 | THE SONG. Georgia scenes |  |
THE SONG.
It is not to avoid the malediction of Shakspeare, upon
such “as have not music in themselves—and are not
charmed with the concord of sweet sounds,” that I profess
to be fond of music; but because I am, in truth,
extravagantly fond of it. But I am not fond of French
music; and as for the Italian, I think that any one who
will dare to inflict it upon an American ear, ought to be
sent to the Penitentiary, without a trial. It is true that
some of the simple, national French airs, are very fine;
but there is not one in one thousand Italian tunes, simple
or compound, which is not manslaughter. The German
compositions are decidedly the best from the continent of
Europe; but even these are, of late, partaking so much
of the vices of France and Italy, that they have become
scarcely sufferable. As yet, however, they may be
safely admitted into a land of liberty and sense. Scotland
has escaped the corruptions which have crept into
the empire of music, and consequently her music recommends
itself, with irresistible charms, to every ear which
is not vitiated by the senseless rattle of the continent.
Ireland is a little more contaminated; but still her compositions
retain enough of their primitive simplicity and
sweetness, to entitle them to the patronage of all who
would cultivate a correct taste in this interesting department
of the fine arts. I would not be understood as
speaking here without any limitations or restrictions;
but I do maintain, that with some few exceptions, all of
the soul of music, which is now left in the world, is to
be found in Scotland or Ireland.
But Germans, Frenchmen and Italians, are decidedly
the best,—that is, the most expert performers in the
world. They perform all over the world, and in order
to exhibit themselves to the best advantage, they select
the most difficult and complicated pieces. The people
at large, presume that the best performers must be the
best judges of music, and must make the best selections;
they therefore forego the trouble of forming an opinion
of their own, and pin their faith upon the decisions—or
rather the practice, of the amateurs. It was somehow
in this way, I presume, that the fashionable music of the
day, first obtained currency. Having become prevalent,
it has become tolerable; just as has the use of tobacco
or ardent spirits. And while upon this head, I
would earnestly recommend to the friends of reform in
our favored country, to establish an “Anti-mad-music
Society,” in order to suppress, if possible, the cruelties of
our modern musical entertainments.
If the instrumental music of France and Italy be bad,
their vocal music is, if possible, a thousand times worse.
Neither the English, nor the Georgia language, furnishes
me with a term expressive of the horrors of a French
or Italian song, as it is agonized forth by one of their
professed singers. The law should make it justifiable
homicide in any man, to kill an Italian in the very act of
inflicting an il penseroso upon a refined American ear.
And yet with all the other European abominations
which have crept into our highly favoured country, the
French and Italian style of singing and playing, has
made its way hither; and it is not uncommon to hear
our boarding-school Misses piping away, not merely in
the style, but in the very language of these nations.—
This I can bear very well, if there happen to be a
Frenchman or Italian present, because I know that he
suffers more from the words, than I do from the music;
of the savage malignity, which visits the sins of a nation
upon any of its citizens. But it most frequently happens
that I am put to the tortures of which I have been speaking,
without this mitigation. It was thus with me a few
evenings ago, at Mrs. B—'s party.
Tea had been disposed of, and the nonsensical chit-chat
of such occasions had begun to flag, when I invited
Miss Mary Williams to the piano. She rose promptly
at my request, without any affected airs, and with no
other apology, than that “she felt some diffidence at
playing in the presence of Miss Crump.” The piano
was an admirable one; and its tones were exquisitely
fine. Mary seated herself at it, and after a short, but
beautiful prelude, she commenced one of Burns' plaintive
songs, to a tune which was new to me, but which
was obviously from the poet's own land, and by one who
felt the inspiration of his verse. The composer and the
poet were both honored by the performer. Mary's voice
was inimitably fine. Her enunciation was clear and
distinct, with just emphasis enough to give the verse its
appropriate expression, without interrupting the melody
of the music; and her modulations were perfect.
She had closed, and was in the act of rising, before I
awoke from the delightful reverie into which she had
lulled me. I arrested her, however, and insisted upon
her proceeding; when she gave me one of Allan Ramsey's
best, to measure equally appropriate. This she
followed with Tannahill's “Gloomy Winter's now awa,”
and was again retiring, when my friend Hall observed—
“See Miss Mary, you've brought a tear to Mr. Baldwin's
eye, and you must not cease until you chase it away
with some lively air.” My friend was right—The
touching pathos of Mary's voice, conspiring with a train
of reflections, which the song inspired, had really brought
was the victim of a Book-seller's stupidity. With men
of taste and letters, his fugitive pieces, particularly his
lyrics, had gained him a well-deserved reputation; but
he was not exempt from the common lot of authors. He
was attacked by the ignorant and the invidious; and
with the hopeless design of silencing these, he prepared
a volume or more of his poems, with great care, and
sent them to a Book-seller for publication. After the
lapse of several weeks, they were returned without a
compliment, or an offer for them. The mortification and
disappointment were too severe for his reason. It deserted
him, and soon after, he was found dead in a tunnel
of the burn, which had been the scene of one of his
earliest songs. Unfortunately, in his madness, he destroyed
his favorite works.
