In the Wallace Collection there is a picture by N. Lancret (1690–1743) of a celebrated dancer, Mme. Camargo, who is accompanied by a small orchestra of two recorders, a bassoon and one or more viols; these are partly hidden at the back of the scene, while a boy with pipe and tabor [100b] stands close to the dancer, giving the impression that she depends on him rather than on the more formal musicians in the background. It may remind us of the Duke of Plaza Toro, who sings a song accompanied and supported by his own particular private drum as well as by the orchestra. The same quasi independence of the tabor and pipe is still to be found in the folk music of the Catalans, the inhabitants of the north-east of Spain. The dance
which Mr. Casals—himself a Catalan—described to me, is a round dance of some complexity. It is held in high esteem as a national affair, and is danced by gentle and simple together. The band consists of a tabor and pipe, four large rustic oboes, some cornets and a double-bass. The interesting point is that the taborer always leads off with a solo, a spirited flourish which Mr. Casals was so good as to play on the piano. It is curious that there is only one such traditional flourish, and this is used whatever the dance-music may be. Mr. Casals described the effect of the whole band as moving and exciting in a high degree.
I have an old newspaper cutting of the Queen Victoria and Prince Albert watching the British sailor dance a hornpipe on the deck of a man-of-war, accompanied by a couple of marines with a drum and fife. Shakespeare evidently considered these two instruments as the military equivalent of the tabor and pipe. He makes Benedick laugh at Claudio, in love, for throwing over the drum and fife for the taborer’s music.
In the middle ages the tabor and pipe were a good deal associated with the performances of strollers and mountebanks. On the other hand, they did not always take this role. There is a beautiful carved figure playing the pipe and tabor in the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral, dating from 1270. In Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes (Ed. 2, Plate XXIV), a horse is shown, dancing to a tabor and pipe, from a MS. of about 1300; on Plate XXIII is a drawing of a taboring hare (without a pipe) of about the end of the 13th century. I am not
aware that these instruments are known to have existed in England earlier than the 13th century.
Fra Angelico puts these instruments into the hands of an angelic lady. Her tabor is beautifully given, the pipe is but slightly indicated. In Florence, among the singing boys of Luca della Robbia (reproduced in fig. 5), is to be found the best representation of a pipe player that I have seen. There is a comparatively modern picture of Will Kemp, [102a] the Shakespearian actor, performing his dance to Norwich. He started, apparently in 1599, on the “first Monday in cleane Lent,” and succeeded in his object, though not without difficulty. His attendants’ names are pleasant: Taborer, Tom Slye, Servant, Wm. Bee, Overseer, Geo. Sprat.
I am glad to say that a tabor and pipe appear in one very honourable secular affair, [102b] namely, a tournament, more correctly a joust or single combat. One of the combatants is supported by a bagpipe, the other by a tabor and pipe. It must be confessed, however, that the taborer was not well treated in mediaeval times, badly paid, and not received with the honour given to minstrels.
I like the rustic character of the pipe, and its association with cheerful mediaeval vagabonds, and, still more, its memories of centuries of village dances. I wish it had found a place in that “dancing in the chequered shade,” in which Milton
has immortalised the jocund rebecks. But Milton was a player of the bass viol, and does not show any especial feeling for wind instruments, so at least I gather from Welch’s interesting book. [103a]