For the credit of English Amateurs, it is to be hoped that so elaborate a display of incompetence—so complete a fiasco—as is presented in the foregoing sketch, has very rarely its parallel among ourselves.
Apropos of quartetts, it is related that His Most Catholic Majesty, Charles the Fourth, King of Spain, piqued himself not a little on his abilities as a violin-performer. Summer and winter, did this royal and reiterating practitioner perform, every morning, at six precisely, his quatuor, with three other violins; himself, of course, the violin par excellence: and, with the trifling drawbacks of missing his notes, and breaking his time (as if to mark his royal independence), he may indeed be said to have approved himself a king among fiddlers.
Another quartett-player of the class which Flattery herself can scarcely help frowning at, was the late Sir William Hamilton, whose acquirements in other ways must have contrasted oddly enough with his feebleness as a fiddler. “Sir William Hamilton, who was now at an advanced age,” says Ferrari, in his gossipping book, “was a kind and good-humoured man; but he used to bore us with his performance on the viola, especially in Giardini’s quartetts, which I verily believe derived their greatest value in his eyes from the circumstance of Giardini’s having been his master.”—Doubtless, with all his amiable qualities, Sir William had something of the obstinacy which belongs so closely to evil-doers on stringed instruments; doubtless there was no deterring him from “the uneven tenor of his way.”
The about-to-be subjoined sestett of condemnatory lines is not intended to apply to Sir William Hamilton (who had, at least, the merit of fostering Giardini), but, generally, to him who, having no sort of summons from Apollo, no musical vocation whatsoever from Nature, has persisted, nevertheless, to the end of his days, in being what is called a tormentor of catgut. A person of this peculiar turn of mistake, may be said to fright the fiddle from its propriety—for surely, in his hands, it wholly loses its temper and character. Making his fiddle-bow the stalking-horse of his vanity, he walks over the strings in an adagio, or curvets in an andante, with action that has nothing of the graceful, and much of the ludicrous. Such a being is in the extreme of the wrong. He hunts after a shadow: like Ixion, he embraces a cloud. His pursuit is frivolous, because it is without a chance of attaining its object. Unable to play in time, he is perpetually out of season: unable to stop in tune, he is ever in a false position. He wears out his existence in an unconscious dream; and his harsh discords and unpleasing sharps are as the snoring thereof. He dies in a delusion; his ricketty crotchets and uneasy quavers are exchanged for one long rest; and here is the amount of his value, in six lines—
ON AN AGED MUSICAL TRIFLER. The silly dilettante, who A thankless violin doth woo, Till old he looks as Saturn, Can (to denote just what he is) No name receive so fit as this— A spoon, of fiddle-pattern.
By way of disporting a little further on this theme, I have spun a few lines in which the reference is to that incongruous identity so often found within the circle of private life—a good man, and bad fiddler:—
Ralph Rasper is an honest man, Prone to do all the good he can; He never lets the piteous poor Go meatless from his open door: He loves his wife—he pays his bills— And with content his household fills. He seeks, in short, the rule of right, And keeps his conscience pretty white: But save, oh, save us from his fiddling! It is so very—very middling!
Enough, however, of the indicative kind, as concerning the sins and follies of the Amateur species. Are they unpardonable? Nay—they claim indulgence through the very cause which produces them. It is the inspiring motive—the instrumental love, or love of the instrument—which redeems, in some sort, the errors to which it gives birth. We must not be too severe on the zeal which is indiscreet, lest we discountenance good faith, and nip affection in the bud. Shall we excommunicate our brother, for that he is too fond of fiddling? Nay, rather, let us reserve our censure for him who hath no fiddling in his soul. Cease we, then, to dwell on deficiencies—let us “leave off discourse of disability,”—except so far as may be necessary towards administering any little further wholesome advice, with a friendly view to practical improvement. In the past observations, let me not be thought to have had no better purpose than that of playing the cynic for my own indulgence. Myself an Amateur, and one of by no means large calibre, I should indeed be doing what were equally graceless and witless, did I seek the damage of the class to which I belong—that is, to which I have belonged, in practice, and still belong, by inclination and sympathy. My object is reform—the reform of acknowledged errors and proved abuses—but, while advocating the principles of that reform to the utmost extent that is compatible with reason and propriety, I will never consent to abandon my “order.”
Allusion has been made, at the commencement of this chapter, to the very large amount of time which the Professor must devote to his art, as one of the absolute conditions of eminence. The ends of the Amateur may, of course, be answered with a smaller expenditure of his moments. If he possess the requisite predisposition for the instrument, two hours a day will suffice him. This must be regarded as the minimum—and with this, according to Spohr (a very high authority), he may make such progress as to afford himself and others great enjoyment of music, in quartett-playing, in accompanying the pianoforte, or in the orchestra.
The principal error against which Amateurs have to guard themselves, is that species of ambition which impels them to imitate the showy and more external quality of professional playing, called execution[64]. It is natural enough that what is most obvious should make the greatest impression at first, and should most readily attract imitation; but it is, on the other hand, certain, that this same superficial principle addresses itself rather to the senses than to the imagination, and that the pleasure which it affords is trivial and evanescent. If execution do not come recommended by the superior associations of accurate tune, fine tone, and characteristic expression, it is unworthy of a welcome, and can only impose on the most shallow-minded auditor. In that poor and bald state, it is like the verbiage in a silly oral discourse, or the language of un-respective parrots. If it come, moreover, unaccompanied by the common regulator, time, it is still more absurd and insignificant, and may be likened to a fit of the insanely capricious activity called St. Vitus’s dance. Nothing, in fact, can make amends for the grievous sin of