Such was the train of reflection, from which Mary
was kind enough, at the request of my friend, to relieve
me, by a lively Irish air. Had it not been admirably
selected, I could hardly have borne the transition. But
there was enough of softening melody, mingled with
the sprightliness of the air, to lead me gently to a gayer
mood;—in which she left me.
In the meantime, most of the young ladies and gentlemen
had formed a circle round Miss Aurelia Emma
Theodosia Augusta Crump, and were earnestly engaged
in pressing her to play. One young lady even went so
far as to drop on her knees before her, and in this posture
to beseech “her dear Augusta, just to play the delightful
overture of—,” something that sounded to me like
“Blaze in the frets.” This petition was urged
with such a melting sweetness of voice, such a
bewitching leer at the gentlemen, and such a
theatric heave of the bosom, that it threw the young gentlemen
into transports. Hall was rude enough to whisper
an unmantled bosom to a perpendicular view of a large
company;” and he muttered something about “republican
simplicity,” I knew not exactly what. But I assured
him, the fair petitioner was so overcome by her
solicitude for the overture, that she thought of nothing
else, and was wholly unconscious that there was a gentleman
in the room. As to his insinuation about “points
of view,” I convinced him by an easy argument that it
was wholly unfounded; for that this was the very point
of view in which an exposed neck must always be seen,
while men continue taller than women; and that, as the
young lady must have been apprised of this, she would
hardly take so much trouble for nothing. But to return.
Miss Crump was inexorable—She declared that she
was entirely out of practice. “She scarcely ever touched
the piano”—“Mamma was always scolding her for
giving so much of her time to French and Italian, and
neglecting her music and painting; but she told mamma
the other day, that it really was so irksome to her to quit
Racine and Dante, and go to thrumming upon the piano,
that but for the obligations of filial obedience, she did not
think she should ever touch it again.”
Here Mrs. Crump was kind enough by the merest
accident in the world, to interpose, and to relieve the
company from further anxiety.
“Augusta, my dear,” said she, “go and play a tune or
two; the company will excuse your hoarseness.”
Miss Crump rose immediately, at her mother's bidding,
and moved to the piano, accompanied by a large
group of smiling faces.
“Poor child,” said Mrs. Crump as she went forward,
“she is frightened to death. I wish Augusta could
overcome her diffidence.”
Miss Crump was educated at Philadelphia; she had
pupil of Ma'm'selle Crokifroggietta, who had sung with
Madam Catalani; and she had taken lessons on the
piano, from Seignor Buzzifussi, who had played with
Paganini.
She seated herself at the piano, rocked to the right,
then to the left—leaned forward, then backward, and
began. She placed her right hand about midway the keys,
and her left about two octaves below it. She now put
off the right in a brisk canter up the treble notes, and
the left after it. The left then led the way back, and the
right pursued it in like manner. The right turned, and
repeated its first movement; but the left outran it this
time, hopt over it, and flung it entirely off the track.
It came in again, however, behind the left on its return,
and passed it in the same style. They now became
highly incensed at each other, and met furiously on the
middle ground. Here a most awful conflict ensued, for
about the space of ten seconds, when the right whipped
off all of a sudden, as I thought, fairly vanquished.
But I was in the error against which Jack Randolph
cautions us—“It had only fallen back to a stronger position.”
It mounted upon two black keys, and commenced
the note of a rattle-snake. This had a wonderful
effect upon the left, and placed the doctrine of “snake
charming” beyond dispute. The left rushed furiously
towards it repeatedly, but seemed invariably panic-struck,
when it came within six keys of it; and as invariably
retired with a tremendous roaring down the bass
keys. It continued its assaults, sometimes by the way
of the naturals, sometimes by the way of the sharps, and
sometimes by a zigzag, through both; but all its attempts
to dislodge the right from its strong hold, proving ineffectual,
it came close up to its adversary, and expired.
Any one, or rather no one, can imagine what kind of
noises the Piano gave forth, during the conflict. Certain
it is, no one can describe them, and therefore I shall not
attempt it.
