DOI Heft:
October 24, 1868
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16882#0183
October 24, 1868.]
ODD MEN OUT.
THE MAN WITH A VOICE.—SECOND SPECIES OF THE
GENUS.
The Second. Species is divided thus : 1. The Big Man with a Small
Voice ; 2. The Small Man with a Big Voice. Both are musical; the
former being, generally, a man with considerable knowledge of the art,
and a studious cultivator of the twopenn’orth of talent in his possession.
The latter also knows music, superficially, and trusts to his strong
voice to pull him through all difficulties. We will look at Number
Two first, being the noisier, and then return to the Big Man with his
pretty little voice, who will be found a pleasant companion in a drawing-
room entertainment, or “ An Excellent Substitute ” (as the advertise-
ments say) for Mario in the evening.
Silford—Billy Silford—is my Little Man with a Big Voice.
Silford’s is a most convenient voice. You begin with it down-
stairs—so to speak—in the cellar, as basso, almost profondo (an attempt
at proforulo being sufficiently uncomfortable to make his friends advise
him not to try it too much) ; then he mounts to the ground-floor
appearing here as a baritone; then another flight takes him into the
first-floor as a tenor, with his voice in his nose; the next step being
a jump up into the attics, where his eyes and ears help him, both
moving up with his voice, which seems to have forced itself violently
through his palate, and out at the top of his head.
Silford, therefore, is a very useful fellow in choirs and places where
they sing, and where followeth the anthem, and nothing delights him
more than being asked to take his place as a chorister in his own parish
church, or to join in a madrigal, quartette, or any other sort of tette
in a private party, or at an amateur concert. Silford will sing about
the house, up-stairs and down-stairs, and in anybody’s chamber, as
much as our friend Tupton, and as loudly; only Silford will be
musical. He sings snatches of tunes correctly, generally preferring
himself in well-known bass songs of a nautical or roving character;
or if he has any concert on hand, you will hear nothing from him
but his “part,” some turn in which he generally “can’t get” till the
very day of the concert itself, when he secures the passage correctly at
the morning rehearsal, practises it all day, and finally loses it at night.
“ Come down,” says lie to me, “ for a week; we’ve got a festival on.
We call it the Festival of the Three Choirs, because we’ve got a very
decent lot out of the two parish churches a few miles from us, and our
own. It’s a great thing to encourage a musical taste,” says he, “ and
I think you’ll like it.”
I accept, and ask if he takes a part.
“Take a part? Of course—several.” Then he adds, “Do you
know the bass part in the old glee ‘ The Little Birds Warble?' ”
I do not, unfortunately.
“ Ah, then,” says he, taking the opportunity for practising, “ this
is how it goes.”
From his specimen I want to know why this sort of music was ever
called a “ Glee ? ” Good heavens ! if Silford (who is singing away
from a thick volume of very ancient-looking music, while I am regard-
ing him thoughtfully) is correct, it is melancholy enough to hear one
perform this sort of thing, without troubling the fifteen voices for
whom it is arranged. Can I find some excuse for deferring my visit ?
I think, but I only say, smiling with apparently awakened interest,
“That sounds rather”—he probably thinks I am gomg to say
! “ pretty,” but I don’t, and I won’t.
| “ Yes,” says Silford, stopping in the middle of a sort of a wander-
! ing bravura of several pages on the one word “little.” “There are six
bassi with me.”
“ All singing the same ? ” I ask.
“ Yes,” he answers, “all the same,” and off he goes again. “When
tlie Li-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e (working upwards) e-e-e-e-e (down again) e-e-e-e
(round and round hi a circle of live notes I should say, until I wonder
the singer doesn’t become giddy) e-e-e, &c., &c., much the same over
again, until he perches on “ it-tle,” which concludes the variations on
the word Little.
“ Now,” says Silford, apologcticallv, “I can’t always get the next
. bit Auitc right.”
As, at ah events, he begins by getting the next little bit all wrong,
i I tell him pleasantly, that I will leave him to practise it alone, and
I t hen he gives me a programme of the amusements, which I see includes
the performance of several pieces without bass parts, also some old
ballads, great favourites of mine, and so I accept his invitation.
A Bay with the Little Han with a Big Voice.
He has been very quiet the night before, owing to a slight cold,
which depressed him so much that he retired early, and sat in
boiling water, drank hot drinks, and slept under a weight of extra
blankets and coverlets. All he could do was to play his bass parts on
the piano, as he was afraid of forgetting ’em.
Before bidding him “ Good Night,” he warns me that he takes his
morning bath early, and always sings in it; so that if I do hear a noise,
I mustn’t be alarmed.
177
But I am alarmed : for such a row by one voice, in a musical way,
as his makes in his bail), I never heard.
