mr. Hooke's subsequent occasion, and with less unharmonious theory of vibrations, as connected with musical results, the Diary does not say. Mr. Pepys's verdict, sounds: that it would never do, at any rate, has been fully "August 8th, 1666. Discoursed with Mr. Hooke, confirmed by the event, as his predictions usually whom I met in the streete, about the nature of were, being, indeed, always founded on calm judg- sounds, and he did make me understand the nature of ment and close observation. For the latter he had, musicall sounds made by strings mighty prettily; with regard to this particular subject, a good oppor- and told me that having come to a certain number of tunity in his own collection of musical instruments, vibrations proper to make any tone, he is able to tell the remnants of which are still in existence. It was how many strokes a flymakes with his wings (those not without good reason that, as early as August 21, flies that hum in their flying)by the note it answers 1663, when his prosperous days had scarcely yet to during their flying. That, I suppose, is a little too begun, he could write: "This evening I paid Mr. much refined; but his discourse in general was Hunt ?3 for my viall, and he tells me that I may, mighty fine." without flattery,say, I have as good a Theorbo viall Speaking of acoustics, it will be well to mention and viallin is as in England." one of the most curious passages in the Diary, four How, years later, Mr. Pepys was on the point curious in so far as it illustrates in the most striking of adding an organ to his collection, and how reasons manner the saying of Tacitus, " Rebus humanis inest of space and prudence prevented him fromdoing so, quidam circulus." Here, at a very primitive period the following extract may tell: "At my bookseller's, of dramatic music in England, we find foreshadowed and did buy ' L'illustre Bassa ':: in four volumes for the idea carried out at the Wagner Theatre at Bay- wife. Dr. my Meeting Gibbons,} he and I to see an reuth, the idea of the invisible orchestra. The organ at the Dean of Westminster's lodgings at the Theatre Royal, at which this idea was first tried, the of Abbey, Bishop Rochester's; where he lives like was one of the predecessors of "Old Drury," being a great prelate, his lodgings being very good; though situated near Drury Lane, although not yet called at present under great disgrace at Court, being put by the name of its local habitation. by his Clerk of the Closet's place. I saw his lady, of " May 8th, 1663. Thence to my brother's, and whom the Terrae Filius ( at Oxfordwas once so merry; there took up my wife and Ashwell to the Theatre Royal, being the second day of its being opened, * The house is made with extraordinary good con- " Ibrahim, ou l'illustre Bassa." It was the first of that almost trivance, and yet hath some faults, as the narrow- interminable series of "Twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt," published by Magdaleine de Scud~ri. It was printed in ness of the passages in and out of the pitt, and the 1641.-M. B. distance from the stage to the boxes, which I am t Christopher Gibbons, the second son of the great Orlando. Born in I615; appointed organist of Westminster Abbey, I66o; Doctor of confidentcannot hear; but for all other things it is Music, Oxon., 1664; died 1676. He is buried in the cloisters of the well, only, above all, the musique being below and Abbey. a most of it sounding under the very stage, there is no A scholar appointed to make satirical and jesting speech at an Act in the University of Oxford. The custom was discontinued about hearing of the basses at all, nor very well of the the beginning of the last century.-M. B. trebles, which sure must be mended."

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Mr. Pepys's censure, it should be remembered, THE GREAT COMPOSERS, SKETCHED BY applies to a time when "1musique," both orchestral and choral, was executed on a small scale; had he THEMSELVES. the bands of modern known gigantic days perhaps BY JOSEPH BENNETT. he would have judged differently. No.X.-BERLIOZ. To conclude, we must hear a little of one of Mr. Pepys's favourite hobbies, the reform of musical THIS composer has sketched himselfwith a fulness theory, which in those days of scholastic nomen- of detail and a frankness of statement which leave us clature, with a very vague meaning at the back of in no doubt whatever as to the sort of man he was. it, was, indeed, urgently needed. The new scheme, A more striking and remarkable individuality never including, as we have seen, a remodelled system figured in the domain of music, and the task of re- of notation, was as eagerly sought by Mr. Pepys as producing in outline the master's portrait, as drawn if it had been the philosopher's stone. More than and filled in by his own hand, cannot fail of interest once the secret seems within his reach. "All the to the doer, or, however badly accomplished, to those evening," he writes, 20th of March, i668-after a on whose behalf it is attempted. day's hard work at the Office" to enable us to set Over the childhood of Berlioz we may pass lightly. out 27 ships "-" pricking down some things and The son of the village doctor of C6te Saint Andre tryingsome conclusions upon my viall, in order to appears to have been something out of the common the inventing of a better theory of musick than hath from infancy. Highly sensitive to beauty in any yet been abroad; and I think verily I shall do it." form,music began to make a