The battle ended—Miss Augusta moved as though
she would have arisen, but this was protested against by
a number of voices at once: “One song, my dear Aurelia,”
said Miss Small; “you must sing that sweet little
French air you used to sing in Philadelphia, and which
Madam Piggisqueaki was so fond of.”
Miss Augusta looked pitifully at her mama; and her
mama looked “sing” at Miss Augusta: accordingly
she squared herself for a song.
She brought her hands to the campus this time in fine
style, and they seemed now to be perfectly reconciled to
each other. They commenced a kind of colloquy; the
right whispering treble very softly, and the left responding
bass very loudly. The conference had been kept
up until I began to desire a change of the subject, when
my ear caught, indistinctly, some very curious sounds,
which appeared to proceed from the lips of Miss Augusta
—they seemed to be compounded of a dry cough, a
grunt, a hiccup and a whisper; and they were introduced,
it appeared to me, as interpreters between the right
and left. Things progressed in this way for about the
space of fifteen seconds, when I happened to direct my
attention to Mr. Jenkins, from Philadelphia. His eyes
were closed, his head rolled gracefully from side to side;
a beam of heavenly complacency rested upon his countenance;
and his whole man gave irresistible demonstration
that Miss Crump's music made him feel good all
over. I had just turned from the contemplation of Mr.
Jenkins' transports, to see whether I could extract from
the performance any thing intelligible, when Miss Crump
made a fly-catching grab at a half dozen keys in a row,
crow, at the conclusion of which she grabbed as many
keys with the left. This came over Jenkins like a warm
bath; and over me, like a rake of bamboo briers.
My nerves had not recovered from this shock, before
Miss Augusta repeated the movement, and accompanied
it with the squall of a pinched cat. This threw me into
an ague fit, but from respect to the performer, I maintained
my position. She now made a third grasp with the
right, boxed the faces of six keys in a row with the left,
and at the same time raised one of the most unearthly
howls that ever issued from the throat of a human
being. This seemed the signal for universal uproar
and destruction. She now threw away all reserve, and
charged the piano with her whole force.—She boxed it,
she clawed it, she raked it, she scraped it. Her neck-vein
swelled, her chin flew up, her face flushed, her eye
glared, her bosom heaved—She screamed, she howled,
she yelled, cackled, and was in the act of dwelling upon
the note of a screech owl, when I took the St. Vitus'
dance, and rushed out of the room. “Good Lord,”
said a by-stander, “if this be her singing, what must
her crying be!” As I reached the door, I heard a voice
exclaim, “By heavens! she's the most enchanting performer
I ever heard in my life!” I turned to see who
was the author of this ill-timed compliment; and who
should it be but Nick Truck, from Lincoln, who seven
years before, was dancing “Possum up the Gum Tree,”
in the chimney corner of his father's kitchen. Nick
had entered the counting-room of a merchant in Charleston
some five or six years before; had been sent out as
supercargo of a vessel to Bordeaux, and while the vessel
was delivering one cargo, and taking in another, had
contracted a wonderful relish for French music.
As for myself, I went home in convulsions, took sixty
drops of laudanum, and fell asleep. I dreamt that I
was in a beautiful city, the streets of which intersected
each other at right angles-That the birds of the air, and
the beasts of the forest had gathered there for battle;
the former, led on by a Frenchman, the latter by an
Italian-That I was looking on their movements towards
each other, when I heard the cry of “Hecate is coming!”
I turned my eye to the north east, and saw a female
flying through the air towards the city, and distinctly
recognized in her, the features of Miss Crump. I took
the alarm, and was making my escape, when she gave
command for the beasts and birds to fall on me.—They
did so, and with all the noises of the animal world, were
in the act of tearing me to pieces, when I was waked by
the stepping of Hall, my room-mate into bed.
“Oh, my dear sir,” exclaimed I, “you have waked
me from a horrible dream. What o'clock is it?”
“Ten minutes after twelve,” said he.
“And where have you been to this late hour?”
“I have just returned from the party.”
“And what kept you so late?”
“Why, I disliked to retire while Miss Crump was
playing.”
“In mercy's name!” said I, “is she playing yet?”
“Yes,” said he, “I had to leave her playing at last.”
“And where was Jenkins?”
“He was there, still in ecstasies, and urging her to
play on.”
“And where was Truck?”
“He was asleep.”
“And what was she playing?”
“An Italian—.”
Here I swooned, and heard no more.
BALDWIN.
| THE SONG. Georgia scenes | |