He takes cold water all through the year—as cold as he can get it.
“Strengthens your throat, my boy,” says lie, knowingly : “capital
thing for the voice. So’s going on a hill, and singing against a fresh
breeze—that’s a first-rate thing; or out in the open air, anywhere, is an
excellent practice.” And, accordingly, there isn’t a part of the garden
where you can be free from him, whenever he’s got a “bass part to
get up for next Thursday week.”
" lam asleep at 7 a.m., and have no ideas on any subject in particu-
lar, least of all of getting up before half-past eight. I am awoke by
what first appear to me to be shouts of some person in distress. Now,
when you are attired for your night’s repose, and are disturbed while
taking that repose, a man with any regard for propriety should think
twice, at all events, before dashing out on any Quixotic errand. To
put on a dressing-gown in answer to a cry of anguish, may shake your
resolution, and, if no other sound reaches you, the difficulty of finding
your slippers (which never are in their proper place) will probably
determine you to go to bed again. j
I am half awake. Another shout of horror, of terror, of -- Good
heavens ! is it Silford’s voice ? In broad daylight, too ! What has
happened? Another, louder and fiercer, from the room below, “Ha !
I defy you! Come not near me! HA!” I leap from the bed. I
must fly to his rescue, when, just as I am putting my wrapper round
me, I hear, evidently jovial and laughing, “ Ha ! ha ! ha !—ha ! ha ! ha t
Ne pmids plus Pair patelin: On connatt tes farces, Jupin ! ” Which I
recognise as the laughing chorus in AI. Offenbach’s “ Orphee au.r
Enfers.” “ Ha ! ha ! ha ! ” goes his voice again, and then a shriek :
but with that shriek a splash, and after that follow briskly several
splashes and dashes, and dowses of water, through which come out in
sudden bursts, “ Oh, meet me in the Lane when the clock strikes,”
“ Sound an Alarm ! Sound an a-la-arm ! ” “ With a hey ! ho ! chivy !
hark for’ard ! Hark (gasp) for’ard (gasp) tan (gasp) tivy ! ” “ God
save our noble Queen ! ” like a hand-organ under a cataract. All is
explained. Silford is in his bath, and I am “ not to be alarmed.”
I return to bed again, and listen. It is a fearful performance this ot
Silford’s, alternating between the terrible, the agonising, the
glorious, and the utterly ridiculous.
Thus :—dash of the sponge full of cold water : shriek : “ Ah ! ” then
in operatic recitative, while recovering from the shock, “ Villain !
approach me not, for I will-” Dowse of sponge full again, which
produces a wildly frightened voice, as if he was being beaten, “ Spare
me ! Spare me ! ” to the second part of “ Robert toi que j'aime.” Then
(he never in this situation gives more than a fragment) another furious
spongeful, followed by—victoriously, as if he’d conquered the tyrant
who was sponging him—“ Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves !
For Brit-ons (dowse) never (splash) never (evidently a fearful struggle^
with the imaginary person who is sponging him) Ne-ver”—then, as if
he had escaped entirely/and was free as air, comes joyously a popular
tune, “Up in a balloon! Up in a balloon!” rum ti turn ti ad lib.y
with a slight pause before the recommencement of hostilities. Then,
“ I would I were a bird--” Another dowse from the sponge brings-
out the developed idea suggested by the last song, in “We fly bv
night—we (sponge and gasp) fly (sponge and gasp) by (the same)
night.” Then comes a sound as of a longer process of sponging—
perhaps he is standing up—which is accompanied by “A life on the
ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep.” This is given defiantly to-
the sponge. He is now out of it, as I can distinctly hear him scrubbing,
rubbing, and blowing over his hard brushes, gloves, and towels.
“Nothing like rubbings for the voice,” he explains to me afterwards.
During this, being jubilant, he never indulges in anything less than a
chorus, which on this occasion is all the bass part of the “ Hallelujah,”
which he has to sing next Sunday “in another place,” as Members of
Parliament say.
Then he comes up-stairs, ready for breakfast, and “ hopes he hasn’t
disturbed me.”
To be Pasted up Along the Line.
He is a Snob, and not a gentleman,
Who smokes upon the Me-tro-po-li-tan :
Yes, M’m, regard him as some arrant Snob,
Sent by his master to perform a job.
And meanly doing, while annoying you,
That which at home he would not dare to do.
Pity so low a Cad, nor wish him licked :
Perhaps to-day already he’s been kicked.
Humbugs.
The Middlesex Magistrates, 44 to 30, again resolve that Catholic
Criminals in gaol shall not have paid Catholic priests to see them. We-
argue not witli bigots. But. when those Magistrates talk about their j
“consciences”—and then license Music Halls—we own to that sen- j
sation which, on board a steamboat, dictates a hasty call to the
steward.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Vol. 55.