deep impression upon Whether he ever " did it," and what was the result, him when he was admitted to his firstcommunion, is more than the present writer professes to know. by special favour,in the chapel of a convent, where Some light on the general bearings of Mr. Pepys's singing maidens clothed in white surrounded him. theory is thrown by a passage in one of his letters, He believed that, like Stephen, he saw the heavens written many years after the close of his Diary, and opened, and became so pious that he went to Mass not long before the close of his life. But his love of every day, and to confession as frequentlyas possible. music never left Mr. Pepys, and well might he have "Father," he would say to his spiritual director, " promised to be faithfulto Polyhymnia " till death do us "I have done nothing; and the priest would answer, " he too part." The letter is dated Clapham, November 5, 1700, My son, so continue." Berlioz adds that and is addressed to Dr. Charlett of Oxford,and refers often followed the advice. Of course, this sensitive to a scheme of teaching the " Mathematical Sciences " nature fell in love-at twelve years-and, naturally, propounded by another learned man, Dr. Gregory, with a damsel much older than himself. Estelle and submitted to Mr. Pepys by the first-nameddivine. Gautier was the name of the honoured maiden. She Music, it appears, had no place in Dr. Gregory's was eighteen, grandly beautiful, and disposed to ridi- scheme, and after a few introductory remarks, Mr. cule her little lover. This made the heart of the a Pepys begins accordingly:-- boy desolate. " I hid myself," he tells us, "like " To which, what I would now recommend to your wounded bird, mute and suffering." But Estelle on giving the same regard to, with the particulars went her way, married, bore children, put therein named, is first Music-a science peculiarly flesh, and when Berlioz again met her she did not affairs of productive of a pleasure that no state of life, public know him. So does a real world settle the or private, secular or sacred, no differenceof age or the ideal. Denied the happiness of reciprocated season, no temper of mind or condition of health, love, the boy sought the consolation of such music exempt from present anguish, nor, lastly, distinction as, after a lesson or two in fingeringfrom his father, he of quality, renders either improper, untimely, or un- he could get out of a flageolet. From the flageolet a book entertaining. Witness the universal gusto we see it rose to the flute,then studied harmony from followed with, wherever to be found, by all whose by Alembert,and wrote two quintets, which he burnt. leisure and purse can bear it; while the same might, His compositions at this period must have been were to much better effect,both for variety and delight to melancholy things. " Nearly all my melodies themselves and friends, be ever to be had within in the minor mode. I was conscious of the fault, their own walls, and of their own composures too, as but could not avoid it. A black veil covered my well as others-were the doctrine of it brought within thoughts." Meanwhile his father would not allow the the simplicity,perspicuity, and certainty,common to him to study the pianoforte. He intended boy all other parts of mathematical knowledge, and of for his own profession,and feared that the instrument charac- which I take this to be equally capable with any of would be too seductive. On this Berlioz them, in lieu of that fruitlessjargon of obsolete terms, teristically says:- " and other unnecessary perplexities and obscurities, When I consider the frightfulquantity of plati- wherewith it has been ever hitherto delivered, and tudes which it (the pianoforte) facilitates day after most from which, as I know of nothing eminent, or even day, and that their authors could not, for the tolerable, left us by the ancients, so neither have I part, write at all if, deprived of their musical kaleido- am met with one modern master (foreign or domestic) scope, they had nothing but pen and paper, I me to owning the least obligation to it, for any of their now bound to thank the chance which obliged from the nobler compositions; but, on the contrary,charging compose silently and freely, shielded me to all (and justly too) upon the happiness of their own tyranny of finger habits, so dangerous thought, genius only, joined with the drudgeryof a long and and fromthe seductive influence which the sonority unassisted practice." of commonplace always exerts upon the composer." The passage is well worth serious contemplation. In 18zz22,he being then nineteen years old, Berlioz It is interesting also from a literary point, showing went to Paris as a medical student, but, despite as it does the differentstyle of Mr. Pepys's learned parental injunctions, he gave himself up more and correspondence from that of the Diary. Instead of more to the charms of music, and eventually offered felicitous, albeit unconscious, grace of expression, we himself to Lesueur as a pupil, on the strengthof a have here long and involved sentences, and a train cantata for voices and grand orchestra which he of thought not always easy to follow. But through had written. The old man looked at the work and all shines a true and earnest love of the art. said: "There is a good deal of fire and dramatic (To be continued.) energy there, but you don't know how to write, and your harmony contains so many faults that it is use-

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