6—2
ODD MEN OUT.
THE MAN WITH A VOICE.—SECOND SPECIES OF THE
GENUS.
The Second. Species is divided thus : 1. The Big Man with a Small
Voice ; 2. The Small Man with a Big Voice. Both are musical; the
former being, generally, a man with considerable knowledge of the art,
and a studious cultivator of the twopenn’orth of talent in his possession.
The latter also knows music, superficially, and trusts to his strong
voice to pull him through all difficulties. We will look at Number
Two first, being the noisier, and then return to the Big Man with his
pretty little voice, who will be found a pleasant companion in a drawing-
room entertainment, or “ An Excellent Substitute ” (as the advertise-
ments say) for Mario in the evening.
Silford—Billy Silford—is my Little Man with a Big Voice.
Silford’s is a most convenient voice. You begin with it down-
stairs—so to speak—in the cellar, as basso, almost profondo (an attempt
at proforulo being sufficiently uncomfortable to make his friends advise
him not to try it too much) ; then he mounts to the ground-floor
appearing here as a baritone; then another flight takes him into the
first-floor as a tenor, with his voice in his nose; the next step being
a jump up into the attics, where his eyes and ears help him, both
moving up with his voice, which seems to have forced itself violently
through his palate, and out at the top of his head.
Silford, therefore, is a very useful fellow in choirs and places where
they sing, and where followeth the anthem, and nothing delights him
more than being asked to take his place as a chorister in his own parish
church, or to join in a madrigal, quartette, or any other sort of tette
in a private party, or at an amateur concert. Silford will sing about
the house, up-stairs and down-stairs, and in anybody’s chamber, as
much as our friend Tupton, and as loudly; only Silford will be
musical. He sings snatches of tunes correctly, generally preferring
himself in well-known bass songs of a nautical or roving character;
or if he has any concert on hand, you will hear nothing from him
but his “part,” some turn in which he generally “can’t get” till the
very day of the concert itself, when he secures the passage correctly at
the morning rehearsal, practises it all day, and finally loses it at night.
“ Come down,” says lie to me, “ for a week; we’ve got a festival on.
We call it the Festival of the Three Choirs, because we’ve got a very
decent lot out of the two parish churches a few miles from us, and our
own. It’s a great thing to encourage a musical taste,” says he, “ and
I think you’ll like it.”
I accept, and ask if he takes a part.
“Take a part? Of course—several.” Then he adds, “Do you
know the bass part in the old glee ‘ The Little Birds Warble?' ”
I do not, unfortunately.
“ Ah, then,” says he, taking the opportunity for practising, “ this
is how it goes.”
From his specimen I want to know why this sort of music was ever
called a “ Glee ? ” Good heavens ! if Silford (who is singing away
from a thick volume of very ancient-looking music, while I am regard-
ing him thoughtfully) is correct, it is melancholy enough to hear one
perform this sort of thing, without troubling the fifteen voices for
whom it is arranged. Can I find some excuse for deferring my visit ?
I think, but I only say, smiling with apparently awakened interest,
“That sounds rather”—he probably thinks I am gomg to say
! “ pretty,” but I don’t, and I won’t.
| “ Yes,” says Silford, stopping in the middle of a sort of a wander-
! ing bravura of several pages on the one word “little.” “There are six
bassi with me.”
“ All singing the same ? ” I ask.
“ Yes,” he answers, “all the same,” and off he goes again. “When
tlie Li-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e (working upwards) e-e-e-e-e (down again) e-e-e-e
(round and round hi a circle of live notes I should say, until I wonder
the singer doesn’t become giddy) e-e-e, &c., &c., much the same over
again, until he perches on “ it-tle,” which concludes the variations on
the word Little.
“ Now,” says Silford, apologcticallv, “I can’t always get the next
. bit Auitc right.”
As, at ah events, he begins by getting the next little bit all wrong,
i I tell him pleasantly, that I will leave him to practise it alone, and
I t hen he gives me a programme of the amusements, which I see includes
the performance of several pieces without bass parts, also some old
ballads, great favourites of mine, and so I accept his invitation.
A Bay with the Little Han with a Big Voice.
He has been very quiet the night before, owing to a slight cold,
which depressed him so much that he retired early, and sat in
boiling water, drank hot drinks, and slept under a weight of extra
blankets and coverlets. All he could do was to play his bass parts on
the piano, as he was afraid of forgetting ’em.
Before bidding him “ Good Night,” he warns me that he takes his
morning bath early, and always sings in it; so that if I do hear a noise,
I mustn’t be alarmed.
177
But I am alarmed : for such a row by one voice, in a musical way,
as his makes in his bail), I never heard.
He takes cold water all through the year—as cold as he can get it.
“Strengthens your throat, my boy,” says lie, knowingly : “capital
thing for the voice. So’s going on a hill, and singing against a fresh
breeze—that’s a first-rate thing; or out in the open air, anywhere, is an
excellent practice.” And, accordingly, there isn’t a part of the garden
where you can be free from him, whenever he’s got a “bass part to
get up for next Thursday week.”
" lam asleep at 7 a.m., and have no ideas on any subject in particu-
lar, least of all of getting up before half-past eight. I am awoke by
what first appear to me to be shouts of some person in distress. Now,
when you are attired for your night’s repose, and are disturbed while
taking that repose, a man with any regard for propriety should think
twice, at all events, before dashing out on any Quixotic errand. To
put on a dressing-gown in answer to a cry of anguish, may shake your
resolution, and, if no other sound reaches you, the difficulty of finding
your slippers (which never are in their proper place) will probably
determine you to go to bed again. j
I am half awake. Another shout of horror, of terror, of -- Good
heavens ! is it Silford’s voice ? In broad daylight, too ! What has
happened? Another, louder and fiercer, from the room below, “Ha !
I defy you! Come not near me! HA!” I leap from the bed. I
must fly to his rescue, when, just as I am putting my wrapper round
me, I hear, evidently jovial and laughing, “ Ha ! ha ! ha !—ha ! ha ! ha t
Ne pmids plus Pair patelin: On connatt tes farces, Jupin ! ” Which I
recognise as the laughing chorus in AI. Offenbach’s “ Orphee au.r
Enfers.” “ Ha ! ha ! ha ! ” goes his voice again, and then a shriek :
but with that shriek a splash, and after that follow briskly several
splashes and dashes, and dowses of water, through which come out in
sudden bursts, “ Oh, meet me in the Lane when the clock strikes,”
“ Sound an Alarm ! Sound an a-la-arm ! ” “ With a hey ! ho ! chivy !
hark for’ard ! Hark (gasp) for’ard (gasp) tan (gasp) tivy ! ” “ God
save our noble Queen ! ” like a hand-organ under a cataract. All is
explained. Silford is in his bath, and I am “ not to be alarmed.”
I return to bed again, and listen. It is a fearful performance this ot
Silford’s, alternating between the terrible, the agonising, the
glorious, and the utterly ridiculous.
Thus :—dash of the sponge full of cold water : shriek : “ Ah ! ” then
in operatic recitative, while recovering from the shock, “ Villain !
approach me not, for I will-” Dowse of sponge full again, which
produces a wildly frightened voice, as if he was being beaten, “ Spare
me ! Spare me ! ” to the second part of “ Robert toi que j'aime.” Then
(he never in this situation gives more than a fragment) another furious
spongeful, followed by—victoriously, as if he’d conquered the tyrant
who was sponging him—“ Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves !
For Brit-ons (dowse) never (splash) never (evidently a fearful struggle^
with the imaginary person who is sponging him) Ne-ver”—then, as if
he had escaped entirely/and was free as air, comes joyously a popular
tune, “Up in a balloon! Up in a balloon!” rum ti turn ti ad lib.y
with a slight pause before the recommencement of hostilities. Then,
“ I would I were a bird--” Another dowse from the sponge brings-
out the developed idea suggested by the last song, in “We fly bv
night—we (sponge and gasp) fly (sponge and gasp) by (the same)
night.” Then comes a sound as of a longer process of sponging—
perhaps he is standing up—which is accompanied by “A life on the
ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep.” This is given defiantly to-
the sponge. He is now out of it, as I can distinctly hear him scrubbing,
rubbing, and blowing over his hard brushes, gloves, and towels.
“Nothing like rubbings for the voice,” he explains to me afterwards.
During this, being jubilant, he never indulges in anything less than a
chorus, which on this occasion is all the bass part of the “ Hallelujah,”
which he has to sing next Sunday “in another place,” as Members of
Parliament say.
Then he comes up-stairs, ready for breakfast, and “ hopes he hasn’t
disturbed me.”
To be Pasted up Along the Line.
He is a Snob, and not a gentleman,
Who smokes upon the Me-tro-po-li-tan :
Yes, M’m, regard him as some arrant Snob,
Sent by his master to perform a job.
And meanly doing, while annoying you,
That which at home he would not dare to do.
Pity so low a Cad, nor wish him licked :
Perhaps to-day already he’s been kicked.
Humbugs.
The Middlesex Magistrates, 44 to 30, again resolve that Catholic
Criminals in gaol shall not have paid Catholic priests to see them. We-
argue not witli bigots. But. when those Magistrates talk about their j
“consciences”—and then license Music Halls—we own to that sen- j
sation which, on board a steamboat, dictates a hasty call to the
steward.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Vol. 55.